Yes, we lost. But I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to say that ACORN stole the election, do you?
PPP's first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard...and also declining in numbers.49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.
Some GOP voters are so unhappy with the outcome that they no longer care to be a part of the United States. 25% of Republicans say they would like their state to secede from the union compared to 56% who want to stay and 19% who aren't sure.
One reason that such a high percentage of Republicans are holding what could be seen as extreme views is that their numbers are declining. Our final poll before the election, which hit the final outcome almost on the head, found 39% of voters identifying themselves as Democrats and 37% as Republicans. Since the election we've seen a 5 point increase in Democratic identification to 44%, and a 5 point decrease in Republican identification to 32%.
It seems there’s been quite a lot of talk of secession lately. Retiring Texas Congressman Ron Paul even released a short video about how the act of secession is a “deeply American principle” passed on from our Founding Fathers, or something. But for those who actually believe allowing certain states to secede from the Union is a good idea, I would respectfully recommend re-reading the first five or so Federalist Papers, in which Publius explicitly warns about the inherent dangers of (a) disunion and (b) the creation of multiple confederacies.
Furthermore, I would also be the first to admit that the results from the 2012 presidential election were utterly devastating, and took me completely by surprise. But call me crazy -- I don’t think the election was outright stolen, let alone by a political organization that reportedly doesn’t even exist anymore! The fact is that Team Romney made a number of costly mistakes, not the least of which was spending precious time and resources in “battleground” states that weren’t really competitive -- before locking up Florida, Virginia, and Ohio.
The best thing Republicans can do right now is look forward to (and prepare for) 2014 -- when the GOP has a real shot at retaking control of the Senate -- instead of dwelling on the past.
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