We had a primary for 02 governor here between a center right conservative (Posthumus) and an uberRINO (Joe Schwarz). Joe Schwarz was a term limited state senator who is a gun grabber(called us bubbas that strap on a 9mm), pro-abort, ran McCain's campaign here, and supported tax increases. He ran on the GOP being too conservative. He was crushed 75-25 despite many GOP'ers voting in the democrat primary which was more contested.
Unfortunatly, we lost the race by 4%, but if Schwarz was at the top of the ticket, not only would he have lost by 10% or more, I think we may have lost several close state rep and state senate seats since conservatives (particualry Right to Life and NRA members) would have stayed home. We also would have lost the Attorney General race if Schwarz was at the top of the ticket.
One reason I'm active in the county party is to make sure our local officials are conservative, and that I can find out who the RINO's are before they get started in a career. We have a generally conservative county commish(no dems on it at all), two conservative state reps, a conservative state senator, and our congressman is conservative and from our area.