One question about Romney and Paul

[yendi]

Here's a quick thing to think about with Mitt Romney and Ron Paul: Since Reagan in '80, no one has won the White House after staging a losing primary campaign. Gary Hart's 1988 campaign never recovered from his own shot foot in '84. '88 loser Bob Dole won the party nomination in '96, but got stomped in the general election. On the opposite side of the aisle, '88 loser Al Gore did the same thing in 2000 (although in a much closer election). John Edwards followed his promising 2004 showing by imploding in '2008, the same year that 2000 also-ran John McCain failed to win the general election. And none of this even considers perennial candidates like Jesse Jackson, Jerry Brown, Alan Keyes, and Pat Buchanan.

So, is it possible to recover from losing a presidential bid in this day and age?

On another note, assuming Rick Perry continues to crash and burn, is he this year's version of Wesley Clark/Fred Thomson, the candidate everyone keeps egging on to enter to save them from a field of depressing candidates who then goes nowhere once he enters?