proliferation of conservative candidates enabled Jeb to power through to the nomination.”
This is the problem I have been trying to point out for years; the RINOs run one candidate and we run many all of whom beat each other up and divide up the money. The RINO sails to the nomination; then looses.
This is why we want to encourage lots of RINOs to run, maybe even send them some money early on.
Loses- unless his shoelaces were too tight.
That is exactly the process. It will not change so long as COnservatives continue to stay tied to the Republican Party wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat Oligarchy.
The people who back those candidates coalesce behind one early on. Look at what happened to Rudy Giuliani when he ran. He was a plausible candidate but his campaign went nowhere.
On that side of the party, people vote for the front runner and the also-rans are squeezed out early in the process because winning or appearing to be a winner (or the candidate whose turn it is) is everything.
On the other side one candidate can always try to "out-conservative" the others, and somebody without much support can run a shoe-string campaign on passion alone even if winning the nomination isn't pretty much impossible.
Any candidate who becomes a conservative front runner is liable to be "out-conservatived" by somebody on his or her right, unless he or she has acquired the kind of immunity that Ronald Reagan had.
We need to proliferate RINOs. Come on Jeb, Mittens, Fat Boy, Goober, and the rest!