Oh, spare us the sanctimony. Romney WAS a lousy candidate. There WAS fraud. And ORCA was a fiasco. One reason Bush won in 2004 is that the GOP had a good GOTV program that year. This was the GOP's election to win and they blew it across the board.
Yep, it started with a very weak field.
I do think that had Rove taken the $300 and run the GOTV this year, it could well have been a different outcome.