CNN Poll: A regretful nation really wishes it had elected Mitt Romney

If you voted for Obama in 2012 and you now regret your once-fervent opinion that Mitt Romney was "too 1%" for the White House, Congratulations. You're not alone. According to a new CNN/ORC International poll, the United States is going through a collective bout of the "shoulda-couldas."

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By an almost 10-point margin, voters would now vote for Mitt Romney rather than Barack Obama. ...And the margin is growing.

According to the poll, if the 2012 election were somehow held again, Romney would capture 53% of the popular vote, with the President at 44%. Obama beat Romney 51%-47% in the popular vote in the 2012 contest. And he won the all-important Electoral College by a wider margin, 332 electoral votes to Romney's 206. Last November, an ABC News/Washington Post survey indicated that if the 2012 election were held again, Romney would have had a 49%-45% edge over Obama in the popular vote.

The hit seems to come mostly from female voters who, in 2012, backed President Obama 55 to 44 percent. Women would now vote for Romney 52 to 45 percent. That's nearly the same margin as male voters, who support Romney 54 to 43 percent.

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Thus ends the good news for Mitt Romney. Unfortunately, there seems to be a rather large contingent of voters who fall into a category known as "people who haven't learned their lesson."

Romney has said numerous times that he won't run for the White House again. But what if things changed and he ended up as the GOP nominee in 2016? The CNN poll indicates that 55% of Americans would support Clinton, with Romney at 42%. "Politically speaking, there is an interesting group of people who would not vote for Obama but would pick Clinton over Romney," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "It turns out that nearly seven in ten of them are women, and 56% are Independents."

In other words, people think Hillary would - somehow - be substantively better than both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. What they're basing that on is a complete mystery but, at the very least, it should provide the GOP with food for thought. Hillary is, sadly, still the presumptive 2016 Democrat nominee. With two years to go, the GOP had better do two things. First, it needs to come up with a more exciting alternative. This should be easy, but it is the GOP we're talking about. If it runs another candidate who either lacks vision or is unable to articulate that vision, it's already lost. Second, the party needs to make sure people understand that Hillary's potential policies would likely be similar to - or worse than - those of Barack Obama. It's not enough to have an Obama/Romney 'I told you so moment.' Voters need to understand that Obama's Presidency isn't an outlier. It's the inescapable result of his party's ideology.

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