The party elites are an electoral disaster who are apparently too stupid to figure it out. McCain and Romney were both moderate disasters so they want to double down.
The party elites are more interested in maintaining the status quo than in winning elections. They still have their jobs, their incomes, their power and influence. They are satisfied with that.
The dissatisfaction is mostly from fly-over country. The elites ignore fly-over country whenever possible.
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Conservatives/Right Wing need to be cautious and not fall into the same trap they got caught up in for 2008 and 2012 — having too many weak candidates diluting the vote and basically handing the nomination to the choice of the elites.
Consider 2012: it had too many also-rans, none having much of a following.
The one who might have been kind of “flakey”
The one who forget which 3rd department to be eliminated
The one who forced to resign the House speakership
The one who couldn’t win reelection for the Senate
The one who seemed to have zipper problems
The one who lost to the one who lost to Obama in 2008
What a list!
If 2016 has the same list of wannabes and a few more with similar backgrounds, they are going to hand the election to another democrat.