HotAir can go to hell. I recall they were pimping for Romney hard before the end of the primaries. Conservative candidates don’t get nominated because the GOPe does its best to undermine conservative candidates, as seen by the events of Bloody Thursday when Drudge, with the help of GOPe peons, unleashed false claims of Newt being an anti-Reaganite. We also saw this in their treatment of Palin.
It also doesn’t help that we have open primaries, thus allowing Rats to pollute the nomination process.
All of this deception, combined with an obsessive need to cover up the truth about Romney’s past, led to Mittens getting the nod.
I agree with everything you said, except the implication that Newt is conservative in any meaningful sense. Moreso than Romney, maybe. Certainly he has done more for the movement, if the movement ever really existed. He did more than a lot of people to slightly slow the growth of the fedral gubmint a generation ago, let’s say.