Ann Coulter used to be a conservative. Writing all those books got to her head. If she thinks Romney is a conservative, then Obama is a moderate. And on many issues, Romney is well to the left of Obama. If the American people don’t understand that yet, they will soon enough. Conservatives do, which is why they don’t want the GOP to nominate him. For every one, except for Coulter, its that obvious.
People who believe that think that the way you win elections is to keep to the broad middle as a "moderate" because that will gather more votes than taking a position at either end of the spectrum.
They are WRONG!
The American political continuum doesn't exist in 2 dimensions. Just it's 3 dimensional manifestation shows that it's a BIMODAL SADDLE.
It has two poles around which organized factions, or socio/politico/economic classes gravitate.
There is not a whole lot of active political life outside of the two poles ~ one of which is centered roughly on the Democrat party and the other of which is centered on the Republican party.
This structure is forced on us by the existence of SINGLE MEMBER DISTRICTS and STATES (which pretty much act like larger single member districts).
Add to that FIRST PAST THE POST standards for winning an election in one of those districts, and there's no way out of the two party structure, top to bottom.
The way you win in a bimodal saddle is you must first retain your base and then attract a significant number from a faction otherwise part of the structure of the other base.
How you lose an election in a Bimodal saddle is you give up on too many of your base's core values and seek to attract votes from the other party by subverting their own positions.
Back in 1964 we had TWO CANDIDATES, Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson, who both understood the dynamics of the bimodal saddle. Johnson held his base with the bloody shirt of JFK and attracted Republican voters from around the nation who were fearful of war. He didn't just pick up a region not otherwise voting for Democrats ~ he got a FACTION to switch.
But Goldwater was absolutely correct in how the political picture was organized ~ there was no normal curve with everybody in the middle.
Later Ronald Reagan approached the electorate the same way ~ this time he held the Republican base, much as Johnson had held the Democrat base, and then picked up Southerners ~ and not just Southerners in the South, but Southerners who'd moved to the North!
Political demographers had been imagining such a combination since the Louisiana Territory had begun organizing into states!
Again, hold your base, go after one of the other guy's factions, ignore the fringe ~ which is, at most 1 or 2 percent.
Romney's, and Coulter's approach to attracting votes is a guaranteed loser ~ first, they'll lose the Republicans, and you can see that in the 80% who consistently select anyone but Romney. Secondly you won't really attract any general selection of Democrats because you have nothing to offer them "in general". Doing that gives up on the idea of going after one of the Democrat factions.
Ann's worldview of politics is simply wrong. Else she'd understand that Romney is a guaranteed loss, as is Johnson, as is Huntsman, as is Paul, as are some of the others who fail to understand the Republican base!
Going Liberal doesn't serve Republican interests.
So far I've not gotten through to Ann but I got to Morris and Cain, and a large number of other people who do bother to think about political logistics in their spare time.
She'll come around eventually ~ she's not ineducable. Romney won't. Wrong class. Wrong occupation/career. Wrong experience. Guy never once thought of how it was he won in a state where there are no Republicans. Brown knows ~ he subverted several Democrat factions and with the very small Republican base intact, he won.