People keep repeating this erroneous info. They are still counting votes. Romney is probably going to end up with more votes than McCain. As of right now, Romney is trailing McCain's 2008 total by 655k.
McCain was running against Bush and a black Diety, and history.
Mitt was running against Jimmy Carter’s 2nd term, yet the GOP-e is trying to give the impression that they should be compared to each other as equal elections.
OK, so now it’s -655k.
Romney STILL lost voters, at current count.
Maybe he’ll surpass McCain, maybe not.
But he wasn’t running against McCain and still couldn’t make up the difference.
I’m not completely blaming Romney. He fought a LONG, tough primary with a lot of debates. All that time, Obama and a sycophantic press were free to assault him and whoever else appeared to be in the lead. Media corruption, to be sure. Romney’s fault was not fighting back at every charge/ad at every opportunity. He was too focused on a primary that had simply too many candidiates and too many debates. In the end, the looked like a default selection.
More than anything, I blame the electorate. Either they fell for the cult of personality, the free stuff, or just can’t stop hating “old, rich, white guys”.