You are preaching to the choir...when you bring it up...you get name calling and denial in return. I don’t see now anyone can look at the 2006 and 2008 elections and believe ‘a true conservative’ can win the presidency or even governorships and congress (state and national) in some of these states.
It is not lost on the Mid West, how the South feels about them, (We had Shelby and Corker quotes for days in every paper about autos) if you run Sanford or any other Southerner, you will lose the entire Mid West...all this bashing of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan by true believers won’t help conservatives or the GOP one bit.
Just give up and join the DEMS, come on just do it. For now there is no RINO party - yet. How could you stand to be in a party that has somebody like me in it? Why would you want that? You are ashamed of me right? I am a red neck loser in fly over country, we can't have anything in common.
The electorate today is trending liberal, but liberals are not the majority. Neither are conservatives. A winning candidate will build a coalition majority. Our job is to find candidates with conservative principles who will appeal not just to conservatives, but others, enough to win a majority. Winning the 30% or so base is a start and something to build on, but it won't win elections by itself. Reagan was able to win majorities in '80 and '84 with a combination of principled positions and personal appeal. Nixon won a huge victory in '72 by showing himself to be the more reasonable alternative to a candidate whose positions were extreme and was not personally appealing (in spite of the fact that Nixon wasn't, either). Maybe someone in the current GOP Senate ranks can take up the cause. We'll see.