Yes, Romney really did think he would win
by David Atkins
There's been a minor argument in the blogosphere over whether team Romney really was shocked by the results on election night, or whether the supposed shock is a pretense to cover for lying to their base.
It looks increasingly like they did truly believe they were going to win. The New Republic has an exclusive look at Romney's internals. They were off--sometimes way off:
The first thing you notice is that New Hampshire and Colorado are pretty far off the mark. In New Hampshire, the final internal polling average has Romney up 3.5 points, whereas he lost by 5.6. In Colorado, the final internal polling average has Romney up 2.5 points; he lost by 5.4. “I’m not sure what the answer is,” Newhouse told me, explaining that his polls were a lot more accurate in most of the other swing states. “The only ones we had that really seemed to be off were Colorado—a state that even Obama’s people tweeted they thought it was going to be one of their closest states—and the New Hampshire numbers, which seemed to bounce a lot during the campaign.”
This is mostly true, but not entirely. Set aside Florida and Virginia, for which I don’t have internal poll numbers, but which the campaign apparently believed it was poised to win. Among those I do have, the Iowa number is also questionable, showing the race tied even though Romney ended up losing by almost 6 points. If Romney’s internal polling number in Iowa was roughly accurate, it would imply that Obama won every single undecided voter in the state, something that’s highly unlikely.
Wasn't the rationale for the Romney campaign that Mitt was a great executive who was good with numbers and could manage and hire smart, effective people?
It's increasingly obvious that at just about every level the wealthy elites in this country aren't nearly as talented or clever as people give them credit for. They're good at making deals. They know the right people. They have a good knack for social intelligence and little compunction about skimming a lot of money off the top of the labor of others.
But smart, talented and effective? Hardly.
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