2012 would be a replay on the national stage of 2010.

That is, there would be a unity between elites and populists (the elites seeing the populists, TP, etc, as a way of regaining power and therefore buying into, or pretending to, the populist goals and themes). There was a high level of enthusiasm, which translated into funding and turnout. There was a large turnover as RINOS and Democraps toppled across the country. There were many new candidates, some great, some good, some bad. Best of all, the GOP was united, with conservative media and politicos all more or less singing from the same page — NR, Coulter, Limbaugh, et al.

Surely 2012 would be even better!

Welll, no. I have suggested that the TP movement is not mature enough to field a national candidate. In fact, there was only one Tea party candidate in the Primary — Michele Bachmann (though other candidates had TP elements, she was the only pure TP oriented candidate). Ironically, the Tea Party did not support her after the first few weeks of her candidacy. They supported Cain, Paul, Perry, Gingrich and now Santorum — a statist social conservative.

Is the Tea Party finished? Hardly, but they need to focus on more local and state candidates.

As for our elites, they capitulated to Romney alsmost immediately — despite all the obvious problems with his candidacy. The loss to mcCain, Romneycare, his weak socon positions, his electoral failures in general — he should have been replaced by a candidate with his profile (ie a governor) but without the drawbacks. Romney’s ability to raise money, his name recognition, the business experience, all convinced them Romney would be a good candidate.

Meanwhile, the popular consrvative media (Limbaugh/Levin etc) wasted a huge amount of time on non-starters like Trump and Cain, simply because they were able to build audience off their candidacies.

This is how we ended up with four candidates, none of whom are reliably, consistently conservative, and none of whom can win in more than part of the country.

Consider Michigan: One of Mitt’s home states, but more importantly, a state where Santorum’s rust belt pitch plays perfectly, and where his big union support and big government spending play very well (he has voted against right to work for PA, and supported the auto bailout). It’s also an open primary, and polls show Santorum doing well with Democraps and Inds. In other words blue collar ethnics, Catholics, what were known as Reagan Dems.

But wait. Consider Georgia, where a new poll has Newt up 14 over Romney and Santorum a distant third. Because those rust belt creds don’t play so well in the South. Newt won SC and the Panhandle of Florida by winning SOCons there, while Santorum fared poorly. The primary calendar coming up is much better for Newt than February was, where there were no Southern contests. So Newt is looking for a strong showing in Georgia, Tennessee, OK,on Super Tuesday. Later that month there are primaries in Alabama, mississippi and Louisiana. So why, NR, should Newt get out now? There’s no indication that Santorum would win those states.

But wait again. Newt has fared poorly outside the South, in the Midwest, where he loses the SoCon vote to Santorum,, in the Northeast, where Romney and Paul dominate, and the west coast.

Romney is still struggling in the South. Despite wins in two of the biggest (florida and upcoming VA, where Paul is the only other candidate on the ballot and there are no write ins), he was beaten soundly by Gingrich in the truly southern state of SC. He also has fared poorly in the midwest, losing all the contests there to Santorum. If he loses Michigan to Santorum, wins Arizona, and loses Washington state to Paul, Romney will enter Super Tuesday having won contests only in New England and Mormon-heavy states.

So far, in other words, the pre-primary system failed to deliver one or more truly national candidates, and we are seeing the result playing out now in the very divided primary electorate. Can we have a do-over?

That’s what the brokered convention will be!