You get to control foreign and defense policy; your (and your appointees') implementation of domestic policy has far reaching effects, and you get to make a lot of nominations, especially the Supreme Court.

A failing presidential candidates hurts other races too.

The other candidates the Repubs considered would have been even worse car crashes, in their own distinct ways. That party had just run out of electable candidates, due to their far-right swing.

and now they are dealing with it...by folding in on themselves

They had a weak field, partly because Obama is a strong incumbent and everyone knows it, even with the economy, but also because the GOP doesn't have any credible potential presidents.

It didn't help that each of their terrible candidates predictably fell over one another trying to stake out the most toxic positions possible in order to attract the favor of the most fearful, hateful right-wing shitbags, which is the core of the modern Republican Party.

There's nothing presidential about a party that has no defensible intellectual core, which panders to the least educated, most fanciful bunch of ignorami in the country.

Nothing about the modern Republican Party holds up to even glancing scrutiny. The slightest bit of critical thought or surface-scratching collapses their ideas on the economy, geopolitics, etc.

Romney's 47% remark is a perfect example. He's so dumb he doesn't realize that at least a third of those people had intended to vote for him. He thinks that everyone who relies on government is an Obama voter.

But it's like that everywhere you look, from global warming to creationism vs. evolution, austerity vs. Keynes, war vs. peace, Republican ideas are demonstrably flawed. Anyone with half a clue can see that.

They just loaded all of the clowns into one car and let it drive itself off of a cliff. It isn't like the GOP doesn't have viable candidates. None of those wanted to go to the scrap heap. They let all of the morons take the fall.

I hope I am not seeing overconfidence here.

The thing about the Polls I am worried about is the Bradley effect. With the number of people who keep their racism deep down inside them they might have lied to the pollsters.

The racists wouldn't have voted for Obama anyway and I doubt it's all that hard to just say they are Rmoney supporters.

an opportunity to see just how much their money could buy. They really woukld have been thrilled if it made a difference but so far it hasn't.

I have a friend in Ohio who says she gets 2-3 robo-calls an hour. All the money is doing is annoying people with endless adsa and phone calls. People have mute buttons on their TVs these days so they can turn off a lot of it.

They are all a result of the same GOP policy of letting a few billionaires and think tanks gain total control of the party. It is also a result of the American business CEO culture where the top of American business are divorced from any real knowledge of their industry. They are people the went to school to be corporate front office people and thus not people actually involved in the industry. Romney shows the classic total detachment from the American economy, business, social, political interests that most Americans want, understand and feel. Gone is any real input by average people. Gone are any real stances on real issues that would impact the average voter. The party is composed of girfters and the delusional corporate investment class wealthy. Romney isn't a mistake, he is a guy that reminds the real power brokers in the GOP of themselves. He is who they are, and who they think Americans want.