The reason conservatives should not bother with Viguerie's call to organize is that they can't organize on any level smaller than the GOP. Don't think I agree with you on that point. What of the Main Street Republicans? What of the Club for Growth? The Moral Majority? The Minutemen?
"But if you want to go for it, as I said, knock yourself out and more power to you. Regardless, to have any efficacy at all---unless you only want to be a homewrecker---you will end up having to work through the larger organization, meaning one of the two major political parties in America."
That may well be true, but having to channel candidates through one party's structure might be more easily done if the fundraising and campaigning for the candidates were not controlled by the party itself. Think of the Clinton/DLC machine, and the way it managed to turn itself into the party prior to Dean. After Dean began a separate structure independent of the DNC, the DNC realized it needed him to keep the party together, and since his 'rejoining' the Rat crowd, the DNC has hewed pretty largely to the public line of the far left, though it has had some difficulty putting up because those who will vote for far left officeholders are fewer in number than those who'll vote for a DLC type. And liberal contributions have stayed put in large amounts in the coffers of non-party organizations like Moveon, not to the DNC, a fact which Hillary has tried to use to move Dean out.
I think your arguments don't ring convincingly against organizing a conservative wing at all. They only really effectively demonstrate that you miss something important. You think that "The bases of each of the two political parties have been organized, and have been trying to further organize, within the parties since time immemorial." But you miss that the bases for each party have changed radically over the years. Even thirty years ago, the GOP was not entirely a conservative party, as it did not command (as it does not now command) the Jacksonian conservative political wing. The GOP had to actively court it and commit to it to win its votes even through the Nixon years, and Watergate's obvious corruption flipped that crowd away into voting for Carter.
Mead defines that wing as "Suspicious of untrammeled federal power (Waco), skeptical about the prospects for domestic and foreign do-gooding (welfare at home, foreign aid abroad), opposed to federal taxes but obstinately fond of federal programs seen as primarily helping the middle class (Social Security and Medicare, mortgage interest subsidies)..." This sounds significantly like the disenchanted 'whiners' here, with the obvious exception that most of these folks have gone off federal middle class spending (except perhaps as a method of somewhat evening the score for corporate and other welfare). Organizing that group separately from the rest of the GOP, making it into an independent power base to be wooed, would likely produce a recognizable rise in party influence. If that is homewrecking, perhaps the house needs more remodeling than you are willing to admit.
And remember I did not say just "organized." I specifically said "powerfully organized." IOW, organized in such a way as to exert real influence on the larger organization. I think the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and such at one time may be the types of organizations Viguerie (and you, possibly) are thinking of.
But how effective were they in the long run? They couldn't really, nor would they claim they were part and parcel of the party; that would have impunged their "independence." But, to the extent they were not part and parcel of the party, they did not have the "freedom" (loathesome as it may be sometimes) to make the pragmatic calls that the party must make to function within our system of self-government.
It seems to me that, to be effective in the scenario you've suggested, this "force" or "wing" (what I call the base) would have to be quite large. And if it were quite large, it would organize quite naturally and would quite naturally exert a strong influence on the party.
The fact that that doesn't *quite* happen (it happens to some extent, I think) tells me---at least in this point in time---there's no "there" there.
Your example of the Clinton wing is a good one. However, that "force" in the DNC did not create itself out of nothing. It was already a very large vein in the Rat rockbed; it's just that the Toon happened to be the one to come along at the right time with the ability to galvanize it.
And isn't that the basic problem here that we spend threads and threads talking over and hashing out what is to be done about it? That no galvanizing leader of the base has appeared yet?
I do believe it takes that certain leader to bring about. It will not come about otherwise. And, more than that, what is stopping people from doing it if they want it done? We have the internet, we have PayPal, we have millions of ways to organize that were never possible previously.
I have no quarrel with your considered judgment. My only concern is that, in the meantime, good people who love their country will, because of their dissatisfaction with a process none of us can fully control, actually harm our country by facilitating the election of the Rat Machine.
As I said in a previous post, I think anyone who does his best to impact the primary process for good can have a clear conscience come Election Day. On Election Day, you are presented with two choices, not of your making. Your conscience is clear. At that point, it is an individual's responsibility to vote to obtain the best result for the country from the choices presented.
That is an honorable, though sometimes unpleasant duty.