Even if you say Romney is worse, there were no conservative stand-outs as we had this year. This year was actually different. And an actual conservative ran strong. If stumpy wins, by 2020, the suffocating hand of stumpyism will snuff out any significant republican tendencies left in the party.
I agree there were no standouts, however every single person on those debate stages was demonstratably more conservative than Mitt was/is. Every one. We could have nominated literally any of them and lost no more than we did.
However, had we done that, and even if that and lets say "Candidate X" lost anyway, the GOP would have taken the hit THEN, leaving us far better TODAY.
What did happen though is that we nominated Mitt, he lost, the GOP came out and said exactly the opposite of what message they were given, they further moved left, gave Obama 100% of every major issue he wanted, they attacked the conservatives running in the mid term, torpedoed them, attacked Cruz every way possible, torpedoed HIM and surprise, surprise, ensured the nomination of yet ANOTHER even FURTHER LEFT candidate that is on record as taking more sides to a given position than Kerry.
Such are the wages of refusing to stand on and vote with principle. The GOP ensured Iran got the bomb, ensured gay everything became law, ensured that Barry got every cent he wanted to push his leftist agenda and bankrupted America.
'WE" did more to advance leftism faster with our ongoing capitulating 'pragmatism' than the left could have done in 50 freaking years.