Romney was not a good candidate, period. It's time for party elites to put up their party-pooping and admit the quintessential obvious: Romney was no good.
There was no party discipline, no rank and file respect for the rank and file. The Akin-Mourdock-Abortion debate distracted from the proper narrative: Obama was busting the bank, and therefore he had to be busted. Akin refused to drop out, when Romney should never have asked him to do so in the first place. The abortion fissure exposed a troubling fissure in the GOP platform: life at conception, no exceptions. The New England and Northwest constituents need some breathing room, but a party geared toward the Mountain West and the South can no longer cobble together a majority vote.
Too many GOP debates, too long a primary season, no strong candidates. Paulism exacerbated the GOP dualism between Tea Party and Establishment. I was a Ron Paul supporter, then switched to Gingrich. Gingrich stayed in out of pure chutzpah, nothing more.
No respect for Establishment coordination coupled with Tea Party enthusiasm. Tea Party-grassroots demands matter, yet the GOP is still stuck in "rich, white, male" maddening Mad Men mentality. Nelson Rockefeller would not feel welcome in this modern version of the GOP, yet he served as Governor and Senator for Northeastern New York. The Mad Men was not so mad about spending or debt reduction, but every Republican, moderates included, voted "No!" to Obamacare.
McConnell's "One-term President" to Romney's "47%" to the latest admission that Romney was not gunning to run or to win, plus every conceivable flip-flop from RomneyCare to gun control caused more problems than solved. Just saying "No!" is not enough. It never worked with "The Ward on Drugs", and it will make no difference in the Washington culture of spend and spend some more.