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<div class="timestamp">November 16, 2012</div>
<h1>Anybody Notice a Pattern?</h1>
<h6 class="byline">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/gailcollins/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by GAIL COLLINS"><span>GAIL COLLINS</span></a></span></h6>
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<p>
It appears that Mitt Romney was a terrible presidential candidate. </p>
<p>
O.K., some people have known that ever since the story broke about
strapping his dog on the car roof. But now we seem to be reaching a
consensus. </p>
<p>
First, there was that matter of losing the election. Then this week
Romney told some of his donors that while he was pursuing the “big
issues,” President Obama had purchased the support of blacks, Hispanics
and young people with goodies like college loans and health care reform.
College-age women, Romney claimed, traded their votes for “free
contraceptives.” </p>
<p>
Show them a birth control pill and they’ll follow you anywhere. </p>
<p>
Romney said all this in a private conference call, so he couldn’t have
suspected that it would wind up in the media. There is no precedent
whatsoever for reporters getting hold of remarks presidential candidates
make to private groups about the inherent greediness of American
voters. </p>
<p>
Nevertheless, quite a few Republicans thought it was a bad idea to
insult the integrity of American youth and minorities at a moment when
everybody agreed that the electoral future belonged to American youth
and minorities. </p>
<p>
“Romney, take responsibility for being flawed candidate, w/delusional
campaign w/no vision,” tweeted Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist.
</p>
<p>
“I don’t want to rebut him point by point. I would just say to you, I
don’t believe that we have millions and millions of people in this
country that don’t want to work,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
</p>
<p>
Florida is flooded with potential Republican presidential candidates,
the top two being Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush. That’s reasonable —
except, have you noticed that things in Florida always have a tendency
to get a little weird? Is it an accident that the woman at the center of
the Petraeus scandal — the one with the financial troubles and the
glamorous twin — is from Tampa? This week former Gov. Charlie Crist
officially repudiated reports in a London paper that he and the twin
used to date. </p>
<p>
For Republicans, the mood after the election was so bad that — I know
you will be shocked to hear this — a Republican Party official in Texas
advocated leaving the Union. “We must contest every single inch of
ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every
opportunity,” wrote Peter Morrison, treasurer of the Hardin County
Republican Party. “But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every
morsel of flesh off of the rotting corpse of the Republic, and therein
lies our opportunity.” (To be fair, you can’t judge an entire state by
one county political official. Although Bud Kennedy, a columnist for The
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, pointed out that Morrison had once been
chosen to help screen public school textbooks for the State Board of
Education.) </p>
<p>
Romney supporters couldn’t believe that they had lost fairly. The Maine
Republican chairman was breathlessly reporting that “dozens, dozens of
black people” had mysteriously shown up to vote in rural areas. </p>
<p>
Now things are calmer — perhaps because, if they want to, Republicans
can just blame everything on Romney’s poor campaign skills. Really
terrible skills! Maybe the worst presidential candidate in American
history! Well, possibly not worse than Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who
got only 8 percent of the electoral vote against Thomas Jefferson. But
Thomas Jefferson had the Louisiana Purchase. If Barack Obama had bought
Manitoba, Republicans would have understood his winning. </p>
<p>
And actually not quite as bad as John McCain, who got fewer electoral
votes when he lost in 2008 than Romney just got. But at least McCain has
gone on to provide service to the country in the Senate, such as his
current attempts to warn the nation that we haven’t been told enough
about what happened during the tragic attack on Benghazi. </p>
<p>
McCain was so desperate to sound the alarm that he missed a classified
briefing on Benghazi to hold a press conference complaining that he had
not been given enough information. Which clearly he hadn’t. He knew
nothing! Nothing whatsoever! And what was the administration going to do
about <em>that</em>? </p>
<p>
“It is essential for the Congress to conduct its own independent
assessment,” said the senator, demanding that Congress form a special
committee to look into Libya. This would be a double benefit, helping to
inform all the members who missed their normal committee briefings
while also addressing the continuing national crisis over the shortage
of congressional committees. </p>
<p>
Afterward, McCain was his normal even-tempered self. (“Because I have
the right as a senator to have no comment and who the hell are you to
tell me if I can or not?”) But you did have to wonder. McCain. Then
Romney. Now, all these guys from Florida and Paul Ryan, who when last
heard from was blaming his ticket’s defeat on the “urban” vote. </p>
<p>
Somewhere, there’s a right-wing Michael Dukakis waiting for the phone to ring. </p>
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