Way back before 2012, I argued that if Mitt Romney was the nominee, he’d lose. He simply had no chance because the base wouldn’t support him. Then, as the election drew closer, I’ll admit it. I got caught up in things. I started to think that he might actually pull it off. In the end, obviously, my initial instincts were proven right.

Romney lost because no GOP candidate has a chance of winning without the support of the conservative grass roots. End of story.

So, what’s about to happen? Well, according to Ted Cruz, we’re about to be fed the candidacies of Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie!

Whoop-de-doo.

Cruz made the claim this week, during a meeting of potential donors. He also argued, correctly, that none of the three have a prayer of winning in the general election.

“In my view, Hillary will be the Democratic nominee. And I think Hillary is every bit as radical as Obama is. I don’t think Bill is. I think Bill is genuinely more moderate. But I think Hillary is. So how does a Republican win in 2016? Einstein famously said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If you look at the field in 2016, it’s going to be crowded field, there could be a dozen, there could be fifteen. There’s one bucket that, for lack of a better word, I’ll call the ‘moderate establishment’ bucket. It’ll be some combination of Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney. “My guess is two of the three will run. And my view is whoever’s in that bucket will raise tons of money. A lot of donors will rush to write them checks. And yet if the nominee comes from that bucket, the same voters who stayed home in 2008 and 2012 will stay home again and Hillary’s the winner.”

Cruz is 100% dead-nuts right on this. By 2016, the country will be even sicker of far-left politics, but Hillary will do everything possible to dodge that label. The media will help her, and she’ll run on a platform of “remember the good old days?” Unless there’s a strong counter to that, the low information voters are likely to overlook her radical intentions in favor of “the way we think things were before Bush and Obama.”

Christie might - and I stress might - fare a tiny bit better than his middle-of-the-road counterparts, but he’s still a probable loser. Whoever becomes the eventual nomniee will need to secure conservatives first, then try to play for the middle. If the GOP runs a “squishy” candidate like Romney or Bush in the general election, it will be over before it starts. The base will stay home and the party will get slaughtered.

I wish I had the confidence to believe that isn’t going to happen.