How quickly people seem to forget what really happened. it was the Republicans who did themselves in.

It wasn’t Obama or an Obama PAC or any Democrat that initially attacked Mitt Romney with the Bain Capital story and rallied the progressive base of the Democrats. It was Romney’s fellow Republican Newt Gingrich.  Some say that they are surprised that Romney didn’t fight back against the verbal attacks by the Obama campaign against Romney’s association with Bain Capital.  By the time Obams got around to criticizing Romney about Bain, the LAST thing Romney wanted to do was to try to defend Bain. He was already worn out from the efforts by the time Obama began to even act like he was going to campaign.  He wanted that topic to go away and the less said the better for him. The Internet was long saturated with indignant chatter and literally millions of sites with videos of the story about what happens when Mitt Comes to Town.

The Democrats should give old Newt a pat on the back. Newt was the one who educated the public on Bain Capital.

Campaign ads typically run 30 seconds which fills the half-minute blocks of airtime TV stations sell for ads. But the ad from the pro-Newt Gingrich PAC “Winning Our Future” ran for nearly three minutes. It was unforgettable with the quality of a mini documentary. It was riveting.

I don’t know how long or how many times the three minute ad was aired but  a full 30 minute version of it called “When Mitt Romney Came to Town” was on the Internet from early January. [Today when I searched under 'when Mitt Romney Came to town,'  I got a list of 12,600,000 sites.   The full complete version shown below was made available on the Internet on January 11, 2012 but there are thousands of  copies of it and excerpts from it all over the Internet.  This one example alone has 341,120 views. It created more sustained buzz than any political ad ever--I have no doubt.

Then of course there were hundreds of various shorter clips of it.  The one shown below was released on January 7, 2012 and is only two minutes long.  This one example has 22,501 views.

The Obama campaign’s attacks on Bain and Romney were peanuts to what Gingrich did. By the time it was Obama’s turn, Romney was already freaked out on the topic. He barely survived Gingrich’s assaults.  Furthermore, the ad threw the Republican Party into shock.  What had happened here?  They had a Republican candidate for President who was tearing down capitalism.  There were no tools in their arsenal to deal with such a turn of events.  Then, if you will consider this followed a six month assault of Wall Street lead by Occupy.

Of course Mitt helped a bit too.  Instead of walking down the middle of the road and being himself, he put on a phony act of being a hard-right populist.  There are few things more distasteful to Americans than a phony.  Today the USA is on a different path and the momentum is such that it is highly unlikely the Republican brand will ever recover or attract new young members and people from the diverse and growing non-white sector of voters who are increasingly engaged in voting.

Proclaim the Queen!

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