The only question at this point is whether Billary will be the next President, or crazy Uncle Joe.

The repubs will run another center left, milquetoast candidate.

Sounds like the GOP is too fragmented to win the presidency. The groups at each ´fringe´ are just too big. Nominate a center-right Mormon and the right-right stay at home. Nominate Sarah Palin and most everyone else stays at home.

Only in cases where the Dem opponent comes across as clinically insane (Algore) or a slimy fraud (Kerry) will an earnest-appearing GOP candidate (W) scrape out a win.

At least we should continue to hold the House - for the foreseeable future. Government by stalemate - not necessary a bad thing when most ideas being put forward do not seem to capture the support of the majority of voters.

Yeah, they had better technology; i.e. flipping and shedding comes to mind.

Ryan said "it puts him [Romney] in a unique position to be a leader of our party, to weigh in on big issues."

It will be interesting to see how severely conservative Mitt Romney is now that he´s no longer running for office.

Obama and many other Democrats won their elections through fraud, plain and simple. Blatant, gleeful fraud.

But the GOP signed away the right to make that accusation back in the 80´s. The party should disband and let something else take it´s place.

It just seemed like Romney lost steam in that second debate and thought he could coast to the finish. He could have been on FOX promoting his message at least nice a week if he had been smart. He surely must have known he wouldn´t get a fair shake with the LSM. He also could have done a lot of local talk radio. It was up to him to inspire the voters.

It´s ´´We the people...´´, not ´´We the candidates...´´ The responsibility lies with the people. So with the looming specter of four more years of Obamination, millions of those on the Right chose to sit on their hands and stay at home because they were turned off, unexcited or uninspired by Romney. Defacto votes for Obama. It´s on them.

I didn´t see anyone turned off and staying home. I saw more yard signs (Romney) than ever and saw friends at political rallies who had never been. I live in Ryan´s district, so we were deluged with political calls to an unappealing extent. The GOP has to work on voter ID laws and getting their message out without the MSM. Use social media. And use the conservative media. And attack!

It wasn´t poor communication.

It was a poor candidate. How can anyone not know that zippy and his team are going to paint romney as a rich, evil, republican.

How can a campaign slaughter the competition in its own party, only to pansy out as soon as it gets to the general election?

Sorry, that´s not a communication problem. Maybe the Romney campaign should have thought about those silly unintended consequences.

#9, you´re not credible in dissing Romney without naming what alternative Republican candidate you think would have garnered more votes. Personally, I don´t think any of the primary candidates could have done better.

It would be interesting to see if Romney starts speaking up now that he has nothing to gain. I doubt it. Its over and I don´t know what Ryan is even talking about. Nobody knows if another candidate could have whooped Obama and I am not God in knowing if Romney would have gotten much done if elected or not. We know he is a good man, and I am glad I voted for him. Perhaps good to leave it at that.

Paul you lost because The Establishment picked you, not the voters. The nastiness of the primaries was damage done by The Establishment. The Establishment ran a Liberal for president. They ran a communist. A lot of people stayed home.

Do you get it Paul ??? The BASE don´t want no Liberals !!!

Christie 2016 - The Establishment´s Hat Trick !!!

I read somewhere that the GOP candidate the Dems feared the most was Herman Cain.

Get your big boy pants on and stop whining.

Conservative policies are the only thing that will turn this mess around. As for conservatives staying home, I don´t believe that was the case. They were terribly motivated to vote for Romney because they knew what Obama´s agenda would mean for this country. The media wants the Republican Party at each other´s throats and that is why they pushed the idea that conservatives stayed home. Who do you think were attending those huge rallies? The establishment?? No, it was the people who supported the Tea Party. Nevertheless, if we let the progressives define who we are, we are lost. They want to paint conservatives as "extremists" in order to marginalize us. Conservative principles are not extreme. They are real common sense solutions to the problems we face. The conservative message is what made the Tea Party so effective and motivated the non-political to get involved. If the establishment can´t understand this then we will be wandering in the wilderness for decades. The biggest mistake that Romney made was not embracing the Tea Party movement and using it as a base to build upon.

