No go back and look again. The candidates were running Conservative campaigns. Dems were going over to the GOP to run Conservative. That is why they voted GOP not because they were Republicans. If the DEMs wanted Liberals why vote for the GOP's Liberals? It was because up till 1996 the GOP ran a Conservative Platform. Why did Bob Dole loose? Because he invited every RINO who is a RINO to be Key Note Speakers at the 1996 GOP Convention. In two short years the GOP surrendered it's platform to run along the side of DEMs. Look what happened. They lost the senate majority once because of it and unless they wise up they will loose both houses and the White House by 2008.
Howard Phillips, Paul Weyrich, Jerry Falwell, and Ed McAteer helped put together the GOP Conservative takeover movement. It was the movement that helped Reagan and the GOP all the way to both houses of Congress in 1995. The Rockefeller GOP sadly has squandered all gains made during that time away. Right now the GOP is two very different parties Conservative and Liberal and I don't see any way for the two factions ever to work together again.
You are explaining the Republicans well. Most of these on FR don't have a clue as to what a Rockefeller Republican is all about. They think a Rockefeller Republican is a RINO which is totally wrong.
I also remember when Reagan pulled the conservative democrats in to the Republican party. The contract with America was also conservative.
I also remember how Rush Limbaugh toted Bob Dole's water. It was pathetic.