Thank God for Unanswered Prayers: If Romney Had Beaten Obama in 2012
The election we thought was the end of the world was the one that gave us a fighting chance.
I remember the summer of 2011 very well. It was the summer I came home from a year of duty in Afghanistan, when I made Captain, and also when I packed up my truck and moved west to Arizona for my next training assignment. From 23, when I commissioned, to nearly 27, I had become much more educated in the world of politics.
Seeing Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney on stage one debate after another became a familiar sight. I was surprised at how poorly Perry performed overall, impressed by how well Santorum fared, and amused by Gingrich’s constant ripping on Romney as a “Massachusetts moderate.” Then there were my classmates who insisted that the “moderate” candidate was what we needed to knock out Obama.
I eventually graduated from the Captain’s Career Course and moved on to Alaska, where almost every peer in my unit felt Obama’s time was numbered in only a few short months. We had “unskewed polls” assuring us that everything would be alright, and then:
THE 2012 ELECTION - 13 YEARS LATER
Romney managed to shift 43 states to the right of their 2008 margins, but flipped just Indiana (!) and North Carolina. Party registration was extremely predictive then, just as it is now, but the Trump-or-bust demographic was still four years away. Romney’s disastrous loss to the vulnerable Obama crushed me and sent me into a personal tailspin that seemed to last for weeks; this wasn’t because I loved Romney, but because I dreaded four more years of Obama, especially with no more elections to worry about.
There are four key takeaways of the 2012 election as Americans find themselves in the second quarter of the 21st century:
I. The Political Realignment
Republicans gotta come back to the middle, man! All those independents are turned off by the rhetoric.
Forget the “big three” of the Midwest. Look at Iowa, Ohio, and even Florida. All shaded in a sick blue for 53 electoral votes. Here is how they all voted in 2024:
Iowa, Trump +13.2%
Florida, Trump +13.1%
Ohio, Trump +11.2%
The taking of these three states, which are now winnable statewide for all Republicans, puts Democrats on defense in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Instead of starting at the 50 yard line, Democrats now begin in the shadow of their own goalpost trying to make any progress whatsoever in the Electoral College.
If the GOP doesn’t revert back to kinder, gentler Romneyism, the traction of all battleground states will remain in their favor for the foreseeable future. Romney’s only path to victory was to add Florida (29), Colorado (9), Ohio (18), and either Iowa (6) and New Hampshire (4) together, or Virginia (13) alone, which seems impossible with how Colorado and Virginia vote today. Had he managed to pull this inside straight, Republicans would have never turned their attention to states that were ready to change stripes, leading to long-term failure of the party.
II. Division Brought Trump and MAGA - Not the Other Way Around
