President Barack Obama will be sworn in to another term next week. Republicans will have a tough time even watching the ceremony because they hoped their 2010 congressional victories would carry forward to 2012. Now they are concocting explanations and excuses for what they see as Mitt Romney's snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

They should realize that it was economics that sank Romney. His crucial problem was his campaign's failure to make a sufficiently convincing case on the money issues.

Most postmortems have focused on the demographics of the defeat. Hispanics increased to 10% of the electorate from 8% in 2008, and went 71% to 27% for Obama. African-Americans maintained their 13% share of the electorate from 2008, and went 93% for Obama, down slightly from his 2008 level of 95%. Romney also shared a continuing Republican vulnerability among women, trailing Obama by 11 percentage points. Romney did slightly better than John McCain did in 2008: The Arizonan trailed Obama among women by 13 percentage points.

But none of Romney's demographic defeats are as significant as the electoral potential Romney missed on money issues...

...Republicans, especially those who think they made a good case on the economy, have been tempted to theorize that, because Obama won the election, the economy was unimportant. No, the economy was crucial—Obama's team knew it and effectively made its case to just enough voters...

...Perhaps the Romney campaign was distracted by a target-rich environment. Republicans continued to fight Obamacare; they tried to raise doubts about Obama's tactics in Libya; they tried to arouse anger about energy prices. Whatever the tactical explanation, the Romney campaign did not make the case on the money issues...