Who was the conservative alternative to Bush back then?
No one that I recall. The point to be made, in hind sight, is that Bush was not a conservative at all. He and his cronies faked the need for war in Iraq and Afghanistan and has been a Trump hater just to name a few little things that made him stand out as a non-conservative.
I voted for other fakes too, being Romney and McCain.
These three are huge disappointments and almost had to have been deep staters posing as republicans. If either Romney or McCain had been elected the nation would have slid into the sewer almost as fast as it did with obama.