Who would have done better than Romney?
ANYONE!
Any of his challengers had a better shot than him, I was saying this back in April.... of 2011.
The election was fundamentally about the electorate. We get the government we deserve...not WE here, but the American people in general.
Candidates do matter, but would Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry or Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann etc, etc, etc, done BETTER than Mitt Romney?
Would more women and minorities have voted for our side if you just replaced Mitt with one of the others or even Sarah Palin or someone else who didn’t run?
I see no evidence to support that conclusion. I didn’t support Mitt originally but saw that he put himself into it in a way that was admirable. If people believe that all he had to do was expose the extremist Obama and natter on about Benghanzi and he would’ve won, they’re kidding themselves. THIS electorate would’ve made him lose by even more if he had done so.
I’m fundamentally agreeing with your post.
This nation is starkly divided. An electorate that is starkly divided has tipped toward the dark side. Romney Ryan are too good for this electorate. This American electorate that “won” last night does not deserve to tie the shoelaces of the losing candidates.
If any “sat home” or voted third party because Romney Ryan weren’t pure enough for them, they, too contributed to the downfall of mainstreet conservativism by believing somehow that this “winning” electorate would have voted rock ribbed conservative if only other candidates had been chosen.
If mainstreet conservativism can’t win today, rock ribbed conservatism isn’t going to win, by an even larger margin.
If they feared Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would take away their contraception, or they voted Obama because of his skin color, or whatever the nitwit excuse, there’s no way a Sarah Palin or another rock ribbed conservative would have done anything but WORSE.