"Conservatives" on FreeRepublic and talk radio - Rush & Co - are in large part to blame. In 2008 they rallied around Romney to "Stop McCain", only to give legitimacy to this fraud for another run.
The idiocy of short term thinking!
Actually, I think Romney had a chance. If he would have publicly stated that in hindsight Romneycare was a mistake, promised he wouldn’t do it again, and promised to repeal Obamacare, I think more people would have forgiven his other flip-flops. But the bottom line is most people don’t trust him to repeal Obamacare because of his stubborn defense of Romneycare. I think that was his deal breaker and the reason he could never get over 25%.