While I like Duncan Hunter a great deal, he needs to be governor or have some other executive experience first before I'd support him. I think an underplayed part of McCains' defeat is that he was a Washington insider who was incapable of effectively attacking Democrats for the financial issues because (1) he was part of the problem; and (2) these guys are his friends.
As mentioned here and elsewhere - our candidates should always, always, always come from governors (past or present).
There are relatively few governors who are true conservatives, as conservative as Sarah Palin. The rest get traduced by the incentives of the budget dollar-chase.
James Q. Wilson, the conservative political essayist, pointed out years ago how liberals used foundation money at first, and then under LBJ federal program dollars, to "train" administrators to be liberals, by dangling those program dollars in front of them constantly. Marginal dollars are the mother's milk of politics, and liberals clustered around and got control of the marginal-dollar sources.
A high priority has to be placed on an area we've neglected for 60 years: Chasing liberals away from the sources of political dollars and marginal program dollars like fund matches, and the NGO foundation boards that allocate them.
We have to purge the NGO's, even the liberal NGO's, or put them out of business. We have to neutralize their sources of program money and political money. They've been bribing governors and mayors to be liberals like them, for 60-70 years now.