Your premise is valid, but there's another factor that I believe played a far greater role in the final outcome of the Republican primary, and it's that the right Reagan Republican never stepped forward to run.
All of the candidates who stood to the right of Romney had their plus points, but none of them had the total package of conservative idealism, smarts, courage, executive experience, charisma, outspokenness, and eloquence that would have (and could have) eliminated Mitt.
The stars were perfectly aligned for that person to step forward, but for whatever reason, she didn't. Had she done so, she would have walked to victory in the primary and the general without breaking a sweat. She would have also gone on to do the exact things in office that are needed to turn this country around.
Of this, I have no doubt.
The stars were perfectly aligned for that person to step forward, but for whatever reason, she didn’t.
***I think she chose the welfare of her family over her own political ambitions. Plus, she makes a lot more money now at Fox. However, by not running, she has entered into an irrelevance death spiral.
You guys don't remember that she had played it all perfectly and was building to an announcement although the media and the GOP was against her she was pulling off something that we had never seen, but then suddenly, Rick Perry stepped in and squashed her momentum just long enough to keep her out of 2012.
Perry mysteriously and ineffectively jumping in, neutered the Palin effort towards beating the bipartisan system that was united against her.