Won't work. Part of the problem is we are letting the media dictate our candidates and meddling into our affairs. Besides, look at Reagan's numbers, which actually PROVES conservatism works when communicated properly without deference to media hype. If he gets a mandate at 28% and a landslide at 33%, that means he's pulling a lot of moderates to the right, certainly more than the moderates pull conservatives to the left.
Reagan from 80 to 84 just brought out conservatives to the polls. That was a time when the southern conservatives had left the democrat party but had not fully committed to the GOP.
From 80 to 84 the self identified moderates voting for Reagan increased by 7% and the total number of voters increased by 7%. While the number of conservative votes for Reagan increased by 27%. Reagan brought out the conservatives in a way that is no longer an option with how much of the electorate we now have as conservatives.
Increasing the voting conservatives is not really possible anymore as the parties and now ideologically divided and those last non voting conservatives are so far right we lose more votes going after them. In the long term at the local level we have to focus of family and traditional vales and in the short term we have to be able to appeal to women and Latinos without compromising our principals.
You are right about the media though, we cant let them dictate the issues, but it is also a self inflicted wound. When we let guys like Akin and Mourdock to tie themselves to us. We have to many prominent republicans who let their political beliefs outweigh their political sense. We have to play the long game, for the fist time in history the most "liberal" voting republican is more conservative then the most "conservative" voting democrat. It makes RINO an antiquated term. If we have to suffer a "RINO" term to keep some of our power, so be it. We cant let this "throw them out" mentality to override our strategy to put the country back on the right track, any democrat will be far worse.