lawl Paul.
The only Conservative with a surefire chance of beating Obama in a general election was John Hunstman. Too bad no one that respectable, no one that willing to work with a president of a party that contrasts his own for the mutual betterment of his country could possibly pass the Republican Primary purity test. The GoP's problem is that the man best suited for winning the Republican nomination is often the man least suited towards winning the actual election, the reason being the party continues to shift further and further away from the reletive moderate stance of the American people.
And when they lose and lose they shall, instead of returning to balance they instead double down and convince themselves they lost because they weren't being Conservative enough. Just look at how "Conservative" Reagan was, and how far the party has shifted away from their champion. If any Repub Senator called for exploding deficits, raising the debt ceiling like crazy,(fiscal responsiblity, lawl) raising taxes on multiple ocassions and argued for Unions right to collective bargaining as Reagan had done, they would not be put on a pedstal, but strung up on a crucifix.
And yet it is not the party, growing more conservative, it's all the media growing more liberal. It's not the party shifting further to the right, it's just the voters becoming increasingly Democrat. It's not that more and more neutrals were actually former Conservatives that stayed the same politically while the party shifted, it's just that Republicans win more with neutrals than ever, etc. Maybe the GoP is too close to this to see they are the ones doing the majority of the shifting. But, until they exercise some of that "personal responsibility" in examing their own missteps and stop blaming everything else under the sun for seemingly having increasingly greater liberal spin in relation to their own constantly shifting views, they will continue to lose the White House.