What you say is true, but we need to get a candidate to win a primary, first. Waiting till the election and and writing someone in or not voting helps defeat our cause, pure and simple. We did not put a candidate up that could win the primary. Perry was our most conservative, and with the help of the “no one is good enough” people plus the media, he was put aside pretty quickly.
IMHO, Romney getting elected may put the conservative movement at a standstill for 4 years. Obama getting re-elected and retaining those in his administration for 4 more years will set the conservative movement back all the way to the stone age.
The chance of that happening with the current GOP system is somewhere between slim and none, with none in the lead.