The information disadvantage that conservatives must address

One reason conservatives lost last night is because they got caught up in their own spin. They believed the yarn they were weaving, and believed it would resonate with voters. When the polls showed that it *wasn't* resonating, they disbelieved the polls rather than re-examining their assumptions.

This preference for narrative over facts has deeply wounded the GOP.

Three articles make this point clear.

The Atlantic points out how the conservative media failed its readers by leaving them underinformed and even misinformed.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-the-msm-and-failed-the-rank-and-file/264855/

You have to be willing to face reality if you're going to stand a chance of dealing with it. Conservatives opted for the comfortable cocoon of the echo chamber, and it led them astray.

The truth of this observation is evident on this board, where many conservatives have a view of Obama and Democrats that bears scant, if any, relationship to reality. They lean on accepted truths that are pure fantasy. And then they don't understand why everyone else doesn't see the same things they do. They don't realize that, to turn Reagan around, "the problem is that conservatives know so many things that aren't true."

Now the conservative public buying the spin is one thing. But the Romney campaign should have known better. Instead, they bought their own spin, too. And one reason they did so is that they failed to rigorously examine their own assumptions.

By contrast, the Obama campaign built a massive, data-driven model whose entire *purpose* was to test and question assumptions.
http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/0...ants-and-data-crunchers-who-helped-obama-win/

That's called "dealing with reality."

Romney, on the other hand, had "Orca".
http://washingtonexaminer.com/in-bo...rs-struggle-to-explain-defeat/article/2512861

#1, they didn't get around to developing it until the final weeks of the campaign, wasting a lot of opportunities.

#2, like anything big and complex developed in a hurry, it didn't work well.

So Democrats won in part because they were the most prepared to deal with reality. For the GOP to come back, they'll need to learn to deal with reality again -- both qualitatively and quantitatively.

 

Conservatives are still in the denial phase -- yet more evidence they are not dealing well with reality.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...ervatives-lambast-romney-vow-to-take-over-gop

If he was living outside the echo chamber, he would recognize that the only reason Mitt had *any* chance at election was because he ran for the middle on domestic issues and embraced Obama's foreign policy with both hands.

Oh, and he promised bunnies and unicorns to everyone.

I realize it's early, and sober reflection won't come until the angst works its way through the system. But conservatives who refuse to learn the real lessons of 2012 will repeat their mistakes in 2014 and beyond.

 

Liberals have the majority of the mainstream media and Academia. That's the "information disadvantage that conservatives" must overcome in order to win. Liberals don't have that problem.

 

the disadvantage is a scary desire to only listen to those who tell you what you want to hear....then acting shocked when reality slaps you ...like it did last night

 

So you are saying that only listening to Fox News makes people believe in things that aren't true? Is this why then these "conservatives" thought Obamacare, or any health care reform, was against the "will of the people"?

 

And you guys have unskewedpolls.com. How did that work out for ya'?

 

I think the issues are obvious. We do have a shifted electorate and there was a few other factors.

1. Generations of Public Education pushing Democratic Agenda has had an impact.
2. Decades of highly biased National News Media has had an impact.
3. The Hurricane blunted the momentum Romney was experiencing and Christie didn't help.

Clearly, if we examine the GOP field, the Republicans put up out of all the candidates pretty much the most "moderate" candidate. It's hard to dog Conservatism, when the candidate was not some strong conservative. Everything that is his record screams moderate. Yes, he used some Conservative rhetoric, but any honest and informed person knew the reality.

In the end, I have to agree. The nation has shifted. We are a nation of takers not makers by and large. It will ultimately have us all circling the drain as we get collectively flushed as a nation. The economic realities and the inability of a leftist ideology to address them will see us collapse. Enjoy your victory lefties... you won, but at what cost?

 

I think we learned plently about your understanding of the nation, elections and the american people after last night.....why are you still pretending you should be taken seriously?

 

Oh, joy. Two conservative hobby horses and an excuse. The echo chamber appears to be intact and functioning.

Actually, the most moderate candidate was Jon Huntsman. But of course he was too moderate for the GOP.

