You might start with the fact that Bush is too far to the right to win a national election again, in the current political climate.
Then you might look at the fact that McCain beats Hillary by 8 points, and Obama by 6, in recent likely voter polls. Mitt loses by 15 and 20 respectively.
Nor are those results surprising, since Mitt is clearly to Bush's right and McCain is clearly to his left. The distance between them spans at least 20% of the electorate and maybe as much as 30%. Who don't trust the left on the war of basic patriotism, but haven't been convinced of conservative domestic positions since the Gingrich era.
Half the public voted for Al Gore - when we didn't have a long drawn out unpopular war around our necks, as a party.
Pretending the whole country is 10-20 points of the right of Bush, which is where it would have to be for Mitt to be positioned where the median voter is, is just hopelessly delusional.
We aren't a huge natural majority, folks. Yes we should try to change that. Yes if we had more policy successes, we might pull the country 10% or so our way.
The difference between the public's opinion of Ford in 1976 and of Reagan in 1984 - defeat of a centrist Republican vs. landslide of a conservative one - was only 10% of voters changing their actual votes, and perhaps 20-30% changing their preferred philosophy within the right.
We face a shift at least that big in the other direction since the Gingrich revolution.
Dole was a moderate and he got utterly creamed. Bush ran far to his left and barely got half. He faced the most liberal nominee of modern times, on a platform of defeatism and hostility to basic patriotism, and barely pulled it out by a couple of points. Since then the war has dragged on and he has ripped his own party in half over immigration. And you expect us to *gain* votes by moving 20-30 points *right* of where we barely held, last time?
What are you people smoking?
It is perfectly sensible to dislike where the party is, or where the country is headed. But to be shocked or surprised by it, not to understand it, not to see why McCain is winning, you have to be so arrogant your brains have fallen out.
The reason McWhacked won those early primaries, was because of crossover Demonkat and so-called Independent voters in the states that allow that, trying to pick the best candidate for us to lose in the general election. In Florida, it was the senior vote that gave McWhacked the edge over Romney.
Why do you think the left-wing media wants the GOP to nominate McCain?? It is certainly not because they want him to, or think he can win. They want us to nominate him because they know he is a sure loser to either Democrat. None of the Left-wing media will support McWhacked in the general election, in fact, they will tear him to pieces as soon as the primaries are over.
Go ahead and drink the McWhacked kool-aid, and vote for him if you like. I am indifferent. But you will NOT convince myself and others on this forum who have made up our minds otherwise, to vote for a Democrat with an R after his name. I live in Arizona, and I have never ever voted for McCain, and I never will, because he is a Liberal, and belongs in the Democrat party.