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Just list the candidates since 1932. There's a pattern;

Alf Landen

Wendell Willkie

Tom Dewey

Dwight Eisenhower

Richard Nixon

Barry Goldwater

Richard Nixon

Jerry Ford

Ronald Reagan

George HW Bush

Bob Dole

George Bush

John McCain

In general, a candidate who ran to the LEFT of the Republican party base, or who dismissed any interest in Republican social issues, or who actually ran to the left of the Democrat, lost. Those who affected a comprehensive attitude about classical Conservative issues, won.

McCain's interest in "Reach Arounds" definitely dismissed the party base which has no interest in that sort of thing anymore.

We had 12 different guys run, and 5 of them won. One of the winners, Nixon, stands alone. He lost to the more conservative JFK. Sneaking in past George Wallace on his second run, the third time he ran on an out and out Conservative position.

To a degree Jerry Ford, with a many decade's long voting record, ran against Jimmy Carter who claimed the high ground of Social Conservatism ~ and lost. Within weeks though everybody knew Carter was a loser, and that was the end of his career as President.

Barry Goldwater may also have encountered a problem in that LBJ had not had a long career as a Progressive and for many folks was just another in a long line of stoop to loot politicians ~ leaving open the possibility for historians to continue discussing whether or not it was Goldwater's "conservative views' that lost the election, or maybe his inability to differentiate himself from LBJ outside of the voting rights act of 1964.