Yes, voter turnout: dead voters, ineligible voters, illegal alien voters, double voters...

Dear Paul Ryan. Not the reason, it is simple... get 96% of Whites to vote for you like Obama got 96% of the Blacks to vote for him, and you are a shoo in. Of course they will call you racist. That only goes one way.

The media controls communication. Other than Fox, communicatin is Democrat propaganda. As I hve said before, none of the minority speakers at the Republican convention were shown by the networks which used their time to show talking heads who killed time until the minority speaker had finished. A golden opportunity was lost, but whose fault was it? How could Romney prevent it?

Communication is a two way street. There must be a speaker and a listener.

Ryan is right about the campaign´s poor get out the vote strategy. I received a lot of calls urging me to vote. Since they should have known I am a faithful contgributor they should never have wasted their time phoning me. My vote was a given.

I just can´t wrap my head around the fact that millions of conservative voters stayed home rather than vote for Romney. Didn´t happen.

The Republican party just can´t get it together. Our local office is in the back room of a florist. Don´t even think about getting any yard signs until a couple of days before the election. They divvy them out like they were made from gold.

In 2008 and again in 2012 I volunteered to drive voters to the polling places. Heard nothing back. This was after seeing in 2008 the dhims were carting voters to the polling places in broken down buses, but they were getting there.

It´s not the conservatives´ fault.

Republicans refuse to concern themselves with the dead voters. Yet, the democrats see them as a loyal and reliable voter block, especially in the large urban areas where democrats have controlled local government for decades.

2012 was a year of lost opportunity for the Republicans. Romney is a good man, I donated,voted, and prayed for his election. His campaign just wasn´t run well. My area is rock solid Republican, we couldn´t get yard signs. I donated well, never even got a bumper sticker. I still can´t figure out why he didn´t appear on O´Reily or call into Rush, but most of all, why didn´t he give a shout out to the Tea Party. I am still unhappy that Sarah Pailin wasn´t a speaker at the convention. I sure did like Rand Paul yesterday, he isn´t afraid to say what he thinks.

Mitt ran on his CEO experience and they are saying it was mismanagement of the campaign that cost them?

How about he let Obama define him and he refused to go after Obama hard.

#16 is spot on. The Democrats are dishonest and ruthless. Their entire campaign was a fraud. The biggest problem for Romney/Ryan was their squeeky cleaness. When dealing with Democrats we have to be down and dirty and not bring a knife to a gun fight.(no pun intended considering their efforts to eventually take our guns away).

1. The liberal Republican party in NY did nothing to promote the Romney-Paul ticket. They spent nary a penny on yard signs or anything else to show visible support. Many of us who were sickened by the poorly run McCain campaign (along with having to hold our noses to vote for him) still showed up to vote for another hold-your-nose candidate. Not because Romney isn´t a swell guy - but come one, when you hold the floor during a debate and you decline to give a true conservative position for fear of appearing mean, well - that doesn´t inspire confidence. If your base holds it´s nose to vote for you, you are going to lose everyone else.

2. Face it, the GOP does not know how to communicate. They try to pander and come off looking out of touch. I don´t know how much Romney was controlled by his handlers but they certainly did him no favors.

3, When you board an airplane you are reminded that, in case of emergency, put on your own oxygen mask before trying to help another. Republicans need to remind voters that unless we take care of our economy and quit squandering on extravagant entitlements, there will be nothing left for the truly needy and helpless. Yes, our concern IS for the TRULY needy and helpless. Everyone here can think of other effective messages and slogans - we saw plenty of them during the campaign. Ryan is correct about this. And yes, Romney was the easiest of all the primary candidates for the Dems to stereotype. So the RNC and his should have doubled down on the message - explaining why Conservatism is the best solution for those in need.

Pfft on the GOP.
Ramona (the Pest)

I for one am not a big fan of Obama but I will give him one thing. He never stopped being a "community organizer".

While those may be dirty words to us there is something to be leanred from this past election. The GOP has 30 state GOVS.

