I completely disagree. Look at the contenders for the 1980 nomination ... Reagan was the only real Conservative in the pack. Then imagine if Reagan were competing against Barry Goldwater, William F Buckley Jr and George HW Bush. Bush would be the nominee.
In 2012 I saw Conservatives splitting between Gingrich and Santorum. This is an oversimplification ( due to brevity - I’m writing this on a smartphone) but it amounted to 30% sayng Gingrich was the true Conservative, 30% saying that Santorum was and 40% saying that Romney was Conservative enough and could win. So Romney got the nomination, without really having a majority of the primary voters behind him.
My fervent hope for 2016 is that it’s a two candidate race for the nomination. But I know that won’t happen ... There’ll be five or six Conservatives dividing 60 to 70% of the vote while a moderate (Jeb Bush?) gets the nomination with only 30 to 40%. And Conservatives will be angry, will stay at home on election day but will never admit that they themselves are really to blame for the situation.
The point of my comments was not that Gingrich was the best choice, though overall I think that he was. Santorum in my view was a one trick pony and did not have the historical heft that Gingrich had.
Our best candidate in my view would have been Palin. She was a powerhouse and would have destroyed Romney on sheer support alone. With her destroyed, the conservative mantle was split among several candidates and shifted from one to the next while Romney’s established base of support remained the same. Gingrich was the only candidate (once Cain was out) who could rally the people just on his own ideas and his own voice. Just like Reagan, he won a primary on those alone. Unlike 1980, the establishment manufactured Romney’s momentum and destroyed all opponents because they remembered what happened after New Hampshire in 1980.
You may be right that if Reagan was in a crowd of conservatives, the vote splitting would have allowed the more moderate candidate to squeak through. That’s just a lesson that we must choose our potential nominee as early as the establishment does. I think the establishment are getting behind Rubio while the Tea Party is getting behind Paul. Keep your eye on anti-Paul stories.