Note to self: Whenever a staunchly conservative woman runs for office and doesn’t win, she will be quickly demonized in retrospect by many on FR as a disaster and a crazy person, and therefore must be thrown under the bus. And then many of these same “conservate” critics will conversely claim that our side could have won if we had instead put up a more moderate candidate.
No, not moderate candidate, good candidate. People are advocating nominating the most conservative candidate that CAN win, not just the most ideologically pure candidate. Some people are right on all the issues and wonderful people, but just don't make for good candidates. Sad as it might be, it takes far more than being right on the issues to get elected. Human nature is what it is and very smart people that would great policy makers simply don't fare well in elections if they can't communicate their message effectively or come off badly in front of the cameras.