[flintsilver7]

Well, the problem in the last two primaries has been that the “moderate” gets all of the moderate and independent votes (and some of the conservative votes) while the actual conservative candidates split the votes of the actual party base. If this primary had been Gingrich against Romney from the start, Newt would’ve destroyed Romney running away.

The same thing happened to some degree in 1996 as well.

[Defiant]

I don't think numbers did conservatives in. You had Bachmann at first, who was leading when people were against Newt and everyone else (Cain, Santorum) was a joke. Imagine if she had RNC people backing her like they did Romney, and if money started flowing, and you had some momentum build. Instead, what happened? She was ridiculed, attacked and out-moneyed by the country clubbers, with assistance by the MSM-e, who love to help the country clubbers get the nomination.

So, next you had the country clubbers convince Pawlenty to get out. Why? Because he would have taken votes from Mittens. Then they went after Daniels and his wife for the same reason. Wanna play with Mitt's nomination? Here's what you'll get! So Daniels says no.

The next conservative to get a lot of attention was Perry when he got in. He got Alinskyed. Like Palin, they made a successful Governor of a state seem like an idiot, because he talks almost as bad as Obama when the teleprompter is off.

Imagine if he got treated the way another Texas governor was treated, GW Bush. Back in 2000, the RNC was in love with W. He was the one who got to do the negative ads in South Carolina, and it worked. If Perry was not ridiculed by the GOPe, and stuck with a process that holds Texas' primary in the summer, he could have hung on long enough to get rid of Mittens.

Next up was Cain. We know what happened there. Bill Clinton would have survived it. But not a conservative.

Then it was Newt's turn, and he was on fire following some debates. He won South Carolina. Was on track to win Georgia and mabye Florida. So it was time to concentrate on him, and boy did they. All GOPe guns a-blazin at Newt.

That left Santorum. He was hot for a while, too, til the tried and true formula made him a woman hating religious zealot.

It could have been Mitt against any one of these candidates alone, and the final result would have been the same, given the money, RNC suport, MSM support and the process of making the nomination go through liberal states for the front-loaded part of the campaign.

No, it was not numbers or quality, it was a stacked deck and a party that does not want the rabble in charge. Us rabble ought to understand that.