The Republicans, ostensibly the "Party of Business," have truly "sucked" (sorry there is no other modern term that is apt)at Advertising and Public Relations, the engines of business, and of course, politics. You are correct of course. The MSM is hostile and "Conservatives" need to buy and pay for their place in the market. Where are the full page ads in the New York Times and the WSJ? The policy "infomercials?" Why is there no "conservative" Bill Maher?
Instead of spending wisely, The RNC will take half a billion or so and dump it on a complete charlatan like Karl Rove, who will turn around and subcontract it to an ad agency or communication company ... usually owned by a Democrat and staffed with same ... to produce at vaste and insane expense.... senseless, themeless, boring, message-less commercials and ads that would shame any used car company in your town.
Then, they will cut crooked deals to place same in notoriously uneconomical media buys. In short, if an advertising or PR agency did this to a commercial client they would be cashiered overnight.
Many have pointed this out over the years to no avail. A bright spot: Many local Republican races are more or less intelligently run. This is a clue to a thought process: The Republican Party has abdicated its true place in fighting to manage a constitutional government in exchange for safe seats from which they can protect the interests of those who can pay for it. The Republican "Establishment" seems to have a single goal: to remain a minority party, but hopefully strong enough to maintain a good spot at the table where the swag is divided with the Democrats. That's all they will fight for.
Dilemma: The Republican Party is in its ugly, senile death throes. But, what is to replace it? The Democrats and Republicans between them have so jiggered the system that a new party seems impossible to start, much less take off.
The Model is there. It is the Republican Party of the 1840's and 50's, built around a Big Idea: Abolition. Now we need another Big Idea ... and we have one. Constitution. But it seems few politicians will fight ... much less die ... for it.
Madison foresaw the problem of faction and lost a lot of sleep over it, and John Calhoun after him. Both were admirers of the "gentleman legislator" ideal of the 18th century, and both were long-lived enough to be disappointed to see the rise of the Albany Regency, Tammany Hall, and the Millocracy.
Nobody yet has found a solution for the "two-party problem", viz., the tendency of every issue to be coopted successfully by one of the two "established" parties. That's why the Bull Moosers failed in 1912, and why there hasn't been room for a new party in American politics since 1856, the year after the Whig Party finally came apart. But the Whigs only took 16 years to die, whereas the Republicans have been hanging around, their usefulness pretty well shot, since 1932, to serve mostly as a punching bag for the closet Stalinists who took over the Democratic Party.