Are you suggesting then we get another moderate who will say the right things as the presidential nominee in 2016? Haven’t we been down that road before? We have not had a true conservative as the nominee since Ronald Reagan and the prospective field for 2016 doesn’t look like it will field one either. What is it exactly then you think will yield a winning Republican candidate in 2016?
I honestly don't know, but it certainly isn't Palin.
And it won't be someone running on a "I hate homos and want to ban all abortions in all circumstances" ticket either.
One problem is that a lot of people here don't grasp just how badly they are outnumbered. If you are religious, older, and live in a dark red rural portion of a red state there's a high chance your whole family, church, and workplace shares your worldview - which then leads to the "all polls are wrong" nonsense you see when they find out their views aren't a majority.
But as an example, for every gun-toting grizzly Mama in Wyoming, there are TEN View-watching, gun-abhorrent, liking their gay-friend-hair-stylist, half-heartedly religious upper-middle class housefraus in New Jersey, or the Northern Virginia suburbs, etc.
And the few people that do understand how badly they're outnumbered come up with ridiculous schemes that have no hope of being implemented like one electoral vote per county, etc.