At its highest levels the Republican party is in favor of center-left dictatorship*.  They want to pledge total party support for the incumbents.  At the same time, they want a policy platform that creates demographic locks on Republican candidates.  This will result in a national public that consistently votes for the same republicans without thinking about it.   They don't want thought.  As token of this they are now declaring the primary system itself should be discarded as "wasteful".  Why not, if you already know who should get the job and don't care what the mass actually think?

Romney was not nominated because he won more delegates in state contests.
Romney was nominated because everybody else ran out of money by June and suspended their campaigns.
Romney was meant to win this year, it was "his turn".
Romney is meant to deliver the death blow to social conservatives and immigration and defense hawks.  Romney has nothing much for those people and would claim a "mandate" to concede their issues.  Those people can't win without argument, and as stated, the Republican Party wants demographic majorities without working on it.

The GOP - I mean the national brains, the big money, the men who demand deference and obedience - they are to the left of Clinton 1992 on almost every issue.  They want to lose on abortion, immigration, defense, judicial reform, entitlements, carbon dioxide regulation and trade.  They're personally ambivalent on taxes too, but the rank and file Congressman is deathly afraid on compromising on that one.  They are looking for a President who will defeat the Democrat candidate and then lose on those issues.  Last time they tried McCain.  This time they're trying Romney.

* Perhaps it would be more accurate in the American sense to call it a "machine" but on a national scale, dictatorship is the end result