“major” does not equal “majority”
The tea party can’t get more than 25 to 30 percent of the GOP primary vote. It happened to Buchanan in 96, Pat Robertson in 88, and Paul Tsongas (from the other side) in 92.
When there are 11 candidates in the race, Michelle Bachman can win with 23% of the vote. When there are two or three, she still has only 23% of the vote.
That is why Mitt is going to need a VP candidate to fill in the blanks. A regular Christian who the conservatives will like yet is still willing to be a little different in certain situations. Someone from outside the Beltway elite, a Maverick. It would be nice if it was a woman, to capture that vote too. Where will the GOP find such a person?
All in all I agree with your assessment, Mitt is the most solid candidate out there on many issues. I liked his style, if not many of his words, in the debate more so than any of the other GOPers. Mitt can hardly pull together the Republican base though, much less lure the middle (where I fancy myself) over to the right.
She’s beating Romney by scoring in the low 20s with lots o’ candidates, but still beating him 44%-41% in a one-on-one match.
Exit polls from the 2010 election showed 2/3 of GOP voters in the general election were tea party supporters. They also put up a lot of crap candidates in the senate because the tea party won the primary elections and then lost the general since they were too radical.
I tend to think/hope they will sabotage the GOP in 2012. They are trying to put up dolts like Bachmann.
We’ve been saying all along that Romney is the establishment candidate, the one with the most backing, organization, and money, which makes him by far the most likely nominee. The only actual political disagreement - as opposed to the talking point nonsense that’s drowned any real analysis - is over which opponent the extreme conservative wing will coalesce behind. It may be Bachmann or it may be Perry if he finally decides to get into the race. He keeps dipping his toe but doesn’t seem to want to get wet. Yes, Bachmann does well in Iowa, but Iowa is about as non-representative a state as can be found, which is why winners of its caucus never get farther unless they happen to be the establishment candidate who was going to take it all anyway. The poll cited by The Other Waldo Pepper is interesting evidence that she’s the likely opponent, but you can also read it as saying that Romney outpolls every one of his opponents combined, while Bachmann loses badly to the her wing combined. They all have to get behind her after their preferred candidate drops out. That’s hard to sustain and means even lower enthusiasm.
All this is based on there not being a bombshell discontinuity over the next year. Talking about it just before the default date is therefore risky. I don’t believe there will be a default - every Republican leader except Cantor has stated that it is an insane thing to let happen - but if there is no one knows where the pieces will fall after the explosion.
Other than that, the election will be Obama vs. Romney, with Obama the winner. There is simply no enthusiasm for Romney as a candidate, while Obama is raising several times as much money as him, and AFAIK, a couple of times what all the Republican candidates are raising collectively. If he were consistently behind in every poll, I might think otherwise. But he is consistently ahead in almost every poll against specific names. (Single polls mean nothing. If the universe of polls don’t say the same thing, feel free to disregard any outlier no matter how tempting it looks.)
The power of incumbancy, plus more money, plus the demographic factor that the Republicans have alienated several large groups. That’s what any Republican has to overcome. I can’t see Romney being the one to do so.
The guy who promoted secession is going to be president? I don’t think so.
Might promote an interesting debate we haven’t heard in this country since the 60s.
The 1860s.
I’d handicap it the same way as most of the rest of you. Romney v. Obama with Obama winning barring any of a number of unlikely bombshell events.
Gold star for reading comprehension. 
Again why is John McCain a RINO?
A Perry candidacy will be dogged from the get-go by clips of his pro-secession speeches.
A Bachmann candidacy will have legs only until the crazy fully blossoms (which won’t take long), and may be hampered by the new information on her health.
A Romney candidacy will suffer from his “I supported universal health care in MA but not for the country” perceived flip-flop.
However, I don’t see any more viable candidates in the pack. Pawlenty is trailing badly, Cain is…not well-spoken, Gingrich is a joke, Santorum’s NAME is a joke…
I have to agree with a Romney v. Obama election.
When do we get to hear the yapping about how he couldn’t even win his own state? 
Nate Silver latest parsing of the polls is interesting. Is Obama Against Romney a Toss-Up?
Romney does much better on average against Obama than anyone else who is currently running. If you read the full article, you’ll see that Obama’s lead is actually smaller than those raw numbers appear. Even with those qualifications, the candidates like Bachmann and Perry run well behind him.
Silver’s blog is a must for those who hate stories that play up one poll as meaningful. They aren’t. Averages and trends are always far more meaningful.
It should be avoided by people who hate facts and rational, objective analysis. Wait, I meant it shouldn’t be avoided, but it will be anyway.
Do you really need a cite for all the times he stuck a knife into the backs of conservatives?
I’m mildly bemused as to why then conservatives nominated him as the candidate of their party.
If you could find a cite for that, at most it would prove him a CINO. But when you’re a major party’s candidate for President, you’re pretty much by definition what that party stands for, in more than just name.
Which is exactly why a good portion of conservatives stayed home which resulted in the mess we have now
The conservatives didn’t. The old boy GOP network and the dem cross-over votes in the primaries took care of that
We were in that mess before the election.
So the message you drew from the voters picking Obama over McCain is that the voters want a more conservative candidate?
Looks like the GOP needs to get hit in the head a few more times with the old clue-stick.