A recipe for Republican buyer's remorse in the general election

The Democratic Strategist explores and expands upon the idea that the Republican candidates all have "near-disqualifying weaknesses" (a phrase coined by Ross Douthat in the Atlantic over the weekend) We can list them (and both of the above links do, in more detail than I will include here):

Huckabee: DuMond, weird ideas about AIDS, no love from the establishment conservatives

Giuliani: Judy, sex in the Hamptons, too "New York liberal" for some

Thompson: lazy, boring, old and wrinkly

Romney: expectations too high in IA and NH, the whole Mormon thing, flip-flopping

So what's likely to happen? Well, if this were a normal primary season stretching out over a couple of months, we could expect the lead to switch a few times as a candidate emerges out in front, people vet him carefully, and someone else takes over.

But it's not a "normal" primary season. The whole thing is compressed into a tight few weeks, and TDS predicts that this means nobody will have a chance to engage in effective "guerilla warfare against a prohibitive favorite." On top of this, Republicans have not historically been remorseful buyers:

Republicans don't seem prone to buyer's remorse, even if second thoughts might have been completely justified.

In this respect, the two parties have been starkly different. On the Democratic side, the ultimate nominee has undergone a terrible losing streak late in the primary season on several occasions (most clearly in 1976, 1980 and 1984). In other years--1972, 1988, and 1992--the all-but-acknowledged nominee had some late struggles against one surviving rival.
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But by and large, and even in cases of front-runners who looked increasingly weak as general-election candidates, such as Bush 41 in 1992 and Dole in 1996, once the deal went down, GOPers stayed in line. And that was in the old, stretched out primary calendar that made quick kills more difficult.

So what will happen if a candidate emerges from February 5 with a giant delegate lead and a lot of baggage? Given the history, and the fact that any late challenger would probably be similarly handicapped, it's a recipe for a weak nominee and a discouraged party.

The buyer's remorse may hit the Republican party too late for anyone to do anything about it. Bill Clinton told a crowd of Democrats at the Harkin Steak Fry in 2003 that we should fight hard for our caucus choice, but then coalesce around the nominee...in his words, we should "fall in love, then FALL IN LINE." It's hard to imagine Republicans unifying around any of these possible nominees.