My answer would be "no".

We don't have to guess so much since Mitt already played the "I'm not the insider-next-in-line-RINO" role in 2008.

Just as candidates get better over time, voters get better too. You, as a member of the chattering class, obsess over this stuff. You are a professional at opining about candidates. The rest of us are ham and eggers. We dabble in it every four years, maybe every eight years if our guy is the incumbent. It takes us a while to get back in the groove.

That's part of what happens here. Bachmann is a good example. She was unknown, made a nice first impression, warranting a rise in the polls. That put her on TV and radio more and the voters got a closer look. Ooops! Maybe she needs to ripen a little more. Next it was Perry and the same story.

It is not an accident that we are now left with the two most polished politicians at the top. They are good at this and we, the voters, have gotten better at spotting it.

I think this is just emblematic of the fractured mentality of the party right now. We seem divided between those who view ignorance as a virtue (see the rise of Herman Cain) and those who think we should basically determine the nominee by administering an IQ test (Gingrich and Romney supporters). We've got two completely opposite extremes at play here, and this has resulted in the bizarro primary you're talking about.

"I believe he would quickly alienate the GOP in Congress." I think you're right - Gingrich is undoubtedly the candidate least able to work with a REPUBLICAN majority in Congress - if I were Paul Ryan, I'd barely be on speaking terms with him. Gingrich wants to be Prime Minister more than President, and enforce his ideas through rigid party discipline as if we had a parliamentary system. Romney is more likely to work with the idea-men in Congress, and we actually have some of these now (Ryan, Rubio, Rand Paul, etc.).

Advantage: Romney.

A person like this, I'd like to buy for what he's worth and sell for what he thinks he's worth.

"Excellent acting skills and a worldview formed in the 1940's can also help -- e.g., Ronald Reagan."

I agree with much of what you say, but I would highlight that Reagan - while (probably) genuinely believing what you describe as the "Guns, God & Gays" strategy, also came across as a pragmatists, particularly in that 1980 debate that sealed his victory.

Reagan seemed like a sounded like a rational and reasonable man in that debate. He also sounded very well-studied. If you read that debate, it reads like prepared text rather than extemporaneous answers to unknown questions; that's how prepared Reagan was for that debate. Compare that debate transcript with the answers given by Cain or Perry. It's eye-opening.

I think there are plenty of people left in America who aren't reflexively hostile to "Guns, Gods & Gays" (although, the "Gays" element has been seriously undercut in the last two decades by pop-culture), but there seems to be no shortage of conservative firebrands that take that message and create from it, a kind of rhetoric that far exceeds what Regan ever articulated. It's that, in my opinion, that turns a lot of people off.

To your point, Bachmann, Perry, Santorum & Cain say a lot of things that the middle 1/3rd of America finds absolutely nutty. Reagan, who believed (almost) the exact same things, possessed the ability to convey that same conservative narrative in a way that not only didn't alienate that middle third, but appealed to the middle third. That's a kind of magic that no candidate possesses today, sadly.

Reagan (perhaps unlike Romney), was a true-believer, but he sounded like a rational true believer who wasn't your crazy Uncle or touched cousin (like Bachmann does).

I think you've hit upon another key point. The base clearly wants a combative candidate -- Reagan wasn't that -- and Romney isn't, either. Gingrich, Cain, Perry, Bachmann -- the only common thread among them is their willingness to antagonize the opposition.

If America will hire a man whose First Lady was never proud of her country until her old man ran for president, then I don't think Callista is going to present any problem that can't be overcome.

Just sayin'.

I can't do your thought experiment because I think it fails to delineate the difference between Newt Gingrich and Romney in foreign policy.

Gingrich is the superior candidate in that department. I find it hard in the current climate to back a candidate that wants to continue to send Pakistan foreign aid -to the tune of 1.4 billion annually-no questions asked-and that is Romney.

You could say that Romney is of the "real politik" club but then explain his position on China?

Furthermore what would happen long term if Romney implemented his trade war with China?

His two positions towards China, and Pakistan seem to be in philosophical conflict.

Back on topic a lot of your thought experiment depends on polls-we don't know what will really happen in the primaries yet.

And...those polls if you look at the internals sometimes have as many as 60% of the respondents stating that they could change their minds, many of them have margins of error over 3% and a lot of them fail to take much time to filter for likely voters. The questions for that should include asking the respondents to identify their precincts...