Eisenhower sure was a great leader. How is Romney the best that they've got? Shouldn't his nomination be a sign all on its own that something is wrong? They will probably hate him the day after the election.
I am guessing the following two things:
1. There are big hitters in the GOP that want to run that are not running because of the splintering of the GOP
- They don't want to run, win the nomination, lose the election, and try in 2016 since they probably wont win the nomination
2. These big hitters are not trying to pull the party together at the moment because they suspect the GOP cannot win this election
- They don't want to be associated with pulling the party together, and then losing, since they wont get a second shot
3. The GOP establishment in general has (since Reagan) used NeoConservativism as a way of getting the major issues of the different Right Wing Factions to work together
- These would be the Religious Right, Quasi-Libertarians, Eisenhowerites, and Reaganites, with very few GOP voters actually being Neocons
4. The GOP is splintering as people realize (post-Bush Jr) that Neoconservatism is a bad idea, and are looking for something new to replace the Neocons
- You can almost see the major candidates from the primary as being Pseudo-Neocons who are trying to pander to one of the factions in this way*
5. The GOP is going to lose this election, but will probably have reorganized itself around some new 'best guess' of how to combine the various Right Wing Factions by 2016
- This does not preclude the possibility of some factions being ignored with the hope of them voting GOP to avoid the Dems from taking over, or factions simply being expelled.
* That is, they are still heavily Neoconservatives, but have started to shift towards a pandering to one faction over others, with Romney seeming to pander to the Quasi-Libertarians and Reaganites.