I say: Fred ran a crappy campaign. He had good positions but articulated them poorly. He didn't do well in the debates. He entered the campaign too late, and didn't start raising money early enough. He didn't contest early states, the critcal way you overcome a lack of money and name recognition.
My claim is that if Fred had only campaigned as diligently as Romney or Huckabee or even McCain he'd still be in the race. Instead he ran a terrible campaign. Guilianni is the other big underperformer in the race, for some of the same reasons. He ignored the conventional wisdom. (Not a good conservative thing to do, usually). He was wrong. He could easily have finished high in New Hampshire. The "all in" in Florida strategy never made sense. But, that at least was only one big error.
Fred made many errors and in the end it was reasonable for voters to decide that he didn't look organized enough to be POTUS.
In my opinion it had nothing to do with his positions on the issues. I don't think most GOP primary voters are looking for give-aways. I don't think most of the other GOP candidates have promised give-aways. (Though Romney did go there in Michigan about reviving the auto industry. And was savaged for it by many.)
We voters probably deserve blame for some stuff, but Fred's exit is not one of those things.
Who's doing well? Not the ones who have solid positions on anything -- it's the ones who do the best job of presenting their roses and chocolates.
Who's to blame for that? It's the Republican voters, that's who. If they can't expend the brain cells to look beyond roses and chocolates, they deserve whatever the hell they get.