I agree with the OP on this one. Romney lost the election because he let the left define him, and after he hosed Obama in the 1st debate, believed it was enough to push him over the top.
Romney was a good man, a good businessman; but the kind of businessman he was had nothing to do with the kind of businessman Trump is. Romney was the MONEY guy in business dealings. He was the investor, the money side as it were, Trump is the executor WITH that money, although he has a vast amount of his own.
Also, it is apparent the difference in the mindset between Trump, and virtually every other candidate who has run for President in the last 20 or so years. Almost all candidates try and build up support between infighters inside their party by pandering to hot button issues within their party. They walk the fine line between these factions, and try and do so without pissing off the other party to much, so they can steal a few votes from them in the process. They figure that between 40 and 52% of the eligible voters are only going to show up, and as long as they keep it nice, they will be able to hone their message to get 50% + 1 to win, figuratively in the electoral college.
NOT TRUMP, and it appears CRUZ! Their road to victory is that they believe enough people are soooooo pissed of with Washington DC, that if they keep telling everyone what is going on while eliminating PC speech, more than 52% are coming to the polls out of anger, and all or most of those extra showing up will be in support of them. Both of their messages are not pure conservatism, but rather a bunch of populism mixed in; that is the way they are getting votes from the other side. Neither of these 2 are going to allow the left to define them, for their whole message is about defining the left, and Washington DC. (that is why both establishment party's hate them)
If you read a lot of political punditry from so called experts, you will discover that MOST of these experts are of the opinion, that if either of these 2 men continue on with the success they are having, the GOP as we know it will collapse IF they want to win, because more voters will be injected into the mix. The only question the experts have is..............will they also bring down the left and Washington DC cronyism, in the process!
At 1st it was no, now the experts are mixed in their opinion that they can succeed, so it is all moving in the correct direction as far as I am concerned. By next November, maybe ALL of the experts, and the voters, say yes, oh hell yes!!!!!