You need to do just the opposite, cater to the conservatives who will all show up on election day and vote for you and the moderates (liberals) will vote for you rather than vote for the democrap when they go to vote.
Conservatives far outnumber the liberals in the Republican Party (except in the NE), I don't know why candidates try to appease them.
Know what? I can tell you that that is a common misperception. The problem up here in the Northeast lies with the Party leadership, from the state level right on down to the county level. Republican Party "chairmen" lack guts and have mostly been thoroughly corrupted. I don't know why.
But when a real conservative comes along, the voters come out and elect him handily. Rick Santorum is a prime example.
On the one hand you have a "moderate" like my representative, Jim Greenwood. Here's a guy who dances on the fence like nothing you ever saw before. Your quintessential squishbag "moderate" - - a really slimy bore. The guy is scared to death he might get labeled a "conservative". He manages to skate by in this district, but absolutely nobody is excited by the guy. "Congressman" is as high as he will ever go.
On the other hand you have Rick Santorum, an unabashed "conservative" and one of the most conservative Senators in Congress. This guy is so solid that the Scumocrats didn't even bother fielding a credible candidate against him last year. People make a special effort to go vote, just so they can vote for Santorum. If he turned squishy for a second, he would be finished. His popularity thoroughly baffles most of the scumbag Party chairmen around here who believe you have to field a spineless "moderate" in order to win.
The point is, the NE is loaded with conservatives who are begging for a reason to go vote.