An age-old ar­gu­ment among polit­ic­al op­er­at­ives is the re­l­at­ive im­port­ance of per­sua­sion versus turnout. One group makes the case that scarce cam­paign re­sources should go to­ward tar­get­ing the mal­le­able voters in the middle, those with loose if any par­tis­an ties, and driv­ing them in the de­sired dir­ec­tion. The oth­er group ar­gues that truly swing voters are very few, and so it’s a bet­ter use of time and money to ex­cite voters who can be coun­ted on for sup­port, if only they’ll go to the polls. Which can­did­ate Re­pub­lic­ans de­cide to nom­in­ate for pres­id­ent next year could well turn on that ba­sic ques­tion. As­sum­ing the GOP, through its primar­ies and caucuses, doesn’t roll the dice on a pure out­sider like Don­ald Trump, they’ll choose either a can­did­ate whose ap­peal reaches in­to the middle, such as (in al­pha­bet­ic­al or­der, lest any­one be of­fen­ded) Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, or Marco Ru­bio, or one de­signed to max­im­ize sup­port in the party’s con­ser­vat­ive base, like Ted Cruz, Mike Hucka­bee, or Rick San­tor­um. I sup­pose you could count both neurosur­geon Ben Car­son and busi­ness­wo­man

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