“2006 was a repudiation of the leftward drift of the GOP”
Exactly. Rudy will wipe out the party for only God knows how long.
If that were to be true, then what you are saying is that Conservatives of the so called "true" type, did not vote or voted for democrats to punish the party?
To my knowledge, the only historical stay at home conservative voters are not really part of the "base", but are mostly religious swing voters who when energized sufficiently, will go to the polls.
What happened, is that we lost all the swing voters for a variety of reasons, stemming from the war to Terry Shiavo when non religious swingers decided the Pubbies were far to dangerous to the health and welfare of the Republic, because of a kneejerk disregard of States rights. There were a half dozen other reasons, like stem cells, Internet gambling idiocy and bad reputations caused by everything from ineptitude to felony activities.
This can all be summed up with the comment that we did a bad job in the majority and were appropriately punished. We let the Dem's convince the planet that we oversold the war, and we had a bunch of bad luck as well. Can't blame ourselves too much for that.
Now it seems we (the base) could not warm up to each other unless we are cremated together, and so it will likely be, in 2008.
Perhaps that is just as it should be, as a instructive teaching aid.