File this under "silver lining:" Obama failed to re-establish his base by a whopping 10 million votes. Fewer single women voted for the man. Fewer Hispanics turned out to vote and 8% fewer blacks voted for the man.

In approximate terms,  Obama failed to re-establish his base by a whopping 10 million votes.  In 2008,  his vote total was 70 million.  This year,  he will hit 60 million by the time the count and recount process is completed.   Let that sink in for a moment.  

All this being true,  it is incontrovertible when I write,  

"Obama did not win because he captured the female vote,  or the Hispanic vote or even the black vote (where his voting percentage was 87%,  down from the 95% of four years ago)." 

In 2008,  so many conservatives were disenchanted with McCain's candidacy,  that 5 million failed to show up for the vote.   If things had been different that year,  the conservative vote would have been 65 million or more.  Obama would have still won election,  but by a much smaller margin.  

This year,  2012,  the Romney campaign did not match the vote totals of John McCain, missing McCain's total by 2.2 million;  missing a realistic potential super-vote by 7.2 million and a victory in the 2012 national campaign.  

In other words,  we did not lose because of Obama.  We lost because of our own ineptness.  

In other words,  we did not lose because of the Marxist media's "dereliction of duty" as to objective and fair reporting.    Instead,  we lost because of our ineptness at getting the base to vote. 

In other words,  we did not lose because the folks did not know about the Libyan Embasy massacre and Obama's criminal obfuscation of responsibility in that regard.  Rather,  we lost because our side was too busy doing other things.  Who knows,  maybe cleaning their guns,  or fishing,  or buying Glenn Beck's emergency food pacs and looking for fields for this emergency harvest.  

What I am saying is this:  the good guys have no one left to blame but themselves,  not when they fail so miserably in the turn-out effort.  THAT is the biggest surprise the night.  

Understand this,  we had Obama right where we wanted him,  down by 10 million votes,  and could not bring it home.  

While assessing blame is not the point of this post,  understanding that "blame" cannot be passed onto any fundamental of this campaign except our own failure,  our own misguided ability to know - absolutely know -  where we stood in terms of vote potentiality.  

And what does this mean?  Well,  for one thing,  if a fighter loses because he beat himself,  "hope" for a future victory may be an exponential commodity,   under the control of the fighter.  It is frustrating to realize that we kind of beat ourselves.  But this is equally good news,  because it just might mean that we are much more in control of the future that many are thinking.  If we beat ourselves,  we can stop doing that, we can correct and improve and win.