The premise of the article implies that a Republican would even have a shot at winning the White House in a future election.
Demographic trends, along with the dems’ entitlement-based structural advantages, have put the Presidency out of reach. The electorate was D+6 in November, and there’s no reason to believe that spread will be any tighter in 2016. It probably will expand to D+8. Any drama in future Presidential elections will occur in the democrat primary. It’s no longer a matter of whether the GOP nominee is conservative enough... the problem now is the electorate is shifting hard left.
This isn’t pessimism... it’s reality. Time to concentrate on winnable races at the Congressional, Senate and state levels.
following the patterns is not leadership, leadership is leading and the patterns then change. Reagan was painted as a waco nuclear war loving cowboy nut. He changed the pattern.