Chafee and Webb announced.

[zazen]

101. why the HELL can't Chafee or Webb or Clinton run as a Republican?

And before anyone says, you don't understand polling, I understand that at least 1/3rd of the Republican Party wants a figurehead to move more overtly back to effectively Clinton's position, which is their position (socially liberal, economically neoliberal). They're just socially/professionally pressured into professing a difference with Clinton (and Chafee). Another third could be persuaded through campaigning to move there.

With the right social media campaigns and strategies, those Republicans would rally around a Webb or Chafee or even Clinton (1/3 secretly agree with her). They just need a Grand Narrative, because they like to follow authority and have a group of "liberals" to dislike/effeminize, against which to define themselves. Because of identity politics there's a fundamental gendering unconsciously pushing faux party differences (in the middle).

An "I saw the light and want to bring back Eisenhower values to the Republican party" candidate, especially if a Democrat "renouncing" some minor issue within the Democratic party as a distracting false wedge issue that would provide plausibility for the "switch," would garner a solid third and might--just might--win the primary. Hell, a Dem-turned-Republican who rallied against Common Core, a mainstream neoliberal strategy that could be superficially pinned on Dem leadership), they'd get some Dem parents too.

A moderate Republican candidate would force our candidates to the Left. And would more effectively split the Republican fundamentalists off from the mainstream, which is a matter of global urgency since they're poised to be the fascists of the 21st century.

Republicans, and mainstream Americans, LOVE conversion/rebirth narratives. It's our religiosity.

Yes, Clinton or Chafee or Webb could win the general election as a D, but I just DREAM of a day when they're what's considered conservative in this country, as in Europe.