First, Fred Thompson was the guy who shot Fred Thompson. I liked Fred's positions, but he made a bunch of miscalculations. There was a lot of support for him, but everyone else was running for a year before he laced up his shoes. He campaigned like he was disinterested in the whole process.
Duncan Hunter never got out of single digits. Heck, he barely got to single digits. I know the MSM wouldn't cover him, but if he was really electable, he would have figured out a way to make his name better known than the guy who played Squiggy on Laverne and Shirley.
Okay, here's the news flash: There are not enough conservatives to swing an election without forming a coalition with other people.
We've been running a circular firing squad since 1992. Pat Buchanan started it. Bush wasn't good enough for Buchanan, so he threw a tantrum and broke up the Republican party. Good for him. He blasted Bush and weakened him enough that Perot could finish him off. After doing his best to destroy the Republican party, he picked up his dolly and dishes and went to Perot's Reform party, helping to break it up.
Everybody CLAIMS they want Reagan to come back. Well, how about bringing back this part of Reagan's philosophy: "Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican." Let's debate issues, stand for principles, and seek the best candidate we can. When that is done, let's put aside animosity and work to elect our candidate.
This is the nut of the thing. The way you state it is one side of the coin, and the "coalition" you refer to has to do with the identification of the word "conservative" when it comes to distinct social-moral issues as differentiated from fiscal issues. There is another side of the coin -- that is that limited government that best serves the interest of social-moral issues as it does fiscal issues.
The Federal government thinks it is immoral for an employer to fire an employee for being gay. So you own a shop, you hire a 23-year-old kid who seems okay, but after awhile starts wearing his sexuality on his sleeve, swishing and sashing (he thinks it's so cute). You know he's a confused mixed-up kid who needs to learn the hard realities of moral life, and you're hoping and betting that left to his own, in ten years the kid will regard this bizarre rebellious "walk on the wild side" as an embarassing phase. You'd love to fire the kid, and it would probably be the best thing for him. But the Federal Government thinks that's immoral, and you can't. That's one small work-a-day example of how evil Federal-moral meddling can be. Further, the Federal Government thinks it's immoral for poor women to have to go without abortions, so across this nation, taxpayers are forced to abet abortion. Federal moralism has deprived us of the right to discriminate against those we'd rather not deal with for whatever reasons, usually moral. Morality or lack of it did not cause this supression of our freedom -- abandonment of Limited Government did.
Long way of saying that this is a battle about the coalition and the confusion in the minds of some "conservatives" as to which comes first, the cart or the horse. The heavy hand of Federal moralism will fail every time, whether "liberal" or "conservative," because it abandons Limited Government. We need to make it plain to "social" conservatives that Limited Government, not pick-n-choose-your-government-program, is in their interst.
More important, we must recognize and admit that cowing to pick'-n-choose-your-government-program "compassionate" conservatism is against the interest of the Republican party, hence a false premise for a coalition.
Anybody can put on a Republican mantel, does NOT make them one. Now had McCain adhered to that mantel he would have full conservative support. A leader must have the ability to lead NOT insult and assault a people into submission.
OK, here's the deal. Fred Thompson never made any claims other than to be a solid, adult, and rational candidate. The very sort folks claim to want. And he ran as a solid, rational adult.
And yet he couldn't get traction -- the conventional explanation being that he refused to shove roses and chocolates up the arses of the Republican voters.
Well, Fred was in the right on that one. If Republicans need to be wooed like fickle cheerleaders, they deserve the STDs they catch from every fake lounge-lizard who catches their fancy.
Republican voters are the problem. They need to grow up and get serious.