I don't like Huckabee and don't even consider him particularly conservative at all, but he does represent a wing of the Republican party that feels like so many people express here (except on the TEA Party side). That is, if the party doesn't nominate someone they consider sufficiently shares their views, they won't vote at all. This particular group is largely evangelicals who vote on religious issues. They will vote only when they really like the candidate, which is often ministers, reverends, people known primarily as socon's, etc. They don't care about electability in general elections, and end up dividing the conservative primary vote backing candidates who have no real chance to win a general election.
I don't really even consider these people particular conservative on anything but social issues. I think many would be happy to grow government on the issues they care about, like hire 10,000 regulators to ban porn on the Internet, etc.
This is the problem with the all or nothing types. They don't think particularly strategically and won't understand that general elections are a choice of viable candidates (which is almost always 2 in our two party system), not an affirmative endorsement of any candidate. In our winner take all system with no opportunity for coalition building, in general elections we will almost always be voting just as much against a candidate as for one.
The bottom line is that, if your candidates won't toe the line on social issues, then you don't get our votes. I don't care who your candidate is running against in a general election. If your candidate (the social issue mushball) loses, the world will still turn even if the brand name Demonrat should win.
Thinking strategically??? How about this: See to it that the social conservative agenda is protected and advanced or you lose! I would include as social conservative agenda items: babies, marriage, guns, military rearmament, sharply slashing public spending on all leftist agenda items (envirowhackoism, gummint skeweling, hands off homeschoolers and private schoolers, slash taxes and thereby the gummint's allowance, etc.) Failure to meet those terms and down you go. Mike Castle would have been just as much a disgrace as Christopher Coons. Castle's sole advantage? One foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.
Rule or ruin: now and forever. BTW, as to conservatism, I was a Reagan state chair and I bet you were not.