Political Blue Gene

Mitt Romney’s pollster did him a terrible disservice.  Or perhaps it was the campaign manager whose decision served the candidate so poorly.

Reports have come out that Romney was “shellshocked” that he had lost.  This should never have happened.  Every election poll is based on certain turnout assumptions.  These assumptions create what is usually known as “likely voters.”  However, there are numerous ways to define who a likely voter is.  Polling for the Romney campaign was based on assumptions that the percentages of the electorate, when compared to 2008, would have more white men and fewer African-American, Latino, Asian and young voters.  It was the pollster’s responsibility to tell his client that he wins if these assumptions prove correct.  Romney should have also been made aware that he could very well lose if these assumptions were wrong.  The candidate then goes into the election well-armed emotionally and intellectually if he (or she, as the case may be) knows what the assumptions are and what happens under various turnout scenarios.  This was especially true this year, when the vast majority of the reliable public polls all had Obama winning most of the battleground states and therefore, the election.  There was an unfounded smugness to Republican operatives and the Romney campaign because of their incorrect assumptions.  In addition, no one knows how many incorrect decisions were made by the campaign because of these assumptions.

I do not know Mitt Romney’s campaign manager or any of the other people around Governor Romney.  However, I do know that there are campaign managers who believe that they can not only manipulate the voters, but they can also manipulate their clients, the candidates, for “their own good.”  Perhaps that is what happened here.  Perhaps the campaign manager decided that Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan would be better campaigners if they had total confidence that they would win.  Hence, the decision not to give the candidates all the information that was available, including how they might lose.  Or perhaps the campaign manager was just so convinced of his own brilliance that he did not even entertain the possibility that he might be wrong.  Either way, as I said before, someone did Mitt Romney a terrible disservice.