How is it that we did not have a better ground game?

Yeah, forget about those two morons Akin and Mourdock, and their painfully dumb statements having any negative effect, especially with the RNC deciding to support both of them after their ridiuculously stupid statements.

Hmmmm . . . with yesterday´s performance with Hillary, and the magnificent butt kissing, as an example, they wonder why the Republicans stayed home? It is not about poor communication, sir. It is about stand your ground and quit pandering, go along to get along! We are so screwed.

#2,

If that´s the case, I hope the 2016 contest is between a likeable GOP nominee and a haggard woman apt to fly off the handle at any moment (Hilla the Hun) or a drunk with apparent brain damage (Ol´ Uncle Joe).

Romney is a Democrat that I would be honored to support. My wife and I voted and contributed to him only because he is far than Hugo Obama.

However, Romney´s insistence that RomneyCare was a sound decision rather than a well-intentioned mistake, no different than ObamaCare, surely cost him conservative support. The same for his prior delusions about man caused climate change. Finally, Mitt kept W. far from his campaign while Obama blamed all of his failures on the "failed Bush policies". Why didn´t W. join Mitt to defend a mostly successful presidency in contrast to Obama´s? An impeached president helped Obama more than Obama helped himself.

I understand that Romney was shocked by the loss. That tells me that his internal polling and other polls he believed were wrong. So he thought he was a couple points ahead and even gaining, and decided to play it safe in the second and third debates. He did not want to offend women and independents with a strong performance and jeopardize his surprising gains (per polls) with these voters. Exactly the wrong move since, he was actually behind. He needed those strong debate performances and an aggressive national TV strategy.
In the end, compared to 2008, 9 million less voted for Obama and 2 million less for Romney than McCain. So somebody was staying home. Had Romney improved McCain´s popular vote total by one percent (500,000 votes), he would have beaten Obama in the popular vote, for starters.

Mr. Ryan, Oh DUH...but your forgot the Union Stooges that "CREATED" votes for Bam-Bam by the boatloads in swing states...remember the districts with ZERO votes for your side? Oh DUH!!!!!!!!!

What #10 and #16 said. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan didn´t lose. This country and future generations are the real losers. And all the finger-pointing about which candidate would have, could have, or should have won is useless and does nothing but give aid and comfort to the enemy-demonrats. No wonder obama and the rest of them are having so much fun at our expense. How enjoyable it must be for them to watch the continuous circular-firing-squad going on in the GOP, day after day. At least demonrats stick together no matter what.

I understand #10´s point, but the alternative to Mitt didn´t have to be another candidate. It could have been a better Romney. Mitt was the front-runner. Whatever misgivings we had about his conservatism, most of us conceded that he was nice guy who could run an effective campaign. Instead, we got the worst of both worlds: a Romney Campaign that was ugly and divisive during the primary and inept against Obama in the general. Posters above are right: Team Romney thought they had it in the bag during the final month and played it safe and completely wrong. Anyone remember Mitt Romney truffle hunting in Pennsylvania during the crucial final weeks? That kind of stupidity takes practice, and we need make sure none of the practitioners ever gets near our nomination again.

I can only dream how things may have turned out if Romney had confronted Candy Crowley when she flew to Obama´s rescue about the Benghazi debacle. "No, Ms Crowley, YOU are wrong. Barack Obama vacillated and blew smoke to cover the inept handling of this disgusting cowardly response to Americans in distress." No one ever confronts the liars and apologists in the press and I think they would have been stunned. He could have then scolded her by suggesting that if she couln´t control her bias maybe they needed to find someone who could. Didn´t anybody notice the ovation Gingrich got when he slapped the press?

More than a few posters in this thread blame voter fraud, pure and simple. Electronic voting machines changing Romney votes to Obama votes, "early and often" voting, dead people voting, Dems openly admitting to voting multiple times.

Republican governors have some time yet to clean up their States´ voter registration rolls and to require photo ID for all voters. Elimination of voter fraud would have won the election for Romney.