Ron Paul Campaign (which still exists) frustrated by conservatives who fail to recognize Santorum rejects Goldwater

Jack Hunter has been running the blog on Ron Paul's campaign site, Paulitical Ticker, and recently posted a call to "every talk radio host, rightwing pundit and Republican voter who thinks for one second that Rick Santorum is an actual conservative" to watch a video dug up where the former Pennsylvania Senator makes comments seeming to detract from Barry Goldwater. Hunter writes:

"For the last half century, being a conservative in the United States, first and foremost, meant adhering to the Goldwater-Reagan philosophy which views government in wholly negative terms. Barry Goldwater believed anything the Constitution did not give the federal government the authority to do, it should not do. Ronald Reagan said: 'Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.'

This is basic American conservatism 101. And it is basic American conservatism that Santorum rejects. Listen to him admit it:

(video)

The only candidate in this race who even talks about the proper role of government, the inherent evil of government, and the importance of it only performing its constitutional functions is Ron Paul. 

Simply yelling at Democrats does not a conservative make. That so many in the Republican Party and the conservative media actually accept and promote Rick Santorum as a conservative reflects a party and a movement that is entirely ignorant of its own history. It is also the reason big government persists. If Santorum is the standard bearer for the GOP, conservatives no longer agree with Reagan that “government is the problem” only that Republicans can do a better job of managing big government. Mitt Romney undoubtedly believes this. Santorum obviously does too.

Ron Paul is the only conservative in this race."

The video that has so thoroughly disgusted the Paul campaign:

The post illustrates the fundamental difference of opinion among 2012 Republicans of what makes someone a conservative, and what the party should represent for the next half century.

Beyond the post's tenacity from a campaign that perennially finds itself in the back of the pack among the four remaining Republican presidential candidates, it makes an overweening generalization that an entire political philosophy must always adhere to all the beliefs of one particular person.

A person whose sixth-most lopsided defeat in a general election to Lyndon Johnson in 1964 opened the door to the passage of the Great Society, who thoroughly supported abortion, who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 despite being morally opposed to discrimination, who backed Democrat Karen English in her successful 1992 congressional campaign against Republican Doug Wead (who is now a senior adviser on the Paul campaign), and who promoted conspiracies that the government is hiding information on UFOs.

Do you believe the GOP for the next 50 years should revert to the libertarian positions of Goldwater, or take on a more nuanced position that still advocates for lower, flatter taxes, but attempts to implement policy that applies market-oriented solutions to issues such as education, social welfare and energy.