The GOP-e has the BIG $$$, the Super Pacs, and several so-called “journalists,” columnists, and media types practically in their pockets.
But conservatives/Tea partiers are the ones who get out and vote. The GOP-e can't win on their own. They may have the $$$, but 400-500 GOP-e big time $$$ spenders won't do very well when it is 400-500 votes versus 75,000,000 Dems voting.
If conservatives don't go and vote, no Republican wins. Period.
And what I posted in post #43 isn't asking too much of the GOP-e, either.
The Whigs were all about compromise and getting along with the Democrats. The Whigs tried to silence Whigs who were pro-personhood (they had the odd belief that a person couldn't own another person) and who believed in the sanctity of marriage (they opposed polygamy).
Eventually the socially conservative Whigs such as Abraham Lincoln formed the Republican Party and the very first GOP platform in 1856 called for the containment of the "twin relics of barbarism — Polygamy, and Slavery" (four years later, they were calling for the complete abolition of slavery and polygamy was put on the back burner until after Reconstruction).
So, the GOP was FOUNDED ON SOCIALLY CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES and was the dominant national party for over a half a century as a result. This happened when the REJECTED compromise. If the GOP no longer stands for conservative principles, then it no longer deserves to have conservatives in the party.