Letters to the Editor: The decline of democracy isn’t a both-sides problem
Monday
Jul 31, 2013 at 8:08 PM
I’m sorry to hear about former Gov. Mitt Romney’s defeat in the recent election. I feel sorry for Mr. Romney, and I think he was a great speaker and a fine ambassador of his state of Michigan. I’m not surprised that his campaign lost. But I was not surprised that the Romney campaign had no chance to win in November 2012. Mr. Romney was so completely out of touch with the majority of Americans, and so out of touch with the majority of his own party, that he made a bad campaign. I think the same mistake we did in the 1992 election, when George H. W. Bush won the presidency despite winning a plurality of the votes cast, and then lost by more than a point. The problem with the Romney campaign was that they were fighting a battle with the entire Republican party, and that the core of the party would not have supported him if he had been an intellectual rather than an emotional candidate. Mr. Romney made a bad campaign because he has no sense of the larger realities. Mr. Romney gave the impression that there were not a lot of young voters in the state (which, since Michigan was the state last to vote for John Kerry, is not true; in fact, there were more young voters than in a poll conducted in September 2012, when it appeared the Romney campaign was losing, and more than in the November 2012 election), and that they were not for him, despite his campaign promising to be a champion of them. The Romney campaign also failed to understand and respect the will of the American people, just as we failed to respect their will in 2000. I think the American people will continue to vote for the candidates who respect the will of the people. Mr. Romney was the candidate with the best chance of winning in November 2012, but it was a very long shot, and like the campaign in 1992, it was the wrong campaign to have waged.
MAYBE YOU’RE RIGHT
I’m sorry to hear about former Gov. Mitt Romney’s defeat in the recent election. I feel sorry for Mr. Romney, and I think he was a great speaker and a fine ambassador of his state of Michigan. I’m not surprised that his campaign lost. But I
