I do believe it's third party time. The GOP has been serving us up RINO presidential nominees since 1988. And as much as I liked Reagan, he did not do us any favors by choosing RINO George Bush as his running mate in 1980. (The VP slot on the ticket matters!)
Sarah Palin/Allen West is my dream 3rd Party ticket - that I would crawl through broken glass for - but there are other combinations that can get the job done in 2012 and it's not too late. At this juncture in 1992, nobody knew who Ross Perot was but by June, he was leading both Bush and Clinton in most polls. If not for the Perot campaign imploding and some rather odd behavior on the part of Perot that has still not been explained, I think he could have pulled it out. As it was, he still ended up with 20% of the vote which tells you even back then how hungry the American people were for a legitimate third party candidate.
Whether or not a legitimate third party option arises, I am going to take your advice on the downticket races as our best shot to minimize or even neutralize the damage of Romney presidency or a second Obama term is to INCREASE GOP majority in the House and GAIN GOP majority in the Senate by electing as many Tea Party candidates as we can.