“Steele certainly forfeited his chance to be that guy by using the leading exponent of conservatism for target practice on national TV.”
IMHO Steele forfeited his chance by being a RINO, long before this happened. This only allowed all conservatives to see Steele for who he really is and did conservatives a favor.
The polls show that Rush Limbaugh has 65%+ negatives among the fairer sex, as it was once called, and about a 55% negative among the men. This gives RINO's all the ammo they need to attack the lovable blowhard and preacher to the choir. He is an entertainer who has made a vast fortune giving people who already agree with him, blinding glimpses of the obvious, while having absolutely no effect on anyone else. He makes his white male audience (and me) feel OK about being and believing differently than the other 65%. It's brilliant, but it ain't politics.
IOW, if Limbaugh is a Republican icon, Republicans lose. Which is why the RINOs scramble for distance, and the White House is all for Rush as the "head" of the Republican Party.
The RINO (which by now IS The Republican Party,) will sacrifice principles to win the elections and cannot understand why the Conservatives hold exactly the opposite view.
The key to every election becomes white women. whoever can get 52-55% of them, wins. This is why big tough Republican men sound like the goddam Avon Lady when they make political speeches. It's not "nice" to attack environmentalists, and unionized teachers, dirty commie rats, anyone "of color," for any reason, and kill people in foreign countries before they kill us. Far better for winning elections is to make "nice," speeches that don't really say anything and make lots of promises to make things nice for the women and children. An ounce of reassurance is better than a pound of facts on the stump or in a TV commercial.
Throw in the ironbound Two-Party System that has rigged itself to go on forever in its protection of incumbents, figuring out how to divide the spoils as usual, no matter which party wins ... and you can learn what the Greeks also learned the hard way ... Democracies run in cycles of self destruction .... as soon as politicians have access to the wherewithal to reward their friends and crush their enemies, the downward spiral begins.
In this death spiral, non-elected entities grow to enormous power, which would be the ONLY reason to vote for McCain and Republicans over the preposterous Kenyan Kommie and his KleptoKohort. E.G.: Soon the ancient SCOTUS judges will start dropping like flies. McCain, I thought, hoped, and prayed, would appoint better ones than this fast-talking mystery Chicago dude who actually somehow got the job.