Romney Aide Stuart Stevens gets FJM’d

While I was wandering around the internet, I came across an op-ed from Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s chief strategist. Upon reading it, I knew at once that I could not allow this document to go unmocked.

Stuart Stevens, prepare your body. You’re about to get FJM’d.

“Mitt Romney: A good man. The right fight.”Stuart Stevens, Washington Post Op-Ed, 11/28/2012

 Stuart Stevens was the chief strategist for the Romney presidential campaign.

So why the fuck do I care what Stuart Stevens has to say? He lost. More accurately, he got his ass handed to him. So I ask again, why the fuck do I care what Stuart Stevens has to say?

Over the years, one of the more troubling characteristics of the Democratic Party and the left in general has been a shortage of loyalty and an abundance of self-loathing. It would be a shame if we Republicans took a narrow presidential loss as a signal that those are traits we should emulate.

Self-loathing? I don’t loathe myself at all. I just loathe the politicians I have to vote for to keep the clowns you want to elect out of office. I had to vote for Joe Donnelly, who would have been a Republican ten years ago, to keep Richard Mourdock, who wouldn’t even have been on the ballot ten years ago because he was a fucking loon, out of the US Senate.

I appreciate that Mitt Romney was never a favorite of D.C.’s green-room crowd or, frankly, of many politicians. That’s why, a year ago, so few of those people thought that he would win the Republican nomination. But that was indicative not of any failing of Romney’s but of how out of touch so many were in Washington and in the professional political class. Nobody liked Romney except voters. What began in a small field in New Hampshire grew into a national movement. It wasn’t our campaign, it was Romney. He bested the competition in debates, and though he was behind almost every candidate in the GOP primary at one time or the other, he won the nomination and came very close to winning the presidency.

Mitt Romney’s primary competition: Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, and Rick Perry. LITERALLY EVERYONE THOUGHT ROMNEY WAS GOING TO WIN THE NOMINATION, with the exception of maybe Newt Gingrich. The thing is, The People kicked the tires on all of the other candidates in the hopes of finding Not Mitt Romney, and ended up settling for Mitt Romney because all the other options were worse.

In doing so, he raised more money for the Republican Party than the party did. He trounced Barack Obama in debate. He defended the free-enterprise system and, more than any figure in recent history, drew attention to the moral case for free enterprise and conservative economics.

He trounced Obama in ONE debate. Then the President kicked his ass.

When much of what passes for a political intelligentsia these days predicted that the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan meant certain death on the third rail of Medicare and Social Security, Romney brought the fight to the Democrats and made the rational, persuasive case for entitlement reform that conservatives have so desperately needed. The nation listened, thought about it — and on Election Day, Romney carried seniors by a wide margin. It’s safe to say that the entitlement discussion will never be the same.

Worth noting: on Election Day, the nation also voted overwhelmingly for the other guy. You know, the one that promised not to fuck with Medicare and Social Security.

On Nov. 6, Romney carried the majority of every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year in household income. That means he carried the majority of middle-class voters. While John McCain lost white voters younger than 30 by 10 points, Romney won those voters by seven points, a 17-point shift. Obama received 4½million fewer voters in 2012 than 2008, and Romney got more votes than McCain.

And yet, Obama still won. Suck it, Stuart.

The Obama organization ran a great campaign. In my world, the definition of the better campaign is the one that wins.

I think that’s everyone’s definition.

But having been involved in three presidential races, two of which we won closely and one that we lost fairly closely, I know enough to know that we weren’t brilliant because Florida went our way in 2000 or enough Ohioans stuck with us in 2004. Nor are we idiots because we came a little more than 320,000 votes short of winning the electoral college in 2012. Losing is just losing. It’s not a mandate to throw out every idea that the candidate championed, and I would hope it’s not seen as an excuse to show disrespect for a good man who fought hard for values we admire.

You guys didn’t win a single swing state except for North Carolina. You lost every tossup Senate race. You lost every demographic group that wasn’t “White people over 40”. That should set off giant warning klaxons in whatever creepy castle the GOP uses as it’s headquarters now that perhaps the American people aren’t buying your brand of crap anymore.

Not only that, but it’s rather telling that the Romney Campaign was still warm when the professional GOP operatives arrived to all take a dump on it’s chest.

In the debates and in sweeping rallies across the country, Romney captured the imagination of millions of Americans. He spoke for those who felt disconnected from the Obama vision of America. He handled the unequaled pressures of a campaign with a natural grace and good humor that contrasted sharply with the angry bitterness of his critics.

Hello, white people!

There was a time not so long ago when the problems of the Democratic Party revolved around being too liberal and too dependent on minorities. Obama turned those problems into advantages and rode that strategy to victory. But he was a charismatic African American president with a billion dollars, no primary and media that often felt morally conflicted about being critical. How easy is that to replicate?

Welp, four years ago he had three quarters of a billion dollars, a long and bruising primary, and a media that was more critical of him than his opponent. I’m going to guess “Not that hard.”

Yes, the Republican Party has problems, but as we go forward, let’s remember that any party that captures the majority of the middle class must be doing something right. When Mitt Romney stood on stage with President Obama, it wasn’t about television ads or whiz-bang turnout technologies, it was about fundamental Republican ideas vs. fundamental Democratic ideas. It was about lower taxes or higher taxes, less government or more government, more freedom or less freedom. And Republican ideals — Mitt Romney — carried the day.

As it turns out, the voters dramatically prefer fundamental Democratic ideas to fundamental Republican ones. They want higher taxes, more government, and more freedom, and your candidate didn’t deliver. I don’t know on what planet Mitt Romney carried the day (Kolob?), but it sure as shit wasn’t this one.

On Nov. 6, that wasn’t enough to win. But it was enough to make us proud and to build on for the future.

So, to sum up: the only voters that matter are white people over 40 making more than $50,000 a year, and those voters voted for Mitt Romney, so Mitt Romney won from an ideological perspective, even though he didn’t actually win from an actual perspective.

To this I reply: GO HOME STUART, YOU LOST.

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