The polls have been consistent: Mitt Romney is the candidate most Republicans view as "electable", i.e. who can defeat Barack Obama in November.
The problem has been, and still is, that Mitt Romney's greatest strength in that respect is also his greatest weakness running for the Republican nomination.
Mitt Romney can beat Barack Obama, because Romney is a moderate, not a true conservative.
For months, the subtext of Romney's campaign was that Republicans might not love the former Massachusetts governor, but they would have to vote for him if they wanted a candidate that could defeat a Democratic president most Republicans absolutely despise.
However, after months of soul-searching, and after numerous, vain, efforts to raise up an "anti-Romney", finally Republicans seem to have made up their minds, and a recent NY Times/CBS poll suggests what is behind their thinking.
In that poll, most voters continue to affirm that Romney is more electable than Rick Santorum, for example.
However, when asked what factor they counted as more important in their choice of a candidate, the ability to defeat President Obama was counted as the least important factor, whereas 56% of voters identified voting for a "true conservative" and a person of "strong moral character" as the deciding factors for them.
On that count, the poll showed Santorum beating Romney and all the other Republican candidates, and easily. Santorum for example beat Romney on a question of which candidate shared the values of voters 39%-23%.
Santorum is also viewed by Republicans as a candidate whose views are "about right" (i.e neither too conservative or insufficiently conservative). Santorum beats Romney on that measure 67%-52%.
If the NY Times/CBS poll is an accurate measure, and other polling, including Santorum's three victories in primaries and caucuses last week, seems to support Santorum's rise as the solid opponent to Romney, then the conservative core of the GOP is deciding that they simply cannot tolerate Romney's political calculation.
If Romney continues to be unable to close the sale with Republicans, and if Santorum continues to rack up victories, the Republican Party establishment will likely begin pressuring candidates to think about getting out and consolidating behind the conservative choice.
This seems more critical than ever, as a recent poll showed a large number of Republicans currently expressing such disgust with the nominating process so far, they intend to stay home in November, or worse from a GOP perspective, they intend to vote for Barack Obama.
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