Define conservative unity in 2016.
What percentage of the party consists of conservatives?
What have conservatives in Congress done for conservatism?
What has a conservative President done that is conservative?
Who are the real conservatives in Washington DC?
What have elected conservative ideological purists accomplished?
Can the republican party win an election without independent voters?
What percentage of independents will vote for a conservative?
Could a conservative win key battleground states? Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Penn.
The goal is to pick the most conservative nominee, THAT CAN WIN. And that means winning Electoral votes. That’s a Reality check..
That was always William F. Buckley's rule. You can either be an ideological conservative and bicker from the sidelines or you can be a pragmatic conservatism and move the ball down the field using the best tools available to you at the time.
The electoral map is key. Start with the 2012 actuals and ask who can flip blue states red. By that metric Trump was and now is the strongest candidate to do that.
What conservatives in congress and what conservative president would you be speaking about ? As far as winning an election without independent voters well that remains to be seen but keep in mind Romney won the Independent vote in 2012. But many feel the base did not turn out as he had a lower vote total than Mc Cain. Apparently many are saying the party is now a populist party and the republican party is dead. So I must ask if this populist party has any interest in representing it’s conservative constituents through out this great nation. If they want their votes they had better be very clear on what this party intends to do to earn those votes.