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Garance Franke-Ruta canvasses CPAC delegates as to why Romney lost.

Romney's inadequately conservative politics. "He wasn't a conservative, so conservatives stayed home," said Matthew Burke, 51, of Gilbert, Ariz. "They keep putting up these RINO conservatives..." -- such as Gerald Ford, Bob Dole and John McCain -- "there's a long line of them and they always lose." Noted David Ryan, 50, a retired chemical operator who spent his career making ethyl cellulose coatings for time-release cold medicines from wood: "Right now at this point in time people wanted a real solid conservative Republican. They see too much similarity between the socialist policies of Barack Obama and the choice that they had." A real conservative might have inspired and turned out the conservative troops.

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David Frum

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