There were generally individual reasons why many of them lost. Blackwell carried the baggage of an ugly primary where the establishment didn't want him AND having Taft's party label hung around his neck (and it sank EVERY other statewide, non-judicial candidate, save for one office, Auditor). DeWine was not regarded as a Conservative, and he managed to piss off a lot of people. Conrad Burns was slimed by the media regarding Abramoff, and it turned out that he was telling the truth and cleared -- but conveniently AFTER he lost a heartbreakingly close election. Hayworth's loss was a puzzlement to me. Santorum had the problem of pissing off the base with his endorsement of Specter and a name candidate that more than a few old timers thought was his dad. Allen lost because he ran a weak campaign and the macaca nonsense (nevermind his opponent was absolutely vile and had a mountain of baggage that was NEVER used against him, ranging from his violent streak, racism, anti-Semitism, his authorship of books featuring pedophelia, etc., etc.). It's just that 2006 was the perfect storm for us to be wiped out.
"I don't know what the solution is, except that the GOP desperately needs an identity, and since the Dems have their, we would be wise to not be them."
Here's the problem... right now, the Dems only identity is that they AREN'T the GOP, and that's pretty much how they're winning elections. They actually don't care if they elect semi-Conservatives, they just want to pack the seats to pad their majorities. That in itself will cause problems for them in the long run, especially if a large group of them from Republican districts can't vote for radical initiatives. But one thing is clear, we're not going to win by going leftwards. I've discovered that the Democrats can effectively cover the entire ideological spectrum and get their candidates elected (at least below the Presidential level, they'd never nominate anyone other than a far-left moonbat), but the Republicans can't. If we all of a sudden started nominating far-left liberals in urban districts, they wouldn't win. The GOP can only get away with one segment of the ideological rainbow, because its voters are far more discerning with higher standards. To support leftist Republicans would run counter to those standards. In every part of the country that decided to go that direction, the GOP simply died. Because the Dems' lust for power means they'd sell out their values for majorities, is the one reason why they can get away with their stunts of winning seats as they have in these heavily Conservative GOP areas (benefitting from the anti-GOP anger).
I don’t know about your second thesis. Have to think about that. But I disagree with your first thesis that it was “individual issues/state races” that doomed the conservatives in 06. That’s still part of our problem, in that we aren’t yet willing to admit that there are times that conservatism will BE A LOSER. And that’s ok. That’s history. Nobody wins all the time, and face it, conservatism imposes self-discipline and market discipline, and when possible, people want to be as undisciplined as they can. I think blaming the 06 losses on a galaxy of unsupportable individual race things does not get us closer to solving the problem.