I highly doubt it.  The other problem with Romney is that a good chunk of the GOP didn't even buy his used-car salesman shtick.  While GOPers could hold their noses and vote McCain across the board, I think you'd find that, while Romney might've wound up getting only mildly embarrassed in Michigan and states, like Nevada, that have a fairly large number of Mormons (nearly all of whom vote GOP anyway), compared with what McCain suffered, he might well have lost them Georgia and Missouri.

Romney had serious problems in the South, for obvious reasons.  He did alright in Florida, which is much more secular than other states in the region, but he did quite poorly elsewhere.

To the economic point, I think you'd find Romney to be an even easier hit than McCain.  Romney also just happened to make his money by essentially gutting companies, fire workers, and selling them off.  Combine that with the fact that Romney's positions changed faster than anyone could keep up with, and that he was a pretty lousy debater (even by the pretty lousy standards of McCain and Obama), I think you would've found Romney flaming out in short order.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

...adding...I think another important point, as it relates to the general election, is the Latino vote.  Here's a point on which Bush was the only Republican with a clue and -- here's where McCain gets tossed out -- something of a spine, because he worked very hard to win Latinos.  The rest of the GOP's behavior towards them during the '08 cycle was truly disgusting, and, consequently, Obama grabbed nearly 70% of the Latino vote, compared with 53% for Kerry.

Romney's problem on that would've been much bigger than McCain's (maybe Obama at 80% instead of 68%), as Romney was second only to Tom Tancredo -- indeed, he received Tancredo's endorsement -- on the anti-Latino hatred.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin