[SoConPubbie]

What such a candidate would gain in conservative votes, he or she would lose in more moderate votes.

Really?

And how do you support that GOP-e talking point with empirical evidence?

[x]

Look at the polls taken earlier in the campaign. So far as I can tell, Romney consistently polled better against Obama than any of the other candidates.

But how do you support your contention with empirical evidence? Where was that great bloc of conservative voters who didn't vote for Romney but who would vote for Bachmann or Perry or Cain or Gingrich or Santorum?

Would they really outweigh people who couldn't take Newt's divorces and abrasiveness, or Perry's poor debate performance, or Cain's sexual scandals, or Santorum's gaffes?

I can understand disaffected voters in places being put off by Romney's rich guy image, but they're balanced out by voters who would run from Gingrich or Santorum or Bachmann.

I don't see any of the actual existing candidates for the nomination (as opposed to some ideal candidate that doesn't exist in reality) doing any better against Obama than Romney did.

I wish one of the others had been nominated, because then it would disprove theories like yours which people cling to without much evidence.

It's not Ronald Reagan's America out there anymore, though I wish it was. There isn't some vast reserve of conservative Democrats out there waiting to flock to a conservative Republican. And a lot of that sold Republican support of previous years has drifted away.