Part of it I believe is that anyone with an actual record of leading is going to have made some compromises so he knows he will be attacked by the RINO hunters. Look at Perry, his poll numbers dropped because he is "soft on illegals" when all he did was allow kids who went to school in Texas and whose parents pay taxes in the state to go to pay in state tuition. If you look at his total record his has been fairly aggressive in doing what he could to control the border but all the RINO hunters see is that he isn't a radical on immigration so he is a "liberal amnesty RINO who is no different that Obama and I would stay home before I voted for him". Who the hell would want that? By the way a lot of these are the same people who were screaming that they wanted Perry to get in the race because there was no viable conservative running. If you are happily running your own state and making a real difference why would you want to jump into the meat grinder that is today's hyper partisan politics. The left is just as bad by the way, they attacked Bill Clinton as a racist for heavens sake.

It has gotten to the point where only the people we know almost nothing about like Caine and Obama can run without being attacked for their record.