Proven Political Strategy

Mitt Romney’s postmortem calls with donors have emerged in which the Republican nominee elaborates on his claim that “big gifts” from President Obama to minorities, youth, and women swung the election. The former Republican nominee said Obama followed “a proven political strategy, which is give a bunch of money to a group and, guess what, they’ll vote for you.” Of course, Romney would never consider that his proposal to cut taxes for everyone by 20% was the same as promising to “give money to a group”.  On the other hand, Romney is correct in one respect.  Ronald Reagan managed to successfully convince a large number of voters that cutting taxes actually raised revenue, which it didn’t; reduced the deficit, which it didn’t; and never raised taxes, which he did eleven times.  Perhaps there is something telling about the fact that the ten states with the highest number of educated citizens all voted for President Obama while the ten states with the lowest number of educated citizens (TN ranks 47^th, BTW) supported Romney.  It is apparent from many of the comments to letters to the editor in the Nashville Tennessean that many incorrectly believe giving tax cuts to the wealthy will result in benefits trickling down to the masses. While all economic evidence points to the reality that giving tax cuts to the wealthy only results in the wealthy becoming more wealthy and no economic benefit going to anyone else, there are a large number of citizens who must have been sleeping through their basic arithmetic classes.  Given the possibility that Romney is correct and that giving “a bunch of money” to a group is how to win elections perhaps he lost because he promised to give a bunch of money to the wrong group.  Seeing as how the top 1% of Americans most benefited by growth of income and wealth since 1979, Mitt should have been aware that it takes more than a satisfied 1% to win a national election.  There is little doubt that Mitt got the votes of people like Sheldon Adelson, Foster Fries, Steve Winn, his friends the NASCAR owners, and many others in his economic strata.  It is fortunate for the country that Romney and his campaign did not realize that his “rich friends and supporters” combined with those who still believe in the trickle down fairy tale did not comprise a sufficient number of voters to elect him to national office.