I mean -- come on, folks. Having 45% turnout in your own freaking party in a major presidential election is like having 55% of the employees at a Ford pickup truck plant showing up driving Chevy Volts.
That McCain got more GOP votes than Romney was shocking to me. Then it hit me, GOP turned out in 2008 because of Sarah Palin, not John McCain. I think Newt or Bachmann would have brought more turn out as the front runner. I think the Ryan pick was good, but they didn't use him enough. Republicans will take the wrong message from this, and again go more moderate. But that will only guarantee less conservative turnout and they'll never compete with the Dems on the redistribution game. I don't think the GOP will recover from their disaster when Bush and GOP controlled everything and did not scrap the tax code and IRS, kill the Departments of Education, Agriculture, EPA, and privatize SS like they were put there to do. Republicans don't trust their candidates anymore and won't support marginally conservative candidates.