CS: “Now I don’t think there’s any Torah sources for someone who started the job, and didn’t finish/ was killed or otherwise thwarted, to continue to consider them Moshiach.”
For the trillionth time, the LR did not start the job, any more than any other person who tries to bring Yidden closer to Torah and mitzvos. In fact, there are problems that he caused that those others did not cause, and that makes him a less-likely candidate.
And for the record, as I see it a melamed in a cheder of FRUM kids from FRUM families, as well as anyone else involved in chinuch, is doing just as an important job as Lubavichers or others who work in kiruv (you prefer the word hafotzo because it makes you seem on a higher level – but that’s another thing I won’t go into now). Especially today with the street and its influences being what they are, keeping someone frum and aiding him in retaining his ingrained Yir’as Shomayim is not small feat and is, IMHO, more important that bringing people who are further away from Torah closer to it. After all, what is worse, a person born not-frum who unfortunately never becomes frum, c”v, or a frum kid who goes off the derech R”L?