Even Harry Truman tried recruiting him for the Democrats. The Republican party's presidential wing succeeded in recruiting Ike, and he won. He won twice. He was followed by an even more Conservative President ~ which is why Nixon didn't run as a mushy liberal anymore.
Even Barry Goldwater was attached to the big money men and old ladies who backed much of the activities of the presidential wing (his was wife was very wealthy, he was only so-so wealthy) ~ for the most part the core of the same crowd that backs Walker in Wisconsin, and probably to a degree, Romney.
Nelson Rockefeller sought to gain their approval but they kept him frozen out while others were run ahead of him.
The Reagan Democrats were preceeded by quite a few other Democrats ~ IKE actually had hard core Southern Democrats vote for him, as did NIxon. There was a sea change in the South that saw the blacks gravitate to their former masters in the Democrat party, and the younger whites gravitate toward their natural allies, Midwestern Republicans.
The Civil War came to a close as fewer and fewer people had any relatives who could even remember a Civil War soldier. I may have been among the last few thousand ~ my cousin had married a Union soldier in his 80s. She used to write me letters about life in her day, and his adventures. He was also one of my Great Great grandfathers ~ (I have lots of relatives so not to worry) I gather he set fire to half of South Carolina and most of North Carolina to hear him tell it.
The problem now is the old party structures that enabled the presidential wing to run a national race while the regular Republicans carried on as a series of isolated regional parties is BROKEN. It is no longer a satisfactory business plan and must be changed. Else we are going to be doomed again to near irrelevance.