Why the Republicans Lost

By Bill Maher

Mitt Romney has lost and he'll soon be accepting his new job as professor of method acting at The New School in New York City. And after watching him play all these different characters over the last two years, really, who better?

Now comes the hand-wringing and finger-pointing that always follows electoral defeat; 500 columns of "If they'd done what I said, something, something, measuring the drapes in the Oval Office." And they'll all miss the forest for the trees. Except Dick Morris -- he's always right.

So now that I'm done telling you how everyone else will be full of shit and focusing on the wrong things, let me focus you on the big picture thing that's absolutely correct: Mitt Romney lost because of the Republican brand and Republican policies. There are other reasons, of course, like Mitt being unlovable to anyone not named Ann Romney, but nothing trumps the idea that 2/3rds of America thinks the other 1/3 is a frightening conglomerate of Bible-thumpers, xenophobes, and vaginophobes. (Not a word, but should be.)

Take Mitt's pivot from being "severely conservative" to being "the white Barack Obama." Sure, everyone tacks to the middle after the primaries, but Mitt's performance was different: it was a full-scale repudiation of just about every idea that conservatives hold dear. The positions were changed. The rhetoric was completely different. He was basically Barack Obama, Caucasian Edition.

Now I know what you're saying: this is what Mitt Romney always does. Being a shape-shifting phony isn't an act; that's who he is! And this is true.

But it isn't who Michele Bachmann is. When it comes to nutty right-wing beliefs that are completely false, she's a true believer. And yet what was Michele Bachmann saying during the waning days of her too-close-for-comfort campaign? She was putting out an ad distancing herself from her own Party -- even her conservative district:

"Michele Bachmann is an independent voice working for us, saying no to big spending by both political parties but bringing them together..."

Then Michele pops on the screen and says, "That’s why I've been an independent voice working for you..."

Wow. ...I'm just saying. When even Michele Bachmann can't run as a proud Republican, your brand identification has reached "pink slime" territory.