In the aftermath of the 2012 election, conservatives/Republicans generally split into two camps about where the movement or party needed to head next. One camp thought the key was to do a better job of making the case for conservative principles and policies (and to do a better job of developing specific policies consistent with conservative principles), especially to Main Street Americans, many of whom are blue-collar voters.

This camp was particularly frustrated with Mitt Romney’s failure to fight on the issue of Obamacare or to champion a conservative alternative to it, and it argued that Republicans couldn’t win national elections without advancing a conservative message that would appeal to the old Reagan Democrats. It blamed the 2012 loss squarely on Romney’s shoulders (and on the shoulders of those who failed to answer the bell and thus gave Romney an open path to the nomination).