The GOP did not lose 8 million votes in the 2012 election. That distinction belongs to the Democrats. Conservatism is in better shape than you might think ---- certainly in better shape than the Dems. Here is why.

<<<<  If you think the downplaying of the Palin influence and the tea-party movement at the GOP convention was coincidental to the Romney defeat,  well,  you are just plain nuts.  

Not enough is being said about the voter retreat away from Barack Obama. 

In 2008,  Obama captured a record 70 million votes.  This year,  with a get out the vote effort that was far more involved than in 2008 and much more costly,  Obama lost 12% of his support,  over and against the 2008 campaign,  or a loss of 8.5 million votes.  

A startling number. 

All this talk about his ability to find new voters and increase his margins with various voting groups,  across the board was and is so much nonsense. 

The loss of nearly 9 million votes is a record,  in American campaign history . . . . . . .  a record. 

And the Republicans are telling anyone who will listen,  “We must match the Democrat's ability to reach out and identify with Middle America.”  Of course,  such is an on-going campaign strategy,  but that is not the reason Obama won this election. 

I am not one who ever plans on roasting Mitt Romney.  The fact that tea party candidates destroyed their own chances of winning the nomination was not Romney’s fault.  And,  without question, he did his best to line up with the conservative nation.  But he did not stay on message.  He did not drive Obama’s economic failings and outright lies into the ground.  And   --  in my opinion – he surrendered the campaign to hurricane Sandy,  in the closing days of the campaign cycle.  Understand that a swing of 330,000 votes in the battleground states would have given Romney the electoral victory;  it was that close of an election. 

Why is it that no one puts “blame” on the no-show conservative and libertarian voters?    One and a half million of these people would have won the popular vote,  but they decided an anti-colonial fraud was better than and “progressive- lite”  (Romney),  so they stayed home. 

If you are one of these types,  count yourself a “moron”  and share the blame for seeing the end of America as it has been for 236 years.  Oh,   and take that comment personally.

Did Obama “buy” the election via welfare type gifts?  Certainly,  to a degree,  he did just that. 

His move to strip shareholders of their pension funds as he “saved” GM was nothing short of a pay-off to the AFL-CIO for votes in 2012.  Period. 

And,  of those who received welfare in the form of housing benefits (i.e. section eight),  additional food stamps (Obama actually advertised to increase food stamps so,  of course,  he was buying votes),  and the extension of unemployment benefits (emphasis on “extension”) ,  67% voted for Obama and his Democrat socialist buds. 

Is the expanding RINO class suggesting that we compete for this segment of the population in the same way Obama has sequestered their vote?  

The best estimates I have seen tell me that this total vote count (the 67%) was 7 million votes.  He won the popular vote by 3.5 million. We votes "bought" by the Democrats?  Of course.  

While we are all deeply disappointed in the final results,  knowing that the commie/socialist folks won the battle,  the fact of the matter is this:  the GOP is in a good place.  Its minority base is improving.  I could come up with a list 30 minority leaders in the GOP and the conservative movement who are responsible, and lovers of conservative values  (as opposed to lovers of Castro and Chavez).  

If we had been more united in our stand against Obama,  the election would have been ours.  And,  while the welfare vote benefits the Democrats,  conservative win elections across the board,  in spite of that circumstance.  

But,  if all this GOP blather about Romney and the tea party takes the GOP away from its conservative roots,  it will not win another national election  -- beginning with 2016.