What's Romney's Problem?

Reminiscent of the signal extraction problem in the Lucas Island model, how much of the difficulty Romney is having is due to Mitt in particular, and how much is due to dislike of the GOP more generally? Robert Reich says it's mostly that people are "beginning to see how radical the GOP has become," but personally, I'd have to give at least partial credit to Mitt Gaffe-a-Day Romney and his sidekick Paul Marathon-Man Ryan:

The Two Major Views About Why Romney is Losing, and Why the Second is More Convincing, by Robert Reich: ... There are two major theories about why Romney is dropping in the polls. One is Romney is a lousy candidate, unable to connect with people or make his case. The second is that Americans are finally beginning to see how radical the GOP has become, and are repudiating it.

Many Republicans ... hold to the first view, for obvious reasons. If Romney fails to make a comeback this week, I expect even more complaints from this crowd about Romney’s personal failings, as well as the inadequacies of his campaign staff. 

But the second explanation strikes me as more compelling. The Republican primaries, and then the Republican convention, have shown America a party far removed from the “compassionate conservatism” the GOP tried to sell in 2000. Instead, we have a party that’s been taken over by Tea Partiers, nativists, social Darwinists, homophobes, right-wing evangelicals, and a few rich people whose only interest is to become even wealthier. ...

The second view about Romney’s decline also explains the “negative coat-tail” effect — why so many Republicans around the country in Senate and House races are falling behind. ...

Romney’s failing isn’t that he’s a bad candidate. To the contrary, he’s giving this GOP exactly what it wants in a candidate. And that’s exactly the problem for Romney — as it is for every other Republican candidate — because what the GOP wants is not at all what the rest of America wants.