Pity the Purist in the GOP Primaries (A Tear for Bobby Jindal)

To win the presidential election will require selective dissents and little blasphemies.

April 27, 2015

8:26 AM

It's the season for pandering to the base, which is as good a time as any to ask whether the glorious, fascinating mess that is today's Republican Party can ever unify enough to win back the White House-or whether unity is something they should even be after. Because it may well be that a fractured, contentious GOP is the only kind that can prevail next November.

You probably missed it, but over the weekend nearly all the Republican presidential candidates (with the notable exception of Jeb Bush) hotfooted it back to Iowa to participate in the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition Forum, where they testified to the depths of their love for the Lord and their hatred for His enemies, particularly Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The entreaties to this band of the base-important in primaries everywhere, but critically so in Iowa, where 57 percent of the attendees at the Republican caucuses in 2012 identified as born-again or evangelical Christian-are a good reminder of the internal and external challenges the candidates face.

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