If Romney is down by 3+ points at the end of October, I would tell conservatives not to waste their votes on the hand-jammed pick of the GOP-e and to vote the conservative candidate Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party in order to send a resounding message.
Chuck Baldwin, the last Constitution Party candidate, garnered .15% of the vote nationally. For a moment, let's assume Virgil Goode catches fire and increases the Constitution party tally by 500%; that still leaves him with a resounding .90% of all votes cast, or somewhat less than 1,000,000 votes out of a likely total of at least 120,000,000 votes cast nationally. What kind of a "protest" is that going to register?
As regards the RCP averages: if you do an average of some really bad polls, you get really bad results. The Washington Post/ABC News polls, for example, assumed a voter affiliation breakdown that was 32% Democrat, 22% Republican; The actual turnout in 2010 was 35% Democrat, 35% Republican. That poll was obviously manipulated to produce a desired result, yet RCP includes it in their average.
I am not voting for Virgil Goode to send a message. I am voting for him because out of the 3 people running, he is the best. Romney has little influence on whether I vote for Goode or not. Romney and Obama are basically twins in most issues.