If the Republican party had nominated a "true conservative" they would have suffered a much larger loss than they did.

They are so far out of step with what the majority of Americans want, that it isn't even funny.

They'll never get it. It'll take a couple of cycles to wash that crap out of our collective hair.

Go further right. Haven't pissed off enough people yet? I'm sure that will help woo women and minorities.

that give them so much hope. We have to stay on the ball and boot the rest of tea baggers out in 2014 otherwise the crazy cycle will keep spinning in their mind.

THey claimed they were "grassroots americans not afilliated with any party." They were egged on by GOP members of congress, still claiming they were independent. Michele Bachman let the cat out of the bag with her "we need to embrace them." Now the teahadists have CLAIMED the GOP. Look what they did to Richard Lugar and Olympia Snowe. It is now the Teapublican Party. I'm not sure the moderate wing even has a pulse.

Talk about low info voters!

It is as if Ford ran against Carter in 1980. Romney was a truly terrible candidate and absolutely uninspiring ideologically. I was very pleased when he won his primary campaign and knew he would go the way of his she-analogue Meg Whitman.

demographics favorable toward liberal Democrats were declining. Now the demographics favorable toward the conservative Republicans are in decline - particularly a brand of conservative Republicans that are intrinsically hostile toward religious and ethnic minorities, socially liberal and multiculturally minded youth, more secularly minded people and independent minded women. There are just not enough fundamentalist Christians and angry white men with sycophantic wives to comprise a sustainable and viable conservative majority anymore.

Upon reflection... If we somehow had as close a repeat as historically possible of the 1972 election, McGovern would do much, much better today. It's a matter of a very, very different electorate.

The question is, would they have done better with another candidate more along the lines of Rick Santorum, or another candidate more along the lines of, say, Gerald Ford? And this reveals the GOP's true weakness: a candidate more attuned to the desires of the people who vote in Republican primary elections--Santorum, Gingrich, Herman Cain if he could have kept his dick in his pants--isn't electable in November when the Democrats and Unaffiliateds start playing; a candidate who can win the general election will never make it that far because Republican primary voters won't accept him.