Yes, Santorum or Gingrich would have energized the base far more than Romney does, but I remain convinced that the conservative base loves this country so much that they/we will do everything possible to defeat Obama in November, lack of exhuberance notwithstanding.
On the other side of the spectrum, Obama's demographic base - the young, blacks, Hispanics, single women - have been hit hardest (actually the truth this time! :) by the Obamaconomy's failure. In 2008, blacks came out in droves, as did the 18-25 demographic to vote for an idea, a hologram, an American Idol, and many of them now realize he doesn't exist. He's a failure. Those groups may still vote for him, but it was the sheer number of voters in those categories that put him over the top.
The Hispanic factor could be mitigated by the choice of Rubio, but Hispanics, as all other population groups, are suffering in this lousy economy. I can't verify it, but I've heard (maybe from Rush?) that even illegals are going back home to Mexico because the US economy stinks so bad.
As for Romney's wealth - one thing that he doesn't seem to be afraid to do is fight back, and bringing up the fact that Obama and his family have been living high on the hog at the taxpayer's expense while they are suffering can be exploited by the campaign. The 80+ rounds of golf won't help Obama either....
The Romney campaign can continue to point out that he EARNED his wealth, and that Obama got his by being a grifter.
I tend to be a hopeless optimist, however, and sometimes that doesn't pan out, but in this case, I think my optimism is well grounded.
I believe we need to shake off the disappointment that Romney won the nomination, and do what we can to do whatever is humanly possible to get this vile Marxist punk out of the White House.
That.......and PRAY for God's mercy on America. HIS will be done.
(BTW, I realized my last post #1225 had a typo, which is why I logged back in and then saw several pings to me. I meant to say that “I do not have a problem with ‘Anybody but Obama’ people — they include the vast majority of my Republican friends in my county who supported Rick Santorum.” What I wrote was “Anybody but Romney,” which would also be accurate, but it's not what I meant to say. My point was to say that most local Republicans I know, even if they were opposed to Romney, are willing to vote against Obama. We do have a fairly active Constitution Party group in our area but I don't see them realistically getting traction in a presidential campaign in a closely divided swing state like Missouri where it is quite possible that every single vote could count.)
Thanks to caww as well for your kind compliments at #1229 on what I wrote. And I agree, Elsie, on your assessment at #1246 of likely motives. I don't know many of these people or have a prior background reading their posts, so I'd rather be charitable if in doubt.
Back to ohioWfan: yes, some of Obama’s core constituencies, including blacks, Hispanics, and young voters, are seriously hurting. There are reasons why the Democratic Party is pushing student loan issues now, sending racial signals on the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case, and trying to make a “war against women” argument.
Also, I agree with you that lots of unhappy people in 2008 projected their idea of “change” onto a largely blank slate, and now that they're seeing what the “change” involves, they're disillusioned. As conservatives, we can only hope that people have changed their minds about the nature of Obama’s “change.”
For the sake of the conservative movement in the short term, probably the best possible scenario out of our current bad situation would be an extremely narrow Romney victory with lots of conservatives in “safe Republican” or “safe Democrat” states casting protest votes for third parties, making crystal clear to Romney that he doesn't have a mandate to push a left-of-center agenda.
I think Romney will do whatever he thinks it will take to get elected, and I'm extremely unhappy with the trial balloons he's been sending up about a “move to the middle.” If we don't hold his feet the fire we're going to have an awful mess if he's elected, and an even worse mess with four more years of President Obama if Romney is defeated.