Pile it higher and deeper! Romney ran on a conservative and traditional American values agenda. He lost. That's all there is to that.
Stop blaming the candidate, the blame lies with the voters. They bought Obama's campaign of fear, they believe our misery is still Bush's fault, they believe Obama just needs a little more time to get America back on track and he's the first black POTUS in history.
No candidate could overcome the wildcard of that last fact.
The character of the electorate is also changing and radical racist elements stubbornly refuse to learn the hard lessons of the CA GOP. We must learn from history or be doomed to repeat it. Immigration MUST be reformed but in a way that there is outreach and understanding.
It could already be too late but that's no reason not to try. We need to marginalize and resist the crazies.
I'm afraid you are right from everything I have seen here in Virginia.