With due respect, I don’t think it was the “social conservatives” that drove out Specter.

He’s always been a Republican in name-only, he’s sided with Democrats on numerous NON-social issues (the Obama porkfest being the most recent and egregious example) and he left the party out of political expediency.

As to Huntsman, the Republicans HAVE had alternatives to the Spendulus, and other Democrat legislative disasters, but they’re having a pretty hard time getting their message out, utterly apart from gay marriage and/or creationism.