I agree with you but with a small difference. Mitt was the killer, not because he was a Mormon, but because he was a moderate. He was afraid of offending anyone. Look at it this way, when was Mitt riding highest? Right after the first debate, when Hussein was shown up as the arrogant empty vessel that he is. After that it was downhill. The 0bama media and sycophants went to work in every state (not just swing) and negatively campaigned. Even here in the people's republic of CT, I was seeing 0bama ads. Not one for Mitt. Nothing from Mitt articulating free market, supply side pro growth positions. Not even a strong condemnation on 0bamacare. The GOP should have been introducing bills attacking specific pieces of 0bamacare legislation throughout the campaign(i.e. taxes on wheelchairs, tax on stock transfers etc). Make the dems in congress defend this crap, and the MSM will have to cover it, followed by a strong statement by Mitt that he would REPEAL this (not replace, but start from scratch)
Anyway, that's how I would have handled it. He may have still gone down, but go down swinging at least. That 3rd debate ("I agree with the president on that....") was a mockery.
If they did, you would have had to live in a swing state to see them.
You can fault Romney for not having been aggressive enough, but he wasn't going to put more money into a state he was sure to lose than he absolutely had to when the election would be decided elsewhere.