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And now begins the quadrennial exercise of coming to terms with the loss of a presidency.

For the second time in a row, Republicans are the grieving party proceeding through the five stages.

Denial. "I think this is premature," Karl Rove protested on Fox News election night, after the cable network, like other news outlets, correctly projected that President Obama had won Ohio -- and therefore the presidency. "We've got to be careful about calling things."

Bargaining. "We're willing to accept new revenue under the right conditions," House Speaker John Boehner offered Wednesday, shifting his budget negotiating posture before reconsidering the next day, but "the president must be willing to reduce spending and shore up entitlement programs."

Depression. "If Mitt Romney cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached," Ann Coulter said on Laura Ingraham's radio show. "It's over. There is no hope."

Anger. "We should have a revolution in this country," tweeted flamboyant mogul Donald Trump, who had served as a prominent surrogate for Romney. "This election is a total sham and a travesty."

Acceptance. Uh, well, there hasn't been much of that yet.

Pointing fingers

Before arriving at acceptance, Republicans must go through another stage of grief unique to political loss: an extended period of finger-pointing known as the recriminations phase. Only after this period of excuses is it possible to arrive at the plain truth of the matter: that the electorate wasn't buying what they were selling. But first, it is necessary to blame:

The weather. "Hurricane Sandy saved Barack Obama's presidency," Haley Barbour, the Mississippi governor and former Republican Party chairman, informed NBC's Matt Lauer.

The governor of New Jersey. "A lot of people feel like Christie hurt, that we definitely lost four or five points between the storm and Chris Christie giving Obama a chance to be bigger than life," one of Romney's biggest fundraisers told The Washington Post's Philip Rucker.

Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana. "Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, and Chris Christie undermined the Republican message," a Romney adviser told National Review.

Karl Rove. "Congrats to Karl Rove on blowing $400 million this cycle," the Twitter-happy Trump tweeted. "Every race CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost." Actually, a study by the Sunlight Foundation found that Rove's super PAC had a 1 percent success rate.

The candidate's personality. "If you put out a guy who is enormously unlikable, who is a caricature of a distant and out-of-touch technocrat, then he's going to run poorly," deduced Ben Domenech of the conservative blog RedState.

The candidate's management skills. "Many Republicans are also questioning whether Romney was personally engaged enough in key decisions," Politico reported.

Staff incompetence. "They were a bunch of well-meaning folks who were, to use a phrase that Governor Romney coined to describe his opponent, way in over their heads," a member of Romney's national finance committee told Rucker.

Staff deception. "There was a lot of smoke and mirrors from Team Romney and outside charlatans, many of whom will now go work for Republican super PACs making six-figure salaries, further draining the pockets of rich Republicans," RedState's Erick Erickson wrote.

GOP leaders. "Republican leaders behind the epic election failure of 2012 should be replaced," declared conservative activist Richard Viguerie at the National Press Club, singling out party chairman Reince Priebus, Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Country-club Republicans. "The presidential loss is unequivocally on them," said Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots.

The Republican Party's moderation. "We need a third party to save this country," Herman Cain said in a radio appearance.

Failing to talk about foreign policy and Obamacare. "Those are major issues and Romney rarely mentioned them in the final days," a Romney adviser said to National Review.

Failing to talk about abortion. "Mitt Romney never highlighted this vulnerability," complained Marjorie Dannenfelser of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List.

Relying on old people. "The Democrats do voter registration like a factory, like a business, and Republicans tend to leave it to the blue hairs," said Henry Barbour, nephew of the former Mississippi governor, according to the Huffington Post's Jon Ward.

After Republicans work through the blame, they can get down to the real reason for the loss, and it has nothing to do with Romney, his staff or the weather. Once Republicans can accept this -- that their alienation of Latinos and women is shrinking the party into a coalition of white men concentrated in the South -- they can begin to do something about it. http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20121111/COLUMNIST/311119998/-1/S
PORTS?Title=Milbank-GOP-s-5-stages-of-grief]

Apparently others have had the same thought:

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To watch the network’s anchors and guests work through the realization that their candidate was doomed was to witness a textbook case of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief.

Denial: With the early returns breaking badly for Romney, Karl Rove points to an exit poll suggesting that Democratic turnout was low in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County. Everyone basks in the critical importance of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County. Anchor Megyn Kelly asks, “Is this just math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?” Rove assures her it’s real.

Anger: Shortly before the race is called, Sarah Palin says an Obama victory would be a “catastrophic setback to our economy” and lashes out at the public: “I just cannot believe, though, that the majority of Americans would believe that incurring more debt is good for our economy.”

As reality sinks in, Kelly takes out her frustration on liberal colleague Susan Estrich: “You, having managed the Michael Dukakis campaign, are familiar with the losing feeling.”

Bargaining: With all of the networks calling the race for Obama, including Fox News, Rove pleads for his fellow hosts to un-call Ohio, promising that forthcoming returns in the state will be favorable to Romney.

Kelly, followed by the cameras, heads back through the bowels of the building to see if the network’s analysts will change their minds. They won’t.

Depression: Ed Henry, reporting stone-faced from Obama headquarters as it erupts in jubilation: “The crowd is near pandemonium now, despite the fact that employment is hovering near 8 percent.”

Charles Krauthammer: “As a psychiatrist, I will offer to write prescriptions for anyone who needs them right now.”

Acceptance: Still waiting on this one. http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/opinion/perspectives/983279-465/oremus-
foxs-election-night-five-stages-of.html]

Some are obviously stuck in the "depression" phase...



