The election is far from over, yet pundits are already arguing over whom to blame if Mitt Romney loses.

Why does this premature jockeying matter? It could very well impact what kind of nominee the GOP chooses next time around. “Romney’s loss would…steal influence from those arguing for a middle path, and hand influence to the conservative factions already on the ascent,” writes National Journal’s Reid Wilson.

Some conservatives are working to ensure establishment moderates get the blame. Over at RedState, Erick Erickson notes that, “There are a lot of elitist Republicans who have spent several years telling us Mitt Romney was the only electable Republican.” (RedState co-founder Ben Domenech made a similar point at RealClearPolitics.)

But others are pushing back against this premise. The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf and the New York Times Ross Douthat both argued that it was conservative talk radio hosts who helped prop Romney up in the first place.

So who is right?

Friedersdorf and Douthat are correct in pointing out that many conservatives backed Romney in 2008 and in 2012 — but this deserves an asterisk. (As the fact checkers might say, it is “technically true.”)

In both instances, the primary fields were incredibly weak. What is more, in 2008, Romney benefited from the anti-McCain fervor (does it go without saying that many conservatives despised the co-author of “McCain-Feingold” and “McCain-Kennedy” — who had called Evangelical leaders “agents of intolerance?”)

Romney was embraced by some conservatives — not because they loved him — but because they hated McCain. Fiscal conservatives also despised Mike Huckabee, who referred to The Club for Growth as the “Club for Greed.”

So while it would be incorrect to solely blame establishment moderates for Romney’s rise, assigning blame is a moot point. More important is making sure Republicans learn the right lessons.

As Wilson indicates, if Mitt Romney loses, conservatives will conclude that nominating a moderate is a bad idea. And history would seem to indicate that they might be on to something. After all, he would join the pantheon of Republican moderates like John McCain and Bob Dole who also failed to win the presidency.

This, of course, might be a coincidence — or it might be that America is a center-right nation.

Or maybe there is a third, non-ideological reason…

My theory: Winning a Republican Primary today requires running to the right. Winning the nomination, thus, requires moderates to pose as something they are not. This almost always looks awkward and inauthentic. And it undermines the very rationale for nominating a moderate — who can “reach out to the center” — in the first place.

What is more, because moderates are never really trusted by the conservative movement, they have to keep convincing the base that they are “one of them” — even after winning the nomination. And so, at the very time a Republican nominee should be reaching to the center, they are forced to pick a conservative “firebrand” running mate.

Because of his unimpeachable conservative bona fides, Ronald Reagan got to pick a moderate like George H.W. Bush to help unite the party and “balance the ticket.”

If John McCain had selected Tom Ridge, the GOP convention would have mutinied.

There are very good reasons to argue the GOP does better when a trusted conservative with nothing to prove to the base becomes the standard bearer.