I was hoping for a strong conservative who could win, but after Perry fizzled (at least Romney could remember five points) I couldn't see any of the remaining conservative candidates having a real chance. We saw how much mudslinging they did against Romney, totally bogus. What would they have done to Newt? Santorum, Bachmann, Cain, Pawlenty...they would have had a more fired-up base (except maybe Pawlenty) but would have done worse with the independent voters than Romney did. Only Cain has a record of achievement to put up alongside Romney's and he dropped out because he couldn't answer the allegations about his private life...plus he had no experience in electoral politics.
With a halfway honest media, or if Christie hadn't stabbed him in the back, Romney might have pulled it off. If he made any mistakes it was from being too cautious (Benghazi especially--Victor Davis Hanson was lamenting that a few days ago). But the media that buried his being endorsed by Lech Walesa and turned his foreign trip into a series of supposed gaffes was ready to pounce on anything he said about Benghazi to protect the Dear Leader.
I think the closest analogy in American history to this election would be if Aaron Burr had been chosen in 1801 over Jefferson.
Interesting perspective, and you are certainly correct re: 64 and 74. I guess I’m just, to put it mildly, less than sanguine about the future implications of the demographic and cultural changes we are beset with. I fear we are well down Hayek’s road, driven along by masses who are not only incapable of seeing where it leads, but utterly uninterested as long as the right inducements are offered. But then I have a knack for seeing the underbelly, so maybe there’s some hope.