Do the Republicans really expect to win the White House?

I have been following the presidential election down south and I can only conclude that the answer to my question is not really.

Despite the troubles that President Obama has been having throughout his first term it would appear that the movers and shakers in the Republican Party have abandoned any real attempt to take it away from him.  They do not seem to believe that his troubles will be enough to allow them to turf him so they are not really going to try.

Evidence of that can be found just by looking at the candidates for the Republican nomination.  None of them really fire the imagination.  None of them really seem to have any innovative or original policy ideas, just Republican Party boilerplate.  None of them seem to have the political stature necessary to unseat a sitting president, even one as disappointing as President Obama during a protracted economic downturn. 

I really have to wonder about the judgement of the decision makers in the Republican Party on this.  After all they only need to look at President Clinton's election in 1992 to know what is possible.  The Democrats did not have any expectations of winning the White House that year but they had to put up someone so the big names stayed out of it and allowed a bunch of unknowns to run for the nomination.  The expectation was President Bush would win his second term and then one of those big names could run against Dan Quayle after that.  They were wrong of course and a relatively unknown Governor from Arkansas won two terms and the opportunity for the big Democrat names was lost.

President Obama is vulnerable.  He has been largely ineffective during a long economic downturn.  Despite this the Republicans do not seem to be really trying to take advantage of the situation and they seem to be content to allow him to retain the White House for one more term.