Is it possible to be a “moderate” Republican?

[Del Tachi]

Yes, "moderates" represent the largest electoral faction of Republican voters and mostly dictate and dominate the intra-party discussion.  Trump, Romney, McCain, Dole and Poppy each dominated the "moderate" lane in the open GOP primary contests they won, and I'd argue George W. Bush was the "moderate" in 2000 as well (we don't have great exit polling data for the 2000 GOP contests, especially considering that Bush wrapped it up before Super Tuesday.)   

The base of the GOP (especially in the Northeast and Midwest) is simply too heterodox to be motivated by Heritage Foundation-type movement conservatism.  Hyped "rising stars" of the GOP (i.e., Walker, Cruz, Rubio, Perry, etc.) floundered because they incorrectly assumed winning a GOP primary to be about who could most credibly claim the mantle of TrueConservativeTM.  For what it's worth, it should be informative that all of thepost-Reagan Republicans have campaigned and governed from the ideological center-to-center-left of the GOP.     

The disconnect is that the mainstream, liberal punditry has equated "moderation" in Republican politics with "sounding nice."  Liz Cheney, John Boehner, Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney (among other Sunday morning mainstays) are not moderates in any *ideologicial* sense of the word, but only in that they converse and transact in the preferred euphemisms and tautologies of Democrat-run media.  The policies and philosophies they've championed throughout their careers are decidedly more conservative than anything offered by Trump or Trumpism.