The 'most extreme' are tired of big gov candidates winning in the 'small gov' party.
The lessons learned from the Bush era are that we cannot allow ourselves to settle for the compassionate conservative. That the electable candidate is also the traitorous one who will attack conservatism in our own name. At the moment, anyone but Romney is the current inflection of this ideal.
Look, the guy comes across as a cheap suit, a fraud. He's the governor of Kennedy and Kerry. A state that's, what 80% Democratic legislature? No conservative rises from that environment. Is it extreme to oppose a Massachusetts moderate in the wake of Bush and McCain?
I think conservatives have had their fill of men who are not conservative and if the GOP has to go down in flames and re-elect Barrack Obama to clean its own house, then so be it.