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Two things would come of this.

First, it would ensure a loss. There are no candidates available who have enough money to compete, who already have a 50-state campaign organization, and who are popular enough to be a consensus replacement. They would enter hopelessly behind, the average voters would wonder how stupid the republicans were to pick a candidate and then replace them, and the democrats would be excited at the possibility of a blow-out election.

Second, the loss would be blamed on the tea party and conservatives, and rightly so. The Republican party establishment would never trust a conservative again, knowing that we wouldn’t support the candidate who won the primary. And the average republican wouldn’t pick a conservative next time, since we couldn’t get a conservative elected in the worst economy in decades.

On the bright side, there is absolutely zero chance that anything like this could happen, even with everything the Ron Paul supporters have pulled to get their fake Romney supporters onto slates of delegates. There won’t even be a final vote, in the end they will call for and receive a nomination by acclamation.

Heck, even some of the Ron Paul supporters will likely decide to support the ticket, now that Paul Ryan is part of the equation. They won’t get conservative delegates to join them, because of Ryan.

I’m not a big fan of the Ryan pick, just because I was looking for more executive leadership, and hate to see him leave the house because there’s hard work to be done there. But he’ll be a great VP.

I have worked hard to stay out of these disscussions concerning supporting Romney or not. But you pose an interesting point.

You stated, "The Republican party establishment would never trust a conservative again, knowing that we wouldn’t support the candidate who won the primary."

My question, which I answered for myself long ago, is why should conservatives ever trust the Republican party, managed by their established leaders, again?

If the rank and file of the GOP support the GOP-E, why should any Constitutional Conservative find home in the Republican Party? Of course if many of them are Conservatives In Name Only, then the "I support the Republican candidate simply because he/she is not a Democrat" really takes on a huge message that the GOP really doesn't want "Conservatives" in their mix any longer! If that is the case, which I believe it is, why shouldn't "Conservatives" look for a new home or build one thmeselves?

Just food for thought, and I don't really want to get into a huge back and forth about it.