Jim Antle reviews the 2012 primary season and considers the
obstacles to nominating a conservative insurgent:  That is
something a Tea Party candidate for the presidential nomination
will have to resolve early because a divided conservative vote
spells doom for a conservative insurgent.  The problem for Tea
Party and insurgent presidential candidates is that this may not
be something that any one of them can “resolve early.” For all
the complaints about the missing fantasy candidates, the GOP
field was already overflowing with alternatives to Romney. Had
one or more of the fantasy candidates joined the race, the
conservative vote would have been split up even more. One reason
for this is the large size of the overall conservative vote in
the GOP primary electorate, which makes it harder for any one
candidate to appeal to enough of all kinds of conservatives.
Another unexpected reason is the ideological uniformity inside
the party on most issues. When even the relative moderate front-
runner publicly embraces t