You can't sit there with your teeth in your mouth and your face hanging out, and tell me FEWER Republicans showed up in 2012 than in 2008. Something happened to the actual Republican votes.
They were stolen!
Monday night, Mitt had overflowing open air stadium crowds & 0m0slem couldn't fill a concert hall with Springsteen.
Shenanigans!
Conservatives understood, from Day One, that this would prove the inevitable end result of attempting to unseat a doctrinaire Chicago liberal with a doctrinaire Massachusetts liberal.
"Realistic" Republicans, on the other hand, insisted that they simply knew better, of course.
We now have two consecutive presidential losses, demonstrating with inarguable clarity precisely what happens when a political party attempts to "win" while simultaneously warring, idiotically, against its own base.
Either learn, or don't. Reality sweeps placidly along, regardless.