Alan Keyes is part of the reason.
As CARLHAYDEN said, Keyes was only a symptom. As the article points out the problem has been building for a long time. A strong organization would not have seen a need to call upon Keyes in any case.
As an activist, I can confirm the lack of use of the grassroots by the state party. The decline in use has been evident even over the last 10 years. In the 90's there were frequent appeals to precinct organizations in safe areas to move troops to contested districts. These appeals came from state leaders. By 2002 the appeals had dwindled to individual candidate appeals for help. No sign of state influence was present as it had been years before.
Another sign was in one of the county organization's big fundraisers. It used to be set up to have a lower cost tickets that brought out a large turnout among the rank-and-file. That tended to energize the party base. Over recent years the ticket price increased which improved the overall revenue, but sharply decreased turnout. Though many local organizations pointed out the problem with this, the county persisted in going for money rather than people.
