Largely, the population of the challengers to the president right now are seen as "loons".
In addition, rather than talking about the economy, jobs the national debt and other domestic issues, which are the OBVIOUS matters right now for probably 90% of Americans, we have Bachmann and Perry talking about:
1) Gay Marriage
2) Abortion
3) Ridiculous fiscal goals that are not feasible
4) Other Fringe issues that nobody quite frankly gives a s..t about.
You want to see what's wrong. This is it. Currently, I'm in Atlanta, which isn't very conservative, but it's amazing how many times I've heard since being down here that Perry is clearly out of touch with what's important to America.