People went off the deep end in 2007 when the cry of panic among Republicans was "Anybody but Hillary!" They had lost focus of the larger picture, which was that much of Hillary's so-called popularity was manufactured by the media. Liberals have to cheat for a reason -- it's because if they didn't, they'd lose, because most Americans reject them; the MSM and liberal HWood create the illusion that liberals are more plentiful and popular than they are in reality, so when liberals win via vote manipulation, manufacture, and fraud, Americans are preconditioned to accept the results with a sad shrug.
So in 2007, when some were looking at the BIGGER picture, which was that the mission, the goal, was to defeat statism, those who were going off the deep end by only looking two feet ahead, were allowing the liberals and the MSM to frame the way the GOP picked its candidate -- "It has to be somebody who can beat Hillary." Hillary wasn't nearly as popular as America had been led to believe (not that it would have mattered much) and Obama slipped in instead.
Right now, the larger picture is that we really have no idea who the Dem nominee is going to be, so choosing our candidate based on "Anybody who can beat Obama!" leaves the GOP wide open to manipulation by its enemies.
The larger picture is that the problem far transcends Obama, just as it far transcended Hillary in 2007.
Read the consumer comments at MSM sites like Yahoo, LA Times, and ABC -- I have, many times. It's clear that news consumers (not political junkies like us, but Americans posting to those MSM discussion forums), a) think Obama is a loser, b) think Liberals are pains in the butts, and c) are really, really ticked off at the MSM for being so biased, in that order.
Since the problem transcends Obama, the ANSWER will have to transcend Obama, as well. I kind of like Palin because her appeal, which results in tens of thousands of Americans showing up to hear her talk politics, seems to transcend Obama and speak to the real truth: Americans are sick of Obama, sick of liberalism, and think the MSM is disgusting in how it reports on politics.
I really don't give a rusty rat's patoot how ANY Republican politician criticizes Obama. That's like caring that a ball rolls. OF COURSE they're going to criticize Obama. Big whoop.
I CARE A LOT about what Republicans think about how to solve the problem of statism that created Obama. He was created by a "center" pushed so far left, via decades of Republicans electing (usually out of blind fear that a less moderate Republican would lose) increasingly more and more politicians with statist tendencies to office, that Obama and his socialist stances were, in that perspective, centrist.
The ship will only come right when we represent the party that stands against statism and stands for getting government off our backs and out of our pocketbooks. That's the larger picture; those who lose focus and have gone off the deep end are those who are basing everyting on popularity contests. Fear usually leads to stupid choices. Courage and confidence lead to smarter choices.