Republican activists think a strong conservative can win the White House. They’re probably wrong.

The Washington Post's Monkey Cage ^ | October 13, 2015 | John Sides

[Williams]

Let’s find out.

[DiogenesLamp]

Pretty sure the current leave the nest average age is 28.

We are currently experiencing many abnormal social conditions. I saw a comment the other day to the effect that "Television has done to the US Culture what Alcohol did to the Indians."

[traderrob6]

“But Democrats do believe a strong liberal will be penalized.”

You mean like Obama was?

[Tucker39]

You left out the key word.

FAUX conservatives led the defeat in.....

[nclaurel]

In light of some who post online I imagine we will have to up the age of those leaving mom and dad’s basement

[Starboard]

21 is the age at which most people have had to live on their own for awhile, and it is the age by which most people have had to make adult decisions.

************
That used to be true. But no longer in this age of prolonged adolescence and extended life in mommy’s basement. The culture in this country has changed. 30 may be the new 21.

[Tucker39]

Mea culpa. I missread your statement. You were right. I was wrong.

As the late, dear-departed Rosanna Rosannadanna would say, “Never mind!”

[airborne]

The GOPe is supporting "immigration reform", absentee voting and no ID's to vote in an effort to keep their party from becoming the political party in control of Congress.

Republicans in DC would rather see a Democrat in the White House than a conservative Republican in charge anywhere.

[Drew68]

You mean like Obama was?

Democrats have the luxury of running as centrists and then swinging far left after they've been elected. They don't make their candidates kiss the rings of partisan special interest groups on the campaign trail like we do.

[nathanbedford]

The point is just that nominating a strong ideologue — whether liberal or conservative — puts a party at risk in November.

If this Maxim were true we would not have seen a president Ronald Reagan or a president Barack Obama.

The Maxim might nevertheless be true if it it means that nominating a perceived strong ideologue puts a party at risk. Then we would ask whether the country saw Barack Obama as a "strong ideologue" and I would venture that it did not because the establishment media simply would not let them see the evidence. More accurately, the establishment media set the tone which said that the evidence was not credit worthy. As to Ronald Reagan, the media sought to portray him as a "strong ideologue" but his personality was so appealing that the medias' quadrennial labeling game simply could not stick when applied to this ideological conservative.

So if it occurs that there are other elements that come into play if one is to consider this Maxim. The image of the candidate and his ability to shape it as well as the slant of the media and its determination to sell it.

When one talks about a candidate and the media these days one might as well get right to it and utter the name, Donald Trump. So far, in a contest between the charisma of the candidate and the determination of the media to label him, a fair observer must observe the score to be Trump 1, media 0. But this raises yet another element into the equation: whose perception are we talking about?

If we're talking about an activist Republican base, Trump might be a Ronald Reagan sort of figure and succeed in overcoming the media but if we are speaking of a general electorate, then Donald Trump might look more like Barry Goldwater in 1964. Whose perception are we talking about?

These considerations do apply with some re-configuration to candidates on the other side of the aisle. Bernie Sanders, for example, does not seem to be suffering overmuch from his ideological extremism but might well come a cropper in the general election as the character of the electorate varies. If a man who is a self admitted socialist gains the Democrat nomination, the media will go into gear and tell the electorate that he is not ideologically extreme. At the same time, the media will go into gear and tell the world Donald Trump is a cross between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

In addition all of these considerations we have the question, which issue will be decisive in the minds of the electorate and will a given candidate appear to be ideologically extreme concerning that decisive issue? A moderate candidate on the wrong side of the decisive issue might well lose to an ideological candidate on the popular side of the decisive issue. Again, Donald Trump's name is unavoidable. Donald Trump might actually have profited from his reputation as an extremist (although not necessarily an ideological extremist) because he identified with immigration, an issue which the media entirely failed to identify as critical.

But is immigration an equally compelling issue which would favor Donald Trump in the general election? Might it become so if Trump can morph the issue into jobs which conceivably could be the critical issue for the general electorate? We conservatives want a committed ideological conservative, who appears benign, but who also appears to be compelling on the correct side of the decisive issue.

I remain committed to the man has never put a foot down wrong, the only ideological conservative in the race with a chance to win, a man with charisma who can battle the media, Ted Cruz.

The author's Maxim is shooting at moving targets.

[DPMD]

…because it’s common knowledge that only squishy, leftist democrat lite republican candidates can win the general elections. Proof: How about Dole, McCain and Romney.

It’s no mystery why the WP wants an identical candidate in 2016.

[Reaper19]

They may be right. God knows its hard enough to get one to win the primary in the first place. We have one, maybe two strong conservatives running right now, one is in third or fourth place and the possible other is at <1%.