was Allen a RINO? VA tossed him. Was Santorum a RINO? PA tossed him. Talent a RINO? MO tossed him.
sure, in many states, the republican/conservative base can elect someone to statewide office, and in those states, if you want to use the primary system to get more conservative republicans, have at it. Lindsey Graham is a good example.
But if you start marching through the other states where the base alone cannot elect a senator - and start demanding that we "litmus test" out the so-called RINOs - we'll be down to 40 senate seats.
Someone explain to me how that is a formula for victory? What's our new party motto - "defeat is victory"?
Why would ANY american support amnesty for illegal immigrants? We need to answer that question, and educate them so they know better.
Conservative isn't a belief system, it's a proven philosophy based on the principles that founded our country and made it great. We can't count on parties to do what we want, we need to count on the american people to push for what is right.
Fact is, in some places the democrats ran moderate to conservative candidates in order to appeal to people who honored those principles, and they got elected. Sure, they will support liberal leadership for now, but they aren't liberals, and we can hope they weren't lying.
Santorum was simply in too liberal a state to last.
Allen ran a terible campgain.
But overall the RINO so damaged the general perception of the party, which led to a general discontent with the party that manifested itself in close loses in many districts.