The country club wing of the party always hated Reagan.
Wait a minute! I belong to a country club and I think Reagan was the greatest President of the modern era. I think you need to narrow that broad brush just a tad.
It isn't the "country club wing" that caused the problem as much as it was the fact that the GOP went to Washington and let Washington change them, instead of the other way around.
Still do. We had the closest thing to Reagan running - Duncan Hunter - and the RNC colluded with the MSM to keep him out of the debates. I guess calling the frontrunners the “Kennedy wing of the republican party” has its price.