Never, ever, in my political awareness lifetime, has there been a Presidential nominee so horrendous, so incredibly unqualified, and so badly managed as Mitt Romney. To me this is a fact.
And that is probably enough to get President Obama re-elected.
But that is not enough. No, not nearly enough to give the Republicans what they deserve.
This year the Republican party is deserves nothing. Think about it.
The Republican party of 2012 has eclipsed all other bad behavior in the history of American electoral democracy. They have moved out of the realm of being a group of people with a philosophy of economics and government that I vehemently disagree with.
If there is a way to break the laws of the land on a conceptual level, the GOP has clearly found it.
They have become, in short, a party that is morally undeserving of wielding any power in this country.
They have attempted to legislate away the right for women to control their own bodies precisely and only because they are women. Unacceptable.
Then there's the vile racism. Some purely are racist, some coddle it for the strategic benefits, and some abet it by not speaking out against it. Regardless of each individual role: Unacceptable.
They have made national issues out of our most private individual rights, and have done nothing but attempt to take those away. Unacceptable.
In Congress, they intentionally thwarted every attempt at compromise and brought the government to a standstill during the weakest economic recovery since World War II, and thereby kept their constituents out of work - just to have a weapon in their attempt to take back the White House. Unacceptable.
They created vapid and mean-spirited lies to attempt to stop a health care bill that SAVES LIVES. Unacceptable.
They have legally attempted to suppress the right to vote among populations that generally would not vote for them, thus crushing our Democracy. Unacceptable.
They have lied - and not just about policy - but about the very fiber of their campaign, crying about class warfare while dividing this country along a myriad of lines and stoking resentment and hate as a way to win votes. Unacceptable.
The Republican party does not deserve to have control over anything. Not now.
They are unfit and undeserving of power.
So, beating them in a close race is not good enough. As a country, we need to speak up loudly and clearly and crush them at the ballot box. The Republicans need a cold electoral smack in the face - a drubbing so severe - to understand that political behavior like this can never, ever, be allowed to happen again. It's not who we are as a country or as a people. It jeopardizes the fabric of our society.
President Obama is a great man and a great President. So is Vice President Biden. We have terrific candidates around the country. That matters.
Getting a mandate for our party, our philosophy and our candidates also matters. It matters a lot.
But even more important is the message and the mandate against bad behavior. That when you lose, it's not OK to break the spirit or the letter of the foundations of our Democracy in order to reap revenge and regain power.
Simply put - the Republicans don't deserve it. They don't deserve any of it. And that matters most of all.