I don’t know if I’d call it “flim-flammed”, we vote for someone who’s less than conservative and hope they have an epiphany. But what winds up happening is they go the other way.
Bush billed himself as a “compassionate conservative” He is nothing of the kind. He’s pretty liberal on the face of it. Did we have a realistic choice? Not in the general election. I can’t remember about the first primary, but THEN was our chance to wash him away and we blew it. Not that a lot of conservatives didn’t have serious misgivings about this guy. (I voted for Alan Keyes or Forbes - I can’t remember which).