It's hard to say whether or not this was winnable, Chaim. It was fairly close but we will just never know:
1: The Hispanic vote was greater than anyone ever imagined, even on the Democratic side. 10% less Hispanic turnout, or 10% more Hispanics going for Romney, could have made this a dead-even tossup.
2: Romney made a severe tactical mistake by not visiting and touring ground zero of Sandy as Bill O' Reilly pointed out today. Even better if he could have put on a frog suit and actually assisted in the rescue effort. This made him look out-of-touch and elitist. If Chris Christie and Obama did not tolerate him coming along it would have made them look petty and partisan.
3: Romney made a huge mistake in taking his foot off the gas for the second and final debates. In particular his performance in the third debate bordered on laughable on some points. He was actually on some points trying to out-pander Obama to the Islamic world. This did not impress any voters for sure.
4: This wasn't Romney's fault of course but the unfortunate "rape" gaffes made by Mourdock in IN and Akin in OH did incalculable damage to Republicans across the board. I don't think what either one of them said, especially Mourdock, was really all that bad but obviously the abortion-loving voters of America felt differently, and the Obama machine was able to effectively conflate it with Romney.
5: As we already know, Romney's campaign of refusing to fight back cost him dearly. Obama ran something like 85% negative ads compared to 15 or 20% for Romney. However, before we lecture Romney too much on this, as tempting as that might be, we can't ignore the fact that the system has effectively brainwashed all Americans to accept and live by the double standard. I think we all remember the September polls showing that voters overwhelmingly felt that Romney's campaign was the more negative and dishonest one. If Romney had gone too brutal, it would have been easy for the NWO establishment to paint him as a right-wing lunatic which would have destroyed him. There is a balance, a very fine one, and because the NWO controls all the rules of the game, it only applies to the GOP side. The Democrats can say whatever they want and get away with murder (like when Obama said that Romney was responsible for causing the breast cancer lady's death because Bain outsourced his husband's job).
6: This election was all about voters believing they are owed all sorts of free stuff from the government. The main reason BHO carried Michigan/Ohio/Wisconsin was the auto bailouts. Even though Romney's position on this was the correct one this is not what the people wanted. Still, he erred by letting Obama get away with it. Romney should have painted the auto bailout as a reward to corporate fatcats that BHO is beholden to. He didn't even try to argue that.
7: The full extent of the Benghazi murders was completely suppressed and Romney allowed it.
8: Sadly, this country is an amoral cesshole and is getting worse by the day. Look at the votes for sodomite "marriage" and drug legalization. When average voters are that twisted, even a moderate/liberal Republican doesn't stand a chance. Unfortunately Romney couldn't have done anything about this.
If all of these factors are changed or mitigated in some way, Romney wins fairly comfortably in my opinion. If one or two of them were changed, it would have at least been nail-bitingly close.
Moving ahead here is what needs to be done.
1: We need to do everything in our power to destroy the reputation of Rand Paul the Asatruist and Muzz Muzzie the obese Islamic pig. If anything is left of America in four years and one of those Nazis gets the GOP nod G-d forbid, L-rd help us all.
2: We need to start a movement to pressure for impeachment proceedings against BHO for his role in the Benghazi terrorist massacre. Even if it goes nowhere, which it won't, if we are able to get any exposure of it whatsoever, it will damage the credibility of his administration significantly.
3: The GOP MUST make some sort of organized effort to reach out to minorities, at least Hispanics and Asians, in a way that goes beyond pathetic leftist pandering. It is pretty obvious that Asian interests lie with conservatism but that of quite a few Hispanics does too. How come nobody in the Republican Party has even thought of making the argument that illegal immigration is damaging Hispanic communities in terms of employment and wages? It would be really easy to produce numbers proving that. I think that we could win at least some Latinos over by creating a distinction between illegal aliens and legal immigrants/Hispanic-American citizens. Unfortunately America is now a nonwhite nation and we need to play by those rules to some degree. If we can bring about even a 10% shift in the minority vote, we are in a much stronger position.
PS: I think the most effective candidate would have been Herman Cain.