People need to read this again and again. Let us stop blaming "RINO", the RNC, the MSM, Bush, and so on, and look at the reality: there were several 'conservatives' running, none of them really attracted voters. Yes, surely MSM tried their best, but they are not omnipotent like in the past. If the candidates were strong, they would get conservatives' votes despite MSM efforts to confuse the voters. They weren't. I'm saying this as a former Fred supporter, BTW. Now I'm for Romney.
The primaries so far have been open to dems and independents. They have not been Republicans only. They include one issue evangelicals for Huckabee in Iowa and liberal New Hampshire for McCain. It is questionable whether there has been a significant sampling of genuine conservative voting so far. SC is only one state, also with an open primary system.
What needs to change is the primary system so that we have republicans only voting and not only certain not so conservative states having a false importance. This system skews the whole outcome.