In a teevee interview the other day, Mitt Romney said that if he'd been elected president, he could have and would have prevented the sequester. Well, sure. And if Democrats had won the House, Barack Obama could have prevented it, too. Romney would have prevented the sequester by giving Republicans everything they wanted. Not a difficult achievement when the Senate can't pass anything and you hold the House and White House.
Peter Beinart says Romney still doesn't get why he lost. Justin Green says Beinart's wrong and then proceeds to give other reasons. I think both men are right and they also both omit one other biggie. I think part of Romney's loss was because with the flippin' and floppin' and the big, phony smile, a lot of people just had no idea what he believed in.
It's a consideration that political analysts often overlook because it's tacky and hard to quantify. But a lot of voters look at a slate of candidates and vote for the one who strikes them as the lesser asshole. I have Republican friends who more or less shared what some thought were Mitt Romney's values…but they weren't entirely sure that Mitt Romney shared them. They were bothered by that quote from Grover Norquist about how it didn't really matter which Republican was elected president because all he was going to do was rubber-stamp whatever the Republican leaders in Congress decided.
And also, Mitt, you lost because your campaign was managed by people who understood the country so well they were certain you were going to win Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota.