Shifting demographics. Low turnout. ORCA croaking. Moderate Mitt. Sandy/Christie/Obama celebrity three-way. Voter fraud. Many thoughtful minds have offered analysis as to why, after suffering through four years of Obama's militant collectivism and prolific statism (AKA class warfare and social justice), a "center-right" nation would vote for the radical leftist again. But let's face it, Republicans lost the "center" because the Republicans didn't really have the center. The media-entertainment-education-Democrat axis control the mainstream narrative, which means the 30-40% who are in the center (between conservative and liberal identification) generally will believe whatever Bill Maher, CNN or Politico says. One might think that an election would be a prime time to talk over the media and directly to the people; however, Republicans made a short-term, strategic decision last December which may have not only cost them the presidential battle, but also squandered opportunities to cause long-term damage to the Progressives and their anti-American agenda.

Rachel Rose Hartman, of Yahoo! News reported on Tuesday, December 6, 2011:

Republicans on a private Republican National Committee conference call with allies warned Tuesday that party surrogates should refrain from personal attacks against President Barack Obama, because such a strategy is too hazardous for the GOP.

"We're hesitant to jump on board with heavy attacks" personally against President Obama, Nicholas Thompson, the vice president of polling firm the Tarrance Group, said on the call. "There's a lot of people who feel sorry for him."

Recent polling data indicates that while the president suffers from significantly low job approval ratings, voters still give "high approval" to Obama personally, Thompson said.

Voters "don't think he's an evil man who's out to change the United States" for the worse -- even though many of the same survey respondents agree that his policies have harmed the country, Thompson said. The upshot, Thompson stressed, is that Republicans should "exercise some caution" when talking about the president personally.

The Republicans had no strategy to identify Obama as the poster child of Progressivism to the center and therefore couldn't combat Obama's likeability or the Progressive agenda. The Romney/Rove Republicans decided that character didn't matter, since the center's opinion was already made up about Obama. Did it ever occur to them Obama was so well-liked because people knew so little about him and his plans for the country? Did it ever occur to them to spend some portion of that billion-dollar campaign chest in changing people's opinion of Obama to negative instead of focusing on an economy everyone was experiencing? No -- the Republicans who decry the Democrats for not identifying the enemy when it comes to Islamist terrorism refused to identify the president correctly and even helped along the charade of Obama being a true-blue American who inherited a mess.

I had written "The Anti-American President" here at American Thinker last September to dissuade conservatives of the notion Obama was having an accidental presidency -- with a failure rate chalked up to incompetence, inexperience, stupidity, and hubris. The truth is much more sinister. Obama's upbringing; his family, friends, mentors, associates; his words, actions, policies; his entire biography, all point to someone who is actively and aggressively opposed to individualism, capitalism, and liberty as a core philosophy. The Republicans should have plotted a long-term strategy beyond this election and attacked not only Obama but also Progressivism, practical or otherwise, at its roots.

But Republicans dropped the ball. Republicans had no sure thing this election cycle and should have played for the long-term. Whether they won or lost Battle 2012, Republicans should have been playing to win the war.
By not identifying Obama as a Marxist in thought, the case could never be made that redistributive theft is not only his means but the Progressive end. By not identifying Obama as a Keynesian in finance, it couldn't be shown Progressives are dedicated to spending the next generation's money as a matter of course -- results and debts be damned. By not identifying Obama as an Alinskyite in politics, they couldn't argue that ridicule, resentment and class warfare were not mere tactics, but Progressives' strategic worldview. By not identifying Obama as a Cloward and Piven acolyte in sociology, it couldn't be demonstrated Obama's expansive doles and trillion dollar deficits are not meant to help the downtrodden but rather swell the dependency class and the nanny state to unsustainable levels.

Republicans never identified Obama as a liar as Joe Wilson might have or a communist as Allen West might have or as an incestuous lover with a corrupt media as Newt Gingrich might have.

By not identifying Obama as a collectivist and a statist, no motive could be given to the center showing that his destructive agenda flows from his Progressive values and his anti-American character. Once Obama was painted as the well-meaning incompetent, Republicans could never portray him as the saboteur.
And the Republicans always stuck to the script.

As Romney was basically called a murderer (by cancer no less) in a pro-Obama SuperPAC ad -- the Republicans fell all over themselves to denounce an anti-Obama SuperPAC ad which would have shown Obama's twenty-year relationship with Jeremiah Wright and his black liberation theology church.

As Romney was demonized for high school pranks, Republicans remained mum about Obama's good friend and likely biographer Bill Ayers, the unrepentant domestic terrorist.

As Romney's ideas were blasted as a return to "what got us in this mess," no mention was made by the Republicans about Obama's central role as an agitator in the sub-prime mess.

While Democrats used scare tactics to make people fear a Romney presidency, no mention was made of why Americans should legitimately fear another Obama term.

When Democrats wanted to play identity politics, the Republicans failed to identify them. When America needed to know what is true and correct, Republicans played it politically correct.

The Republicans inability to think long-term and see that we are in a generations-long war with anti-Americans will be their, and perhaps the nation's, downfall. When Romney had the opportunity to take the stage in front of 60 million plus people on three occasions and attack Obama on every front, he played it safe, hedged his bets, and said Obama was a great guy who loved his family, but weren't his policies just the worst! It wasn't Obama's fault you see, he just doesn't get it.

By failing to expose Obama and the Progressives in general, the Republicans have left most Americans unaware that there is a war raging for the soul of the nation and left them believing it really is a choice of the lesser of two evils. Romney and the Republicans stood down from being "personal" with Obama because he was too likable and people may feel sorry for him, meanwhile the Shining City on a Hill is engulfed in flames and Obama and his crew are the arsonists, dressed as firefighters. If Republicans believed that, if Mitt Romney believed that, they owed it to the future of the Republic to say so.