Elliot asks a very good question:

What sort of idiots vote overwhelmingly in favor of a death penalty while reelecting a governor guaranteed to veto one?
...
I mean, don't YOU find it a little weird that good Democrats must have voted against their gay brethren (and sisthren) and FOR killing folks?

And there is a very good answer to that question, particularly the second one.  The reason why Doyle still got votes despite the fact that both gay marriage and the death penalty passed is because those issues appeared separately on the ballot, which allowed people to make their decision for Governor independently of those two issues.

Voting for Jim Doyle wasn't voting against the gay marriage amendment because they could say to themselves, "While Jim Doyle disagrees with me, it doesn't matter because it's my decision to outlaw gay marriage, not his."  I would even argue that people thought the same thing about the death penalty, even though it was not a binding referendum.  The reason I say this is because the ballot never mentioned the fact that it was advisory!  I'm willing to bet that many people thought the death penalty question was binding, and thus removed that from consideration when voting for Governor.

So when an email to Charlie Sykes says this:

In fact you could contend that, while it might not have made a difference due to other factors I'll reference later, the biggest strategic mistake and Republicans all the way down the ticket made was to not highlight their conservative agenda. Rather than trying to convince people we weren't "extreme" perhaps we should have attached ourselves at the hip to things like the gay marriage ban and death penalty and ridden them as far as it would take them. Green never used gay marriage as a wedge. The polls today would suggest that was a big mistake.

I fear that Republicans will learn the wrong lessons.  Carrying more water from the values well wouldn't have done you one bit of good, because that well was already being served by two questions independently on the ballot.  In fact, having the gay marriage and death penalty issues on the ballot more than likely cost you voters, as socially conservative Democrats were drawn to the polls to vote for the amendment and death penalty, and then vote for Jim Doyle.  In fact, I voted for Mark Green despite his stance on gay marriage, simply because I knew he couldn't do anything about it.

Republicans need to get their act together and stop continually going to the values debate.  I cannot stress this enough!  People will decide for themselves what values are appropriate, except of course for gay marriage, in which case people are more than willing to decide values for other people.  The road to victory in two years will rely on your ability to spend less, and not tell people how to live their lives.  Get that through your heads now.