Partisan backlash is the best kind!:) The Republican Party is the party of vouchers, of cutting taxes, of securing the border. To the extent that the Republcians ar an "open border" party it's in large part due to the influence of libertarians such as Tamar Jacoby who have lost the need for conservative restraints upon their utopian libertarian ideals. Conservatism means dealing with what is the case, not what we would like to be the case. Of course you're right that it's not the case that the Republican Party=conservatism. Augustine's City of God showed how no city, no nation nor any political party should ever be identified with the ideal it strives for. But, it's still the best option for non-utopian conservatives.
There's no Mike Pence offereing imaginative, constructive solutions to the border problem in the Democratic Party. There's no President Bush who bravely stepped on the "third rail" of politics to reform Social Security, either. Do I always agree with Mike Pence or Presiedent Bush? Of course not, not anymore than I think libertarians have nothing to offer the Republican Party. Representative Pence and President Bush don't always agree with each other, so it's logically impossible to agree with both all of the time. As for cronyism, I agree that's a problem--- but it's a problem for any political party anywhere with any degree of power, not a strictly Republican one, and the most forthright elected opponents of it have been Republicans like Ken Blackwell.
And here I thought the Republican party was the party of of "no child left behind", massively increasing spending, and amnesty for illegal aliens.