It's less than two months to Election Day, but Mitt Romney is lagging behind while Barack Obama is pulling ahead in key states.

Allow me to channel the greatest thinkers of the GOP (e.g., peekURL.com/zHdnAfd ), the Romney campaign, and the conservative establishment and wonder what's going on?

Why isn't the GOP putting this one away?

Haven't the GOP and their leading thinkers done everything right?? Let's review:

* Choosing Paul Ryan - a fan of the author Ayn Rand - as the vice presidential candidate. Isn't Atlas Shrugged (and the band Rush) incredibly popular? The "Randroid" vote alone should be enough to put the election in the bag.

* Reviving the GOP's War on Welfare Queens and on the poor in general, such as by proposing restricting the right of the poor to vote.

* Even better, leading rightwing activists turning their backs on and smearing almost half the people in the U.S. Why isn't the GOP getting an avalanche of votes from people who think that elderly disabled veterans - some of the biggest moochers in the U.S. - need to feel the pain that Erick Erickson feels when he pays his insurance? 53% is greater than 47%, can't those people do the math?

* Constantly harping on the economy rather than less important things like abortion and immigration.

* Offering no plan to help struggling American citizens that isn't simply a very obvious attempt to just help the rich get richer. Haven't these people heard of Job Creators?

* Being intentionally vague and asking voters to just trust the GOP.

* Taking quotes like "you didn't build that" out of context and basing a major part of the campaign on that, even though libertarian icon Adam Smith himself could have said "you didn't build that" (link).

* Being largely unwilling and unable to challenge the establishment media, and being completely unwilling and unable to discredit them.

* Concentrating on winning pointless hashtag wars on Twitter.

* Giving in to the unpopular and close-to-toxic Tea Parties movement. Didn't Dick Armey say the Teaparty is America?

* Giving in to the Tea Party goal of a small, pure tent rather than a large - albeit messy - tent. Isn't expelling people who aren't 100% in lockstep with fringe ideas the way to be popular? Isn't restricting your target market to as few people as possible the road to popularity? Isn't red-baiting, smearing, lying, and generally being sociopaths incredibly popular with the Americans?

* And, last but by no means least, completely and absolutely wimping out on immigration. Practicing Unite and Submit rather than Divide and Rule or even being able to conceive of changing the terms of the game that the Democratic Party plays in regards to things like the "Hispanic vote". Completely ignoring Obama's plan to add up to 1.8 million new legal workers to a very weak labor market, even though most of those harmed will be Democratic voters. Only mentioning one time the potentially highly popular attrition (aka "Self Deport") plan, choosing instead to take the advice of those who (almost assuredly) put the U.S. before other concerns, such as Mel Martinez.

Considering all the above, it's completely shocking that Mitt Romney is not 10 points ahead right now.