Yeah, I tend to agree. I'll also note that Republican party has little to nothing to do with textbook conservativism and its important that people note that.

Who was the last Republican front-runner who genuinely stood behind smaller government? Church mongering != conservatism, and in action, the Republican party has let down its conservatives/constitutionalists for a long time.

If anything, the only thing that IMHO has hindered the Democrats from winning the last two white house bouts was the types of people running for office. Sadly, Bible thumping means a lot more in American politics than the Democrats have given due credit to. Its the reason why a guy like Lieberman, who I personally like, would never get elected. Based purely on religious viewpoint, despite our whole spiel about separation of Church and State.

People say it boils down to stances on abortion, but given the anti-climatic nature of what's going on in that arena, I think thats an excuse. Republicans just make more believable Christians, due to the topic stances. If the Democrats were smart, they'd get a guy through primaries who faked being anti-abortion and just did absolutely nothing about the abortion topic while in office (just like most mainstream politicians, since they don't want to touch the topic with a 10 foot pole after the ballots get cast). I guarantee you, a very devout protestant middle aged white guy Democrat would have beaten the pants off of Bush and no matter how we falsely pride ourselves in being a diverse country without overt religous dogma, thats exactly what wins more elections than voting histories.