Looking back on pre-election predictions, I really thought there might be a “silent majority” that would rise up and turn out at the polls to turn out Barack Obama from the White House.
There wasn’t.
While disappointed, I wasn’t exactly surprised.
The GOP managed, once again, to put forward an “electable” nominee who didn’t excite the electorate in general, or conservatives in particular. Indeed, Noel Sheppard, editor of NewsBusters, notes that Romney got “the least votes of any major presidential candidate in 12 years despite the head of steam the GOP had coming out of the historic 2010 midterm elections.”
And despite running against the worst president since Jimmy Carter!
And despite the GOP establishment raising and spending more than a billion dollars on television ads that apparently no one watched except political reporters looking for something to write about, rate and critique (fact check!).
But while we’re talking about pre-election predictions, let’s give some credit where credit is due. Longtime GOP political strategist Pete Ernaut predicted that Obama would win Nevada, as well as Republican Sen. Dean Heller.
“I don’t think there’s a Romney-Berkley voting bloc,” Ernaut said on Nevada Newsmakers, “but there’s clearly an Obama-Heller voting bloc.”
Nailed it.
As a close confidante of Nevada Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, Ernaut’s prediction of a win for the Democrats in the presidential race here caused a bit of a stir that stretched all the way back to Capitol Hill. As such, the Romney campaign trotted out Sandoval’s paid consigliere to tell everyone to move along; nothing to see here; all is well.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