Of those that were left, Romney was the only one who wasn't either milquetoast (Pawlenty) or bat(*)(*)(*)(*) insane.

So you guys were voting for a man you knew was lying?

Conservatism still loses. It failed the voter test: Mitt didn't start rising in the polls until he started disowning the conservative positions he took in the primary.

Another conservative who can't hide his contempt for the American people, solely because they don't buy the reality-free fantasyland conservatives have constructed inside their information bubble.

 

Yeah I'd say so.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/why-romney-lost/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

I'm fine with right-wingers being utterly delusional about the electorate.

 

You think winning an election by a few percentage points is a mandate? The unions emptied the adult retarded homes, drove them to the polls, and had them vote Barack Obama.... that is the level your ideology had to stoop to.

Instead of trolling, deflecting, and ignoring the actual content of a post... why don't you answer back. Otherwise all this debate board is for a troll like you is a meaningless little place in your life where you insult others with zero content behind your words. Are you that small of a person? Apparently so, as this is about the dozenth or so time you have put up a similar post.

You are a little person... I pity your existence.

 

Another almost completely lack of content post by a Liberal. Huntsman is more Liberal than Romney? Care to explain? Or you just throwing that out there because you have nothing to really add?

 

By Republican standards, it is.

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Bush-claims-mandate-sets-2nd-term-goals-I-2637116.php

 

no, but I think its a mandate to stop listening to the idiots who claimed Romney would win a Reaganesque landslide

if you keep trusting these same sources that left you with egg on your face theres no helping th e RW

 

No, your side revels in false narratives because you cant take reality if it doesn't fit into your pre-conceived world-view, and the lemmings willingly lap it up with little to no skepticism. That's the difference.

 

This mandate (*)(*)(*)(*) is beyond petty, you know what a real mandate is? When you win the god(*)(*)(*)(*) election.

 

Without the House of Representatives Obama's legislative agenda will be stymied.

 

Excellent Post!!! Conservatives are most definetely favoring ideology over reality.

Another significant reason for the Romney loss is the changing demographic of the country. One only had to look at the audiences at the Romney and Obama headquarters to see that the GOP is selling a product that minorties and women are buying. The GOP has dealt with the changing demographic of the US by attempting to suppress voters instead of trying to make inroads with groups not traditionally aligned with the conservative movement.

 

http://www.ibtimes.com/jon-huntsman-2012-what-are-his-positions-376498

Huntsman is no worse than Romney on most things -- they both embraced the Ryan plan, for instance -- and is significantly more liberal on social issues and immigration. He opposes Gitmo, too.

 

See, this is exactly what the OP was talking about when me mentioned unestablished platitudes. I went through 8 years of American public education, please, feel free to tell me about the "democratic agenda" that was pushed. The media may be "biased" in favor of democrats, but it still stacks up well in terms of who is better-informed to any right-wing network.

Oh, and you know this how? Because Obama won, again? You ran Scrooge McDuck against him during an economic recession, what do you expect would happen?

 

Nothing false about the narrative, at all. Just because worthless lib trash are the majority now, it doesn't mean they are right on the issues. So we'll move forward, pointing out the failings of this bankrupt socialist utopia that you voted for.

 

No one said you were right or wrong on the issues. This isn't about issues; this is about how conservatives get and vet information.

Go back and read the OP.

Or don't. If you want to stay in your bubble and continue to lose elections, go ahead.

 

Conservatives will probably continue to lose elections until the left completely destroys our society. They are doing this to try and install socialism, but I'm hoping it will have the opposite effect.

 

Have you been asleep? The false narrative is all this hogwash about "unskewed" polls and the coming Romney landslide, and for once you have to face the indisputable facts. That's what this thread is about, you embrace false narratives because it's what you want to hear. You're doing it now with the current narrative that minorities are taking over the country and all want handouts. The reason you actually lost is because you couldn't pull together a coalition other than white males and old people. Maybe if you didn't run people like Mourdock and Akin, you could've won over more moderates. We're a country a centrists, and it has become apparent that the mental patients have taken over the asylum in the GOP.