“Real conservatives” have had three long years and a months long primary season to come up with a viable candidate to lead the GOP in November 2012. They failed. No one who put his arse on the line was every quite good or conservative enough. Why would anyone think that some magical knight in shining armor is going to blaze onto the scene now? And who, pray tell, might that ideal candidate be?
In a sense, you're right - and maybe this will teach is a lesson. Shoot, I'd settle for the 80% friend right now, instead of the 5% "friend" that the GOP nominated.
Conservatives DID mess up in demanding absolute purity from the candidates - especially when nobody could agree on what absolute purity was anywise, therefore FR (and other places, I'd imagine) simply factionalised into a set of "my candidate or the highway" bickering. Now were stuck with a GOP candidate who really SHOULD get the highway treatment, but now we won't, because everybody's so durn afraid on Obama that they can't think straight to see their way out of the box they're in.