Romney’s loss is proof once again that moderates are guaranteed of victory. A safe candidate is one that is lambasted by the media for being too conservative. Those candidates get people excited.
Weirdly enough, Romney was criticized by the media for being too conservative. I've run through a lot of theories about why Romney failed. What I've settled on is his persona. If Romney had the regular guy personality of GWB, he would have won. Blue collar Rust Belt Reagan Democrats would have turned out for him. His patrician air and comments about firing people and the 47% ultimately put the kibosh on his candidacy. Nobody wants to elect his immediate boss for President. Next plutocrat who runs needs to tone down the patrician stuff - it sank Kerry in 2004 and it sank Romney in 2012.