It wasn’t their job to signal those people. It was to vote for someone else. They instead kicked one candidate after the other overboard because of BS.
And in the end they did walk. That is why Romney got fewer votes than McCain did.
signalling is necessary so that the party doesn’t waste it’s time pushing candidate RINO. That’s called winning early and easily.
But they have to believe that the signal is not a bluff, and that’s the part we have problems with, because for the majority here, the bloviating about Romney was a bluff, and most conservatives voted for a moderate/liberal GOP candidate.
But enough withheld their vote to make the difference and ideally, the next time around, when we say that candidate RINO is unacceptable, anoint him and we walk, maybe they’ll believe us. But it may take a couple of cycles of “not bluffing and actually walking” before they get the point.