Their strategy was 100% blunt force, they believed in their political worldview but went out enacting it by not really getting bogged down in academic debates about the merits of small government.The defining moments for them in the fight against Obama was healthcare and Benghazi. They fought healthcare by talking about death panels, socialism and being generally fact free. Talk radio was a cesspool most of the times, they drove the birther stuff for at least the first 4 years of the administration. They also used townhalls not to discuss issues as much as it was to be generally rowdy. After the repeal, they had no unification on what should replace ACA largely because it is easier to denigrate a policy without providing an alternative. They did that stupid repeal vote multiple times, they also got the Government close to a shutdown a bunch of times.
Obama came in with this idea of bringing Washington together if you remember his 08 campaign but the GOP saw right through it and denied him significant bipartisan victories. I bet if you polled people and asked them if they want Congress to work together they say yes because it sounds right but they will still vote for divisive people like Ted Cruz. Debates that have nothing but personal attacks get higher ratings than those that are strictly policy related, there was a circulation of the HW-Regan debate on immigration that would bore viewers to tears today. In the second half of Obama's administration the GOP ran with Benghazi, held more hearings and dedicated more man-hours to it than the 9/11 commission, they found nothing there too except spawn conspiracy theories. All these were enough for them to win substance free.
Some on the Left are running with this idea that a 100% focus on policy will do the trick based on survey results that are subject to many different forces. Many people in the survey business know that stated actions are not the same as enacted ones. Take the rich-poor gap, a survey response says people are "concerned" but that's all the information there is, does it mean they support repeal of the estate tax or higher tax rates on the rich. Quist was openly musing about a 90% tax rate in the Montana special election and it did not win him the state. Another interesting bit to illustrate this is that miner that confronted Hillary, Van Jones went back to him and asked him whether he would have voted for Hillary if she didn't talk about coal mines being our of business and he said no because she is pro-abortion.
and even if Russia didn't help him win the election all this shady dealings and business deals with them is fukking corrupt to the core, how can you trust a president when he's blatantly doing business under the table with an enemy?!?
