Nobody, Left or Right, particularly likes him.

Modern US elections come down to the percentage of your side who manage to get their lazy ass over to city hall or the library or school or church or wherever on one of the available election days. What percentage get up a little early and vote before work, or give up part of their lunch break if the polls are close enough, or find a way to work it in on the way home.

Romney's problem is that he's an unlikable jerk and too many Republicans just weren't inspired to make that effort. And that he managed to inspire plenty of people on the other side to make the effort. And then there was the sloppy campaign organization. The man absolutely sucks at running anything. Forget policy and values, we dodged a huge bullet on just plain competence.

The big problem for the Republicans is that he was IMHO easily the best they had.