Conservatives and Republicans will now begin fighting with each other and blaming each other. They will criticize Mitt Romney and the Romney campaign. And, indeed, adjustments need to be made going forward, especially in reaching out to Hispanics, who are churchgoing, socially conservative, and, I believe, natural conservatives. I love Paul Ryan, but I said all along that it was Marco Rubio who might have sealed the deal for Mitt Romney. I now believe that even more so. Hispanics voted for Obama in 2012 in even higher numbers than 2008.
But amid the second-guessing and bickering, conservatives and Republicans need to realize that timing is everything in politics. Consider: If this election would have been held one week ago, Mitt Romney would be president this morning — and we would all be hailing his and his party’s brilliance.
I must say that I stand in stunned, dumbfounded amazement at the Democratic turnout generated by Team Obama. Dick Morris is going to be beat up for his projections of a Romney landslide. He wasn’t alone. Michael Barone, George Will, and Newt Gingrich gave similar projections. None of their projections were unwarranted. I agreed with them and said so here on Tuesday morning. I even predicted Pennsylvania would go Romney. All of this was contrary to my steady predictions of an Obama reelection over the last four years. I changed my position on that only in recent weeks.
Ultimately, the decisive factor for Obama was Democratic turnout, which, in the end, was not oversampled by pollsters. David Axelrod, you, sir, are a miracle worker.