I think this is accurate, but in retrospect i believe he made a big mistake by being too negative. He should have concentrated on convincing voters that he was the best, not trying to tear down other republicans. Let the talk shows and surrogates do the attacking. It turned out that he made a big push to get the hard core conservative vote, but the way the primary caldendar worked, the early states up through super tuesday were not really decided by conservatives. They were decided by independents and moderates. The conservative vote was split several ways. Bottom line, his campaign was not really that well run. It was well-financed, and I think they tried to substitute money for strategy. The sad thing is, he had a compelling personal story and message. He just wasn't that authentic as the new Reagan, and voters never warmed up to him. They saw a rich guy trying to buy the nomination.