Is there one for "rationalization"? Karl Rove kinda needs that right now, I think...



Do you think we'll ever actually SEE "acceptance"? I'm not holding my breath...

Ah, wait, Britain has the definition of "acceptance", maybe, and it might be what we're already hearing from some quarters:

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The third stage of grief is said to be bargaining, accepting that something has to change but seeking to delay or dilute what needs to be done. In politics, it's the half-hearted attempt at reform, often preceded by a party embarking on a "listening tour" of the country that has rejected them. But it rarely goes the whole way. William Hague's "fresh start" still ended with him campaigning in a Keep the Pound truck. In the current Republican case, you can hear it in the time-honoured admission that "we didn't get our message across" or "there is a perception problem". The party agrees to tweak appearances, but remains unwilling to undertake deep reform.
After depression – common after a string of losses, such as the five defeats in the popular vote the Republicans have suffered in the last six presidential elections – comes acceptance. In politics, that usually means a recognition that the country you seek to lead has changed and that, therefore, you have to change with it, no matter how painful that process will be. Much, much more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/09/republicans-five-s
tages-grief

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Well, gosh, seems I'm FAR from alone! For others' takes on the GOP Five Stages of Grief:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/06/paul-begala-on-the-fi
ve-stages-of-gop-grief.html
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xuxawc_charlie-cook-republicans-must-
feel-the-stages-of-grief_news
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/opinion/perspectives/983279-465/oremus-
foxs-election-night-five-stages-of.html

It's even all over YouTube:

On a more serious note, Charlie Cook had some good insights:

Well, sigh, it looks like I'm late coming to the party when it comes to the Five Stages of Grief. Now we can sit back and watch them play out...

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"O's sole purpose in life is to destroy this country. I fucking hate the bastard.... He's destroying the USA, that should be enough to make the rest of US cry. I'm not swayed by this man-child's crocodile tears. He's not my Holy of Holies. He's only divided us more. Color me not impressed, one bit.... He doesn't love this country. How could he ? His wife was NEVER proud of it, until HE was nominated by the Dems for Prez. And then HE said he wants to FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE it.... He loves taking from those HE thinks have made too much, and give to those he chooses, you know... to spread the WEALTH around.... him.

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Barry and ALOT of Demorats are going to lose BIG in November even if they get most of the minority vote, and then I will LAUGH AT YOUR PAIN!!"

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When we get Mitt into the President's Chair (which is an inevatibility now), I will vote for Dems in the congress in 2014. But seriously.... Mitt IS going to win in November. There is NO QUESTION about that

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Step by step, die-hard conservatives are confronting their grief over President Barack Obama's re-election.

But judging from blog posts and other public pronouncements, many remain stuck somewhere between denial and anger, very far from acceptance.

So far this week, prolific blogger Judson Phillips on Tea Party Nation has called for boycotting the Electoral College to prevent validating the election result and lamented the triumph of liberalism in destroying national unity and therefore America's greatness.

Over at RedState.com, a more sophisticated political analysis echoes calls by Republican leaders to better communicate conservative principles instead of softening or dropping them.

"There'll be no hand-wringing here and there sure as hell won't be any apologies for fighting for what we believe in," founder and CNN contributor Erick Erickson wrote Tuesday.

"Republicans are not successful when they run campaigns as the rich patrician out to make government more efficient so it can be more helpful," said another Erickson post Tuesday. "Republicans win with conservative populists who run as men who pulled themselves up in life fighting big government and its cronies."

Some acceptance has been necessary. On Tuesday, tea party favorite Rep. Allen West of Florida conceded in his race for re-election after initially alleging electoral fraud.

Little of the discussion focuses on the changing demographics of the country, identified by exit polls and many analysts as a major factor in both Obama's 2008 victory to become the nation's first African-American president and his re-election on November 6.

Overall, though, hard-core conservatives continue to reject that they are a minority in a country built on the core principle of liberty that they embrace.

Instead, the initial reactions and subsequent attempts to explain what happened sought scapegoats, such as what right-wing critics describe as a deficient Republican challenger in Mitt Romney, electoral theft or a liberal-dominated media industry that is part of a broader Marxist effort dating back decades to undermine the nation.

One writer ranted about what he alleged were "the sexual perversions and drug use of the Obamas," the president's "forged birth certificate" and "voter fraud of biblical proportions."

"Why are we talking secession instead of removing the New York Times and supporting citizens' Grand Jury indicments against this unbelievable treason, felonies and usurpations raining down on us on a daily basis?" said the post attributed to Royce Latham of Penngrove, California.

On Sunday, Phillips proposed an action plan -- getting Electoral College voters in states won by Romney to boycott the validation of the election result by the December 17 deadline.

"The 12th Amendment specifies the quorum or the necessary number of states for the College to act, is 2/3," Phillips wrote. "In other words, if 17 states refuse to participate, the Electoral College does not have a quorum."

Without a quorum to decide the presidency, he continued, the Republican-led U.S. House will decide and presumably choose Romney. Phillips acknowledged such a move would set a "dangerous precedent," but added that "the situation is so grim we really have no other choice."

"Does anyone really believe America can survive four more years of Barack Obama?" he wrote, saying the president will seek to "transform America from that shining city on a hill into a third world shantytown, with massive unemployment and a corrupt government."Much more at http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/20/politics/tea-party-grief/index.html?hpt=
hp_t2

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