The GOP achieved and held power in the US over the past thirty years because they switched from the political tactics of Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater and George Romney to those of Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and Lee Atwater.
The former were about ideas, the latter about winning. If you play hard enough, break enough rules and throw ethics completely to the wind, you can come out on top.
The Republicans had their day by creating a sort of constant murmuring background noise of—"The liberals are responsible for all the country’s problems". This resonated especially with people who don’t think very deeply, who heard the word "liberal" and thought hippie, commie, faggot.
This produced the astonishing scenario where great masses of people were led time and again to vote against their own interests. For instance, how many union members were gulled into voting Republican the last thirty-or-so years, when the GOP has done so much (and proudly) to dismantle unionism and destroy the middle class that unions made possible in the first half of the 20th Century? Blue collar union workers were one of Reagan’s great strengths. They loved that "shining city on a hill" crap, ate it up like steak then slashed their wrists with the steak knife when it came time to vote.
But the great architects of that kind of Republicanism are gone. That’s why they are forced to fall back on the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter—the GOP’s ruling elite think that it was anti-Democrat ranting that garnered them the support they enjoyed for so long. It wasn’t. It was clever psychological manipulation (and then the ranting) that caused the crowds to flock around.
The GOP, if it survives, will have to undergo a drastic overhaul if it is ever again to be relevant in American politics.