With all due respect, we (the conservatives) have not had much of a say in running the party since 2000. I can tell you that as a (until recently) minor level party official. Since 2000, the national and state parties have been firmly in the hands of the Bush team. When they say jump, the state parties have been saying "how high." The reason, the Bush team controls the money spigot in the party. I have seen more than one instance of that up close here at home.
The only time conservatives get more than lip service from the party is when we yell (Harriet Miers, Dubai, and recently, Amnesty). Perhaps if the party would pay more attention to the people who put them in office, we wouldn't have to yell so often or so loudly.
So who is to blame for where we are? The folks running the show and making the decisions? Or everyone else?
Good question. I remember how the grass roots got sooooooo close to replacing Arlen Specter with Pat Toomey (I'll always be p.o.'d at Bush for that one) in a blue state. Maybe if some of the pent up anger here was spent on, let's say, supporting Hagel's opponent in the primary rather than bashing Bush, we'd actually get something accomplished.