John Fund writes that Romney is failing to assume the leadership of the conservative movement:

Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to realize he is campaigning for two jobs, not one. He is doing quite well in the race to become the Republican nominee for president, and must still be considered the strong favorite. But ever since Barry Goldwater captured the GOP nomination in 1964, the Republican nominee has been more or less the titular head of the conservative movement, the most important single component of the Republican party. It is that race that Romney is doing so poorly in, as evidenced by the willingness of many conservatives to vote against him.

One reason that Romney isn’t doing very well in this second role is that he isn’t really trying. He already tried this kind of campaigning in 2008, and it didn’t win him the nomination. Last time, Romney assiduously cultivated conservative pundits, activists, and interest groups, he repeatedly swamped CPAC with his supporters, and by this time four years ago Romney had been accepted as the official movement conservative alternative…just in time for him to drop out of the race. Remember that Romney had won eleven primaries and caucuses by this time four years ago, and then he gave up because he didn’t think he was ultimately going to defeat McCain, and he wasn’t interested in throwing more of his own money down the drain. In Romney’s experience, being the de facto leader of the so-called movement doesn’t win you the nomination. McCain won it despite his history of contempt for movement conservatives, and after Bush won he dismissed the movement’s importance. As Dan McCarthy said a few years ago:

There hasn’t been a “conservative movement” for a long time: there’s a Republican auxiliary that calls itself conservative and a movement. It’s arguable, though, whether Bush redefined it or merely pushed the absurdity to its logical conclusion.

Romney campaigned in 2008 on the assumption that the institutions and activists of the auxiliary were essential to winning the party nomination. He discovered that this was not true, and Romney, ever flexible, has adapted his 2012 campaign accordingly.