Nate Silver : Historical Research : Parties don't really get chastened in their extremism until they lose a few elections. After that they look carefully for someone that will have broader appeal to moderates. It is not inconceivable that Rick Perry will be nominated by GOP

.

There is a lot of quantitative evidence to back up the intuitive idea of decreasing extremism with lost elections. So Rick Perry has a chance of being elected as Republican Nominee for the Presidency.

The longer a party is out of power, the more they value being in power over ideological purity.

Someone wrote a comment to Nate Silver in this page :

"Say what you want about his politics, Rick Perry is one of the most talented politicians in the game. He connects with voters in a way Mitt Romney never could. He has never lost an election in his life while Romney has lost every election he's ever been in but one. Obama is also one of the most talented politicians in generations. He came up out of the political nowhere and dethroned the Clintons, who had been running the Democratic Party for the better part of the past 2 decades."



Another interesting comment to Nate's Blog :

"The farther the Repubs move to the right the more likely President Obama wins reelection. The farther they move to the center the more likely there will be a third party bid from Palin or someone like her. The Republican party is splitting and the only unifying force is Barack Obama".

Nate Silver Political Calculus
Five Thirty Eight
History May Point Toward More Conservative G.O.P. Nominee
By JOHN SIDES
September 14, 2011


History May Point Toward More Conservative G.O.P. Nominee


Some excerpts :

The graph demonstrates that for each election that a party loses, its nominee get closer to the center of the scale. For example, in 1984 and again in 2004 the Democratic Party had been out of office for only one term. The party nominated Walter Mondale and John Kerry, respectively. But in 1992, having been out of office for 12 years, they nominated Bill Clinton, who was probably more centrist than Mr. Mondale or Mr. Kerry.

Of course, this evidence hardly portends that Rick Perry will win and Mitt Romney will lose. But it does suggest that 2012 could be a year in which the GOP does, to quote Mr. Cohen and colleagues, “test the limits of voter tolerance” by nominating a candidate like Mr. Perry.

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