” In the meantime, conservatives won’t line up behind any one candidate while grassroots conservatives nitpick at all of the conservative candidates accusing all of them of being heretics of some sort. Then we’ll act like we don’t know what hit us when Jeb Bush becomes the nominee and we’ll really be left scratching our heads when he loses to Elizabeth Warren in November 2016.”
I find this to be a frighteningly accurate prediction of what is going to happen. Conservatives here on FR attack every possible conservative candidate for this or that. We are going to end up with Mitt again IMO. He will not allow Jeb to edge him out.
It is entirely possible that 2016 will be a repeat of 2012. What was interesting about 2012 is that conservatives attacked every single conservative candidate because they were wrong or inconsistent on one or two issues over the course of their careers. The end result was that we ended up with an unlikable candidate in Mitt Romney who signed into law the Massachusetts version of Obamacare, was historically pro-abortion until he decided to run for President, was a supporter of homosexual special rights, wasn’t a Christian and never favored conservative economic policies. How was this better than the mild heretic that Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum or whoever else was?
Equally interesting in 2012 is how much the rank and file didn’t like Romney. Each of the conservative candidates skyrocketed in the polls to pull even with Romney before being eaten alive by other conservative candidates and their minions. I think it could happen again. We can only hope the progressives make the error of allowing Romney, Bush and Christie to run at the same time.