Well look, I agree with you.. what you wrote. But the probem is that mainstram GOP is not the slightest bit conservative anymore. We are not talking about abandoning the GOP just for guns, or just for abortion, or just for whatever. We are talking about the basic philosophy that government is the problem, not the solution. The GOP just doesn't believe that anymore.
That's nonsense. Anyone can run, and the GOP isn't funding anyone in the primaries.
Anyone with any philosophy can be a candidate. It doesn't matter "what the GOP believes" or doesn't believe.
This forum is making the GOP organization the boogeyman, when it's simply a failure to have many good or great candidates step up.