We tend to get caught up on personalities and missteps. But structural factors are always helpful to return to.
Two worth considering.
It’s hard to run as the anti-Obamacare candidate when you inspired the law and were the first to enact it.
Conservative economics posits that tax policy which advantages the very wealthy helps the entire economy by fostering capital accumulation which leads to economic growth and jobs. But it’s hard to be the standard-bearer for that argument when you personify extreme wealth and the advantages of wealth.
Tax returns, Swiss bank accounts, fumbles over mandates and Obamacare, mammoth IRAs, fights with Harry Reid, non-partisan studies that show your policies give everybody but the top 5% a tax increase. All just different emanations of the same two underlying problems.
