TEA Party Ignorance, Stupidity and Extremism Cost GOP the 2012 Presidential Election

Since the recession started in 2007, intensified in 2009 and remained the key issue for most voters through the 2012 Presidential election, one would think that conservatives would follow the Carville maxim in R2 above, and make the economy the focus of their attacks on the incumbent. It worked in 1980 and 1992.Crying WolfInstead, starting as early as 2008, conservatives have wasted political capital and credibility on attacking Barack Hussein Obama in a bizarre game of crying wolf: “palling around with terrorists” [3.1] black liberation theology, anti-colonial revolutionism and hatred of whites [3.2] socialism and communism [3.3] being born in Kenya and being Muslim [3.4] The list goes on, but you get my point. The most basic lesson that many children learn from Aesop’s fables seems to be lost on the adults of the far right--which is that after awhile people stop believing you, even if you’re suddenly telling the truth.To cap off the Crying Wolf section of my argument, I’ll ask readers what fantastically successful business person comes to mind (other than Romney himself) when one thinks of conservative critics of President Obama? And what topic did Mr. Trump use his business credentials to hammer on: taxes, regulation, trade imbalances? No, of course not. A google search for “Obama Trump” comes up with 43 million hits. I challenge you to find a dozen that don’t mention the “birther controversy.”[3.5]“The Economy Stupid”The right wing has a valid argument to make over the economy and government spending and regulation. [3.6] Unfortunately for them, it’s not a simple argument. Many of the best economists are Keynesian, and if you’re going to challenge the established wisdom you’d better make a good case. You’ll need to do better than trot out tired sayings from past presidents and people like “Joe the Plumber”--who isn’t a plumber, and his name isn’t Joe.Conservatives needed to have a constant lineup of successful business people, both large and small talking about how taxes were really hurting them and their ability to expand their business. They needed economists from Ivy League level schools making their case in a way that made sense.Instead we heard “socialist” or “communist” so much that the words became meaningless. To move on to the other extreme positions that hurt the presidential ticket, we saw Paul Ryan, for Pete’s sake, having to back off of the absolutist Republican Platform position on abortion. [3.7] The environment Denying global warming and attacking the EPA (established by Nixon in 1970, by the way) did not help the Romney/Ryan ticket to keep the focus on the poor economy. [3.8] Foreign policy When an incumbent president is seen as relatively strong and moderate on war and foreign policy it does not help the challenger to win over mainstream independents by claiming to be more hawkish and belligerent. [3.9] It is my contention that any of these out of the mainstream positions on their own could have accounted for one or two percentage points in key swing states. Taken together they helped a weakened incumbent hold onto his seat.I look forward to Pro’s rebuttal.[3.1]http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com...[3.2]http://preview.tinyurl.com...[3.3] http://commieblaster.com... [3.4] http://urbanlegends.about.com...[3.5]http://preview.tinyurl.com...[3.6]http://tinyurl.com...[3.7]http://tinyurl.com...http://www.gallup.com...[3.8]http://www.mercurynews.com...[3.9]http://www.bloomberg.com...