Against Despair

Let’s not kid ourselves, last night was a bad night. I understand and appreciate the impulse to “come together” and put aside the partisanship. That’s a good and necessary impulse in politics. But so is honesty. And I think the voters made a terrible mistake. No serious person thinks that just because the public votes one way or another, their verdict is right. But all American citizens should accept that the voters have the final say. Maybe things will work out better than I expect with another four years of Barack Obama in the White House. Crazier things have happened.

But that’s not how I’d bet.

Even so, that’s a matter of what will come out of Washington in the months to come. And even if John Boehner & Co. work wonders, I don’t really see how conservatives can spin the news about what came out of the electorate. The fact that Barack Obama was reelected, and how he was reelected, can only be seen as dispiriting news for conservatives. 

That Mitt Romney got fewer votes than John McCain is dismaying on any number of levels. We were told, by strategists and by what seemed like common sense, that the McCain coalition was a floor for Romney to build up from. The possibility that it was in fact a ceiling is pretty awful to contemplate. It is also pretty infuriating when you think about what the Romney campaign was telling us about their path to 270.

I’ll be blunt: I do not think Mitt Romney ran a good campaign. Don’t get me wrong, I think he worked his heart out as did many who worked for him. I think he made himself into the best candidate he could (which is different from saying he was a great candidate). But I also think that Romney’s theory of the contest was wrong. ...

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