The problem is that there aren’t enough conservative voters to create a sustainable conservative party.You are absolutely correct - for now. Yet more and more Republican voters are trending towards more conservative candidates, so the interest is there and building, but not to critical-mass yet. Which is why I said no one expects a conservative party to win it all, right off the bat.
The idea is only offensive to libs. Most (not all, but most) republican voters are not reflexively turned off by a conservative candidate. I would wager there's a significant percentage who vote for who they think will win -- heavily influenced by media driven polls and purchased-popularity -- not necessarily who they think is more (or less) conservative. Example: the re-election of Boehner & McConnell. How many voted for them because they truly liked the two chronic capitulators over a conservative -- as opposed to -- they saw Boehner's/McConnell's name and face the most on TV and really were just voting *against* Obama with the candidate the TV told them would win. How many Boehner/McConnell voters really know (or for now, care to know) the difference between RINOs and conservatives? How much have conservatives tried to promote their values, goals and benefits to those Boehner/McConnell voters?
There's no better time to get started than right now. For just one idea that even I (being an avg idiot) can think of, start with a more prominently P.R.'d conservative congressional caucus in the house and senate made of GOP registered (for the obvious practical reasons) conservative congressmen who caucus in a tightly coordinated fashion, bucking the GOP on line-in-the-sand issues. With every election season, keep fighting to build seat-count. One at a time if you have to, but I think it will grow better than we predict.
This isn't rocket surgery. I'm highly confident there are folks smarter than me who can provide better options for strategy and tactics.
Someone capable just needs to be brave enough to stand up and run *hard* with it. All I've seen so far is someone will leave the conservative huddle, go stick his toe in the water and decide it's too cold, then scamper back to the huddle where all we seem to do is wring-hands and gnash teeth.
GET A CLUE.
There may be some conservatives who, in a primary, are swayed by the argument that so and so the moderate can win in the general. The problem is that in order to vote for someone like Mitt Romney or John McCain in a primary a conservative has to suspend their principles. Romney was a pro-abortion Governor who signed into law a state version of Obamacare. Even if we grant that a program like Obamacare is a states rights issue and thus something to be decided by each state, it still suggests a big government philosophy. How could any conservative vote for such a person, particularly in a primary?
The GOP hasn’t nominated a conservative for President in 30 years. We have to face the fact that the party isn’t as conservative as it pretends to be. The south isn’t as conservative as it or the media pretends. While people might say in a poll that they’re conservative, their votes don’t match their responses.