I welcome disagreement, and the voter fantasy angle is no substitute for serious analysis and programs. If you (or others) have a different concept, I would be interested. From your comments, we don’t seem all that far apart. Defense of the Constitution is certainly part of the conservative ideal (some Republicans are conservatives).
The conservative rebellion of 2010 fits the mind-set I was trying to describe — people who believe in merit, self-reliance, and heroic action stood up for the Constitution against creeping totalitarianism, even against their own party “leadership”. Your list of Romney’s shortcomings shows failures to adequately embody or project the ideal I described.
I agree that Romney should have attacked Obama and Obamacare relentlessly on Constitutional grounds (and economic grounds, to help idiots understand why they are unemployed). Reagan won broad support by using Libertarian rhetoric (even if he didn’t govern that way) and being consistent for decades. Tough talk with a smile, and believing what you are saying, works.
Obama is of course correct on one thing. The U.S. Constitution IS a charter of negative liberties: it recognizes the pre-existing natural rights of Man, and establishes and limits the purpose of government to securing those rights. Obama despises this, and wants a Constitution with “positive” guarantees (like food, housing, clothes, “freedom from fear”, employment/minimum income, free education, etc....), with government redistributing wealth in a totalitarian collectivist welfare state. This would seem an easy target to go after, but explaining Obama’s philosophical hatred of our Constitution requires a more complicated discourse than our campaign system capable of. Obama voters either already hate the Constitution, are too dumb to understand, or would think guaranteed free stuff sounds credible. Republican candidates should at least try.
We old ,white guys (speaking for myself of course)ought to style ourselves as cutting edge, in that we do understand, somewhat, the Constitution and what it’s about. They used to say, prejudicially IMHO, that “Nobody knows if Christianity works, because it’s never been tried.” It has never been more imperative to force public policy arguments to be framed around the Constitution because there’s never been, again IMHO, a President more focused on underminihg it.