Conservative, Smervative

The Republican candidates are on TV bashing each other.  Favorite bash, "He's not a true conservative".  Well, I don't really care if he is, or ain't, conservative.  I want a candidate who will make an effective president.  For openers we need someone who can win the general election. Which means getting the independents to vote for him.  Independents are centrist in their thinking, the ones who are lefties join the Democrats, the righties join the Republicans, what is left (43% of the electorate) is middle of the road.  Come out too strong for some favorite conservative causes, the gold standard, pro life, isolationism, tax relief for the 1%, and others,  you loose the independents. 
   We need someone who can lead, i.e. present a program and convince a majority of the citizens (and their Congresscritters) to support the program.  A candidate who insults the other side is going to have trouble getting the other side to go along with his program.  
   We need someone willing and able to accept advice.  As a subset, we need someone who can judge which advisers know what they are talking about and which ones don't.   Nobody knows everything, any president needs to accept good advice from qualified experts.  And ignore bad advice from know-it-alls.