At the end of the day, Romney was dealing with an atrophied support system. Had Conservative groups been allowed to form back in 2010 when this started, Romney wouldn't have been so far behind.
People kept asking where Romney's ad buys were when he was being attacked relentlessly by Obama. Why was Romney not responding?
The excuse was that Romney had to wait for the primaries to end to get general election funds released. I guess the real reason was that the tax-exempt issue groups that would have normally made up the advertising gap were stopped by the IRS from participating, leaving Romney alone to run ads against Obama.
-PJ
Romney's support from conservative groups was luke-warm at best. He went all etch-a-sketch after the primaries and alientated a lot of the base. IRS or nor IRS I don't see that being any different.