There is enough blame to go around; especially in the group I belong to, the clergy. We send mixed and vague messages at best.
This was the subject of Kresta in the Afternoon today (radio show). He completely agrees with you. He also called (correctly, i.m.o.) the voting results a demonstration of culture, rather than politics, ethnicity, or anything else. I also completely agree with that, as well.
I think that there are multiple layers going on here, however. (Party-wise and candidate wise, at least) Romney “representing business” is not necessarily in itself a total Plus, even for people very concerned about the economy. I’m not speaking for myself so much as just voters in general. The fact is, many Americans feel at the least ambivalent about the private business sector. They feel ambivalent if they’ve been laid off, if they are underempoyed, if their previous job was outsourced or about to be, etc. Americans have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with business, or at least many Americans do.
I disagree with the many comments I’ve seen that the immigration issue was a deciding issue. Given some significant opposition in this country to uncontrolled ***illegal ***immigration (without a reasonable plan to address it, not just ignore it), including to incentivize the legal form and the temporary form (guest workers), as well as to encourage a different kind of assimilaton than blanket, mass amnesty, it’s really hard to believe that the country as a whole is rather pro-illegal-immigration in its current reality.
I will agree that Romney came up with no more of constructive plan than Obama ever has, but I deny that that issue was prominent in the outcome. Rather, an article I read on Yahoo News (of all places), regarding the financing problem which plagued Romney, and the consequences of needing to fundraise as opposed to presenting a consistent message, and in swing states, puts the election in a very different light, one which is more credible. This speaks to what I said on a different thread, regarding the antideluvian and frankly anti-democracy system of campaign financing which we now have, and which has radical consequences for national elections. Until the public becomes incensed enough to demand change from their Congressional representatives, U.S. elections and democracy itself will continue to suffer.
I also think that defeating an incumbent is usually very difficult unless the opponent is clearly & consistently better presented as an expert, as a statesman, and as someone with wide knowledge and broad skills. Romney came off as too “niche” to be a supplanter of the incumbent, to a degree that enough voters were willing to abandon caution. Again, I’m just viewing from a public-at-large angle, not from a personal vantage point.