The real problem is that things haven't gotten worse for the Democratic base. They're already at the bottom, so they perceive even the illusion of maintaining the status quo for them as a win. They're going to keep voting, especially if there's a free ride to the polls (and whatever other enticements might be legally or illegally offered on Election Day). The middle class people, for whom it's been steadily getting worse, don't see how Republicans are going to turn anything around for them, so they have no incentive to vote either. McCain didn't offer much, Romney offered even less, and so far the Republican field is looking just as lackluster as the last several elections. No incentive at all.
I don't think that an ultra-right-wing candidate is going to make the country any better than Obama at this point, but what the Republican party needs is an honest-to-god political firebrand, someone with a strong opinion on something that can motivate the Republican voters that aren't turning out. The party-line voters will still vote (R) regardless, and I suspect the party would gain more voters for a strong right-wing conservative candidate than they would lose in voters who would be turned off by the strong conservative platform. The difficulty is that I don't think they can run a big Bible-thumping campaign... given the political climate right now, with the Hobby Lobby thing, if the Republicans were to go too far down the Christian path, they would inspire a lot more voters to go the other way out of fear of too much religious control over government. Given that, I don't see what planks the Republicans can lay out...
* Gun rights and shootings play well in the media, but politically, every shooting that happens does that argument more harm than good, and so does every picture or video the liberal media can show of people exercising their open carry rights by walking around with AR-15s.
* GLBTI rights and acceptance are on the upswing, so the family values/morality position will be perceived as homophobia and outdated, especially since the young, liberal hipster crowd can be highly motivated on topics like this one.
* The Supreme Court has thrust women's rights and religion into the limelight with Hobby Lobby, and Democrats and moderates are sure to be motivated to give Congress a liberal mandate in that arena.
* Nobody really cares about health care - everyone is ready for the whole topic to just stop being talked about, it's all we've heard about for a decade, and it's hasn't gotten markedly better or worse in all that time. It's more of a three-card monty game, where nothing has really changed, they've just shuffled everything around and confused everyone.
* Likewise, I think there's no one that really expects either party to solve the lingering economic crisis, or even make truly positive steps toward fixing the economy. Unemployment hasn't gotten significantly better, the national debt is crushing, and the economic recovery we've been promised for years has been pretty uninspiring.