No, some people voted for Reagan in spite of the fact he was conservative because they liked him personally. You had the same thing happen this year...GOP folks told me that they would vote for Obama...”he’s to liberal, but we like him”...not kidding.
There is another aspect to the GOP losses not discussed...competence. The GOP is seen as incompetent by many right now. Even many in the GOP did not think Pres. Bush did a good job...this has rubbed off on the Republican party.
Good luck getting a RINO elected! LOL.
When I was working with the Reagan campaign back in '80 in my area I had huge numbers of voters tell me exactly what you said. The issue of conservative vs. liberal didn't even get mentioned. People said they liked Reagan better as a candidate and thought he would be a better President and do a better job than Carter. He was a candidate with personal appeal who connected with voters on a non-ideological level. It built a winning coalition that enabled us to elect a conservative President and a 'Pub Senate. If we're smart we'll learn from history and use that election as a guide for winning again.
I have a feeling what we'll see is what we've seen in the past couple of election cycles. Most people on the 'Pub/conservative side will support our candidate, some albeit reluctantly, but in the end they will get those votes.
We'll lose the middle ground and independents (who generally decide the overall race) if our candidate is seen as one-dimensional and/or a caricature conservative ideologue. Reagan and Nixon were able to avoid that and present either an appealing image or reasonable alternative and won big victories. Goldwater was not able to escape that image and was clobbered, TrueconservativeTM though he was.
The party has to recruit solid candidates who will hold the base and be attractive to a range of voters and, yes, be perceived as competent. We need to win back voters in swing states like OH, and recapture our former strength in places like FL and NC. We can do it, but not by fighting each other instead of the 'Rats.
There’s the key word - competence.
On the political blogs, there is debate on whether the GOP needs to be more conservative or less right wing. Such debate misses the point why 2006 and 2008 were bad years. Bush’s low approval ratings are due to perceived incompetence on Iraqi, Katrina, and lastly the economy. My county voted 55-45 for Bush in 2000 and 2004. But in 2008, my county went for the Messiah, 55-45. My neighbors, who voted for Bush, switched to the Messiah because they were angry with Iraqi and the economy. They felt it was time to try something new. This was how the Messiah won. Pro-Bush Suburbs in CO, OH, NC, FL, IN, and Va flipped to Obama.