The Democrats say Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election, because “AMERICA” has changed.  The demographics, the age, the values, and the WANTS of Americans…have all changed.  Most Conservatives have been deceived into thinking that America is still a portrait of married, traditional families, bearing traditional values of views of the world.

Apparently NOT SO according to The Weekly Standard which takes a look today at “America by the numbers.” The findings?

MILLIONS of voters in this election were SINGLE.  Millions more were not married, because they are not married anymore.

And the elephant in the room?

Hispanics and their values will DOMINATE all elections to come:

Latinos will become 30% of America by 2050.

Start with what we know. As of the 2010 census, there were 308.7 million people in America, 50.5 million of whom (16 percent) were classified as being of “Hispanic origin.” Of that 50 million, about half are foreign-born legal immigrants. Another 11 million or so are illegal immigrants.

A few other facts, just to give you some texture: 63 percent of American Hispanics trace their origins to Mexico, 9.2 percent to Puerto Rico, and 3.5 percent to Cuba. And more than half of the 50 million live in just three states, California, Texas, and Florida.

Latino children today…voters tomorrow.

(By the way, this is why Marco Rubio was not a shoe-in for Vice President.  Some Latinos don’t always embrace Cubans as THEIR own.)  In another 30 years America is expected to be 30% Hispanic, with 132 million of all projected 439 Americans being Latino.

Another important statistic?  The Gender Gap:

Properly understood, there is far less of a “gender” gap in American politics than people think. Yes, President Obama won “women” by 11 points (55 percent to 44 percent). But Mitt Romney won married women by the exact same margin. To get a sense of how powerful the marriage effect is, not just for women but for men, too, look at the exit polls by marital status. Among non-married voters—people who are single and have never married, are living with a partner, or are divorced

Romney attracted married Americans to his campaign, while Singles went with Obama.

—Obama beat Romney 62-35. Among married voters Romney won the vote handily, 56-42.

But here’s the game changer:  SINGLES.  While Hispanic voters increased by about one and a half percent in 2012, the percentage of single voters in this election went up 6%.  This might sound small…but it is huge number.  It’s possible this one slice of singer voters changed the entire complexion of the 2012 election.  An election which was truly decided ONLINE:

Today, the numbers are most striking: 23.8 percent of men, and 19 percent of women, between the ages of 35 and 44 have never been married. Tick back a cohort to the people between 20 and 34—the prime-childbearing years—and the numbers are even more startling: 67 percent of men and 57 percent of women in that group have never been married. When you total it all up, over half

Many young Americans not getting married till 40.

of the voting-age population in America—and 40 percent of the people who actually showed up to vote this time around—are single.

What does this group look like? Geographically, they tend to live in cities. As urban density increases, marriage rates (and childbearing rates) fall in nearly a straight line. Carville and Greenberg put together a Venn diagram which is highly instructive. Of the 111 million single eligible voters, 53 million are women and 58 million are men. Only 5.7 million of these women are Hispanic and 9.7 million are African American. Nearly three-

Singles come in many varieties in 2012.

quarters of all single women are white. In other words, the cohort looks a lot like the Julia character the Obama campaign rolled out to show how the president’s policies care for that plucky gal from the moment she enrolls in Head Start right through her retirement. You may recall that because of President Obama, Julia goes to college, gets free birth control, has a baby anyway, sends her lone kid to public school, and then—at age 42—starts her own business (as a web designer!). What she does not do is get married.

Women, Black, White and Latino, believed more in Obama than Romney.

Singles broke decisively for Obama. Though his margins with them were lower than they were in 2008, he still won them handily: Obama was +16 among single men and +36 with single women. But the real news wasn’t how singles broke—it was that their share of the total vote increased by a whopping 6 percentage points.

When Ann Romney was wrestling over the decision to immerse her family once again in national campaigning, she asked her husband if “there was still time” to save America.  Mitt reportedly told her, Yes.”  Perhaps the real answer was “no.”  America has changed too much for a traditional values candidate to win a majority.  Especially with the major media in the tank for Barack Obama, Mitt Romney never had a chance to speak to the voting singles, voting Latinos, or single moms directly and consistently.

If Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich make a bid for 2016, will they have a better chance confronting the new complexion of America?  Unless the two “retreads” re-invent their wisdom, not a chance.  They have the wrong message, for the wrong audience.

The biggest discovery for Republicans in 2012 was the INTERNET.  Millions of donor dollars should have been spent online, instead of being expensively-wasted on television.  Fewer Americans heard the messages of the GOP, because we didn’t deliver them where the majority of voters LIVE.   ONLINE.

The GOP was beaten online, with a younger audience, by younger strategists, with a 21st century strategy.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/nation-singles_664275.html?page=3

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Filed under: Featured, Highlighted Posts, Inside The KC, Politics by Sonja Eddings Brown, Dec 3, 2012