Matt Lewis made his fame in Morton Blackwell’s Conservative Leadership Institute now known as Campaign Leadership Institute.
Morton Blackwell is, of course, the Goldwater backer who invented targeted fundraising mailers for candidates, the precursor of Robet Mercer.
CLI and Matt Lewis preached writing off Blue areas. Writing off infrequent voters. Concentrating only on winning the Hard Rs. Writing off Purple areas unless you need them to win in red areas.
CLI bought into limiting a campaign to 2 or 3 swing states and ignoring WI, MI, PA, etc. And even in those 2 or 3 swing states like OH it ignored the Reagan Democrats and focused only on the children of Taft.
The CLI strategy is why McCain and Romney lost. Of course, CLI would claim that it is why the Rs have the most Congressmen, Governors, state legislators ever.
The CLI strategy is its problem, not its Goldwater ideology.