It is more like saying Barry Goldwater was a conservative, even though he failed to put his policies into practice (since he wasn't elected). Their teaching is orthodox, even if they haven't managed to impose it on the Church. Mysterium Fidei, the Credo of the People of God (issued directly against the heretical Dutch Catechism), Humanae Vitae, Evangelium Vitae, Ecclesia de Eucharistia - all these are opposed to the liberal, modernist, protestant doctrines.
That's how it began. That's how it ended for Reagan. And to call JP II or Paul VI somehow traditionalist Catholics is to say that John L Kerry was a Reagan conservative. If you said that, it wouldn't be believable.