Mitt Romney\u2019s pollster did him a terrible disservice.\u00a0 Or perhaps it was the campaign manager whose decision served the candidate so poorly.<\/p>\n
Reports have come out that Romney was \u201cshellshocked\u201d that he had lost.\u00a0 This should never have happened.\u00a0 Every election poll is based on certain turnout assumptions.\u00a0 These assumptions create what is usually known as \u201clikely voters.\u201d\u00a0 However, there are numerous ways to define who a likely voter is.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It was the pollster\u2019s responsibility to tell his client that he wins if these assumptions prove correct.\u00a0 Romney should have also been made aware that he could very well lose if these assumptions were wrong.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 There was an unfounded smugness to Republican operatives and the Romney campaign because of their incorrect assumptions.\u00a0 In addition, no one knows how many incorrect decisions were made by the campaign because of these assumptions.<\/p>\n
I do not know Mitt Romney\u2019s campaign manager or any of the other people around Governor Romney.\u00a0 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 \u201ctheir own good.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps that is what happened here.\u00a0 Perhaps the campaign manager decided that Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan would be better campaigners if they had total confidence that they would win.\u00a0 Hence, the decision not to give the candidates all the information that was available, including how they might lose.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Either way, as I said before, someone did Mitt Romney a terrible disservice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mitt Romney\u2019s pollster did him a terrible disservice.\u00a0 Or perhaps it was the campaign manager whose decision served the candidate so poorly. Reports have come out that Romney was \u201cshellshocked\u201d that he had lost.\u00a0 This should never have happened.\u00a0 Every (…)<\/p>\n