With John McCain, and a bunch of other RINOs in 2008 and 2006, the Republicans did not give Catholic or Reagan Democrats anyone to vote for.
As long as RINOs are running the party, the Republicans will be out of touch with the bulk of honest, moral hard-working Americans who are overwhelmingly conservative.
Even as the party sinks lower into an abyss with RINO policies, its leadership and the suck-up pundits are demanding the party further depart from its conservative values and adopt Democrat-lite ones.
Don’t expect much change until the whole leadership cabal - RNC, RNCC, RSSC, etc. is cleaned out.
—As long as RINOs are running the party, the Republicans will be out of touch with the bulk of honest, moral hard-working Americans who are overwhelmingly conservative.—
This assumes that there is a definition of just what a “RINO” is; there is, after all, no clear definition of just what a “Republican” is. Until 1980, after all, people like Gerald Ford, Bob Michel, and Nelson Rockefeller were the face of the GOP, and all were squishy moderates. Even Nixon was no conservative (unless compared to McGovern). Basically he was LBJ redux; hawkish on Vietnam, but bloated the federal government all to hell. I fear that conservatives are grasping at a thin reed in relying on the GOP, but I’m not sure what the alternative is.