Yes, he was, but he didn't wait until the last minute to bring Cheney on board as his VP candidate, and Cheney was a known quantity to the fiscal conservatives. "Compassionate conservatism" was an attempt to soften what some people thought were the harsher, Social Darwinist edges off the Republican image, and at least initially was understood to be slightly more expensive than the existing welfare state. However, what really killed us was Tom DeLay and the K Street crowd thinking we could pork our way to dominance in the same way the Democrats had. Stupid bastards.

The social conservative wing of the GOP tends to consist mainly of evangelical Protestants, Mormons, and conservative Catholics, plus Orthodox Jews and some other denominations. All of these groups have rates of childbirth well in excess of replacement rates.