POLITICS

Does the GOP need a FrankenCandidate?

By LARRY J. SABATO

July 14, 2014

id you ever see the documentary APerfectCandidate?It was about

Oliver Norths 1994 challenge to U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb, a Democrat

from Virginia. Despite the title, North turned out to be less than perfect;
he lost to a scandal-wounded but resilient Robb despite a Republican tidal wave.
There will never be a perfect candidate, unless brilliant genetic engineers assisted by
Watson the computer decide to undertake the task in the distant future. Until then,
parties are left with flawed human beings, those bundles of virtues and vices that get
proctoscopic treatment during long campaigns.
As long as she runs, Hillary Clinton appears to check most of the boxes that
Democratic activists require, and one of her advantages is that her strengths and
weaknesses are unusually well known. Its hard to believe that voters will learn
anything big about Hillary in 2016 that they dont already know or suspect.
Not so for the potential nominees of the Grand Old Party. Republicans lack not only

a frontrunner but also politicians who could thread every needle thrust forward by
the partys interest groups while still remaining electable in November.
For a moment, though, lets drop the naysaying. Suppose the Republicans could
construct an ideal contender for 2016someone who could actually win without
repealing the essential components of the GOP platform. What would the candidate
look like?
POLITICO cartoonist Matt Wuerker, with some brainstorming (but not artistic)
help from myself and the U.Va. Center for Politics CrystalBall team, has cleverly
assembled some of the possible body parts for the ideal Republican competitor.
You can be the judge, but the internal contradictions of ideology and personality
would likely rip apart this friendly Frankenstein fairly quickly. No party can have
everything, a White House nominee cannot be all things to all people and choices
must be made.
The Republican eventually crowned in Cleveland is bound to be pro-free markets,
pro-life on abortion and critical of Obamacare, high taxes, big spending and massive
debt, to mention just a handful of issues. Political parties, with a few historical
exceptions (such as William Jennings Bryan in 1896 and George McGovern in 1972
for the Democrats and Barry Goldwater in 1964 for the Republicans), prefer
evolution to revolution.
Yet even some hidebound conservative Republicans understand that their party
needs to change or else conceivably go the way of the Whigs. Losing 80 percent of
the nonwhite vote, at least 60 percent of young people, and around two-thirds of
single women, as the GOP White House nominee now does normally, appears to be
a formula for consistent defeat, especially when demographic changes favor
disproportionate growth in most of the voter categories where Republicans have the
least appeal. So is there a reasonable evolutionary path for the GOP that could
produce a Cleveland Concordata platform with sufficient red meat to turn out
hungry conservatives but enough tasty fruit, vegetables and dessert for persuadable
moderates?
You know the next line: It wont be easy. Conservatives will insist that no real
change is needed since a hard-right nominee will generate record turnout among the
true-believing base (as though the same nominee wont generate high turnout

among the Democratic faithful who fear the hard right). Other Republicans will say a
congenial Reaganesque nominee is all thats required to charm voters into amnesia
about the partys rough edges. Maybe, but theres really been no Reagan since
Reagan.
Even assuming the GOP nominee will have the requisite charisma, surely the party
would have to present a somewhat different face. So what would a Republican
winner have to say and do? Heres a partial menu from which to pick and choose.
Actonchangingdemographics:Republican leaders have been urging this since
the partys Growth and Opportunity Project report from March 2013. Without a
reasonable immigration plan to run on, the nominee will have a hard time
improving much on Mitt Romneys awful 2012 percentages among Hispanics (27
percent) and Asian-Americans (26 percent). Substance matters more than image, but

diversifying the GOP ticket cant hurt. The era of two white males per ticket ended
with Romney-Ryan. Assuming Republicans have something to sell to minorities
not just symbolic identity politics but issue positions that appeal to targeted groups
the ticket must campaign aggressively in those communities. Otherwise, key states
that used to be solid pieces of winning GOP electoral mapssuch as Colorado and
Floridabecome harder to win.
LarryJ.SabatoisuniversityprofessorofpoliticsanddirectoroftheUniversityof
VirginiaCenterforPolitics,whichpublishestheonline,freeCrystal Ballpolitics

newslettereveryThursday,andaregularcolumnistforPolitico Magazine.His
mostrecentbookisThe Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and
Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy.
Additional credits:
Lead image by Matt Wuerker.