Romney, GOP’s ‘unskewed’ vision of America

>>> when mitt romney arrived for lunch at the white house thursday, the look on his face told the story of his entire campaign. he seemed utterly bewildered by the fact that he'll never sit in that chair in the oval office , despite believing for years that he would ultimately prevail.

>> if i'm president, when i'm president, we're going to -- we're going to win this. s

>> we know how to win.

>> when i'm president.

>> we are learning more about the internal polling numbers that may have led to the delusion they would win the white house . karen finney is former dn c communications director and perry bacon is the political editor for thegrio.com. karen , according to a story in the new republic, the romney 's campaign internal polling was going somewhat hey ware in the final days of the race. in new hampshire, their final internal polling had him leading by 3.5 points and he lost by 5.6. in colorado it said mitt was ahead by 2.5 but he ended up losing by 5.5. how could these numbers be so wildly off the mark?

>> generally i do words not numbers but even i could tell that the problem that they had -- a couple things. when we saw this in polling generally, number one, it seems they let their own biases and prejudices about the electorate itself color, and i don't mean that in a racial term, but i mean shade the way they were actually willing to look at the numbers because from the other things they've said, they underestimated the strength of the african- american latino vote and young voters, but the data was all there. if they paid closer attention to it and not sort of ignored it. it was pretty obvious that their numbers were off because they were under polling and under sampling in those populations.

>> so are you saying, karen , that their whole belief was basically wishful thinking?

>> well, i am saying that their whole belief was based on a world view that, a, no longer exists, and b, they refuse to see outside of that world view . i think now they're in for a very rude awakening .

>> perry , these same polls reveal 80% of undecided voters went for the president. romney 's chief pollster said they underestimated the number of young people , african-americans, and latinos who showed up, just as karen just said. isn't that the most conclusive evidence yet that all the voter suppression efforts simply backfired, didn't they? we think about mr. hustad in ohio, the governor in florida. all they did was inspire democrats to come out and vote.

>> the romney campaign made two mistakes in terms of polling. the one was they had this almost religion thought that the young voters, minority voters would not turn out. one thing we didn't talk about enough during the election is a lot of people really like barack obama , particularly among the youth and minority voters and a lot of white voters as well really like barack obama . so they missed that. they seemed to think voting in '08 was an aberration and a fluke. that was a wrong assumption. the second thing they missed was a lot of polls, even some of the polls nbc did showed republican enthusiasm was a little higher than democratic enthusiasm in some states. the campaign took that to mean the democrats weren't going to turn out. some tea partiers were really excited but a lot of democrats were just as excited.

>> right. karen , into today's "new york times" timothy egan writes, if you believe in climate change, finding a path to citizenship for millions of hard working hispanics, and the right to marry the person you love, there is no place in the republican party of 2012 for you. when you toss in romney 's contempt for 47% of the country and the ayn rand budget of paul ryan , it's hard to imagine romney himself believed these internal polls.

>> apparently so. again, they had so deluded themselves about the reality of who this country is and what this country is about, again, it goes to they kept telling us we were just imagining the war on women and yet we were still talking about vaginal probes and legitimate rape. they truly convinced themselves, either that or it's abject malpractice on the part of their pollsters, they convinced themselves that those numbers of young people , african-american, latino wouldn't matter. just like they're kind of doing now. they're trying to convince themselves, people love the ryan budget, so, of course, we're going to fight the president. people don't love the ryan budget. we voted against it.

>> exactly. we've been saying that all hour. per perry , romney continues with the delusion. he now says the president won by handing out gifts. but, in fact, it was the gop that was given the gift of citizens united , a terrible economy, and even voter i.d. laws in no fewer than 13 states and they still lost.

>> exactly right, martin. they seem to -- if you look forward now, they seem to have a bash strategy going forward. i'm not sure what they should do to win. they're very fixated right now on opposing susan rice . i'm not sure most american voters really care what the u.n. ambassador said on a random sunday show. it's not a good strategy. most americans support raising tacks on the wealthy. the two issues they picked since the election are not smart issues looking forward . i'm surprised they haven't taken better political counsel since the election because the romney pollsters are no longer rubbing the republican party , and john boehner must know they're in a bad position but they're not changing their strategy since the election.

>> prove positive romnesia is contagious.