It’s been five days since the election and binders have been written about what happened and why. The day after the election Governor Romney held a conference call with major donors (that CNN and other news organizations joined) about what happened. This was his chance to be magnanimous, thank his supporters, and move on. That’s what he did in his concession speech.

Instead, he stated that President Obama won the election by pandering to the voters. He said (and this comes from multiple sources on a few different phone calls):

• What the president, president’s campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government, and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote
• With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest, was a big gift
• Free contraceptives were very big with young college-aged women
• And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008

The best part of this? I don’t even need to react because other Republicans already have.

Newt Gingrich said this: I just think it’s nuts. I mean, first of all, it’s insulting. The job of a political leader in part is to understand the people. If we can’t offer a better future that is believable to more people, we’re not going to win.

Piyush (Bobby) Jindal: [A winning strategy] does not involve insulting [voters] and saying their votes were bought. I’m proud to have campaigned for him across the country, but I absolutely reject what he said. Look, we as the Republican Party have to campaign for every single vote. If we want people to like us, we have to like them first. And you don’t start to like people by insulting them and saying their votes were bought.

Lindsay Graham: Rhetoric like this keeps digging a hole for the Republican party. We’re in a big hole. We’re not getting out of it by comments like [Romney’s]. When you’re in a hole, stop digging. He keeps digging.

To this I add only this: Justice is not a gift. Providing people what they need is the role of government. I’m grateful Romney lost.

PS: You can still order Romney campaign stuff on his webpage.