Jonathan Cohn “Romney and the Republicans had turned the election into a referendum on liberalism—not just the liberalism of Obama, but also the liberalism of Johnson and Kennedy, of Truman and Roosevelt…[They] challenged the philosophy behind such policies—the whole idea that governments should act to protect vulnerable groups and to guarantee economic security. It was a huge gambit. And it failed.” source
Greg Sargent “If Mitt Romney had won, he and his ideas (tax cuts, deregulation, unshackling the free market) might have been associated with the recovery, leaving Keynesianism and stimulus spending thoroughly discredited. Instead, Obama and Democrats will hopefully gain more credit for the ongoing recovery, and perhaps the idea that government can act to fix the economy will get rehabilitated.” source
Ezra Klein “The bad news for Republicans isn’t what happened last night. It’s that it only gets worse from here. In 2016, we can expect the minority share of the electorate to rise by another two percentage points — and we can expect the economy to be in rather better shape…the reality is that the Republican Party has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, and it’s only going to get harder for them from here.” source
Michael Tomasky “[T[he Republican Party is just too far to the right. Not just to win a national election. It’s too far to the right even to compete really seriously in one. The thing some Republicans are saying now is absolutely true: They should have been able to win this year. No incumbent president has ever been reelected with this kind of unemployment rate, and there’s no good reason it should have happened now. They could have won.” source
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