Karl Rove: William McKinley's lessons for 2016 GOP candidates
George W. Bush's former top strategist Karl Rove has been studying the Republican 2016 presidential field and has some thoughts about who best appeals to the changing country.
Some of the GOP are positioned to perform better than others, as the non-white share of the vote continues to grow as a function of the changing demographics in the U.S.
Rove opined on "CBS This Morning" that Jeb Bush (his former boss's younger brother), Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Chris Christie -- had the "capacity" to attract Hispanic, African-American and younger voters. The candidates "don't need to get the entire group in order to have a significant movement," Rove said.
"Remember, the group in the electorate who moved most from Obama '08 to not Obama in '12 moved against him are people age 18-29," Rove said. "If Republicans went from getting the five percent that they normally have gotten in the age of Obama among African-American voters, to the 12 or 13 percent Bush got in 2004, we win Florida." That is still a move of 7-8 percentage points -- but Rove may be making the unsaid calculation that none of the Democrats has the same appeal Mr. Obama did.
Republican candidates haven't exactly fared well among non-white voters, but Rove is urging them to seek inspiration from way back. Way, way back, in fact. He's looking at William McKinley's election in 1896.
In his new book, "The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters," Rove credits the former president for "modernizing" the Republican Party, "by attracting workers, new immigrants and the growing middle class."
"He is (also) the first presidential candidate of either party to openly and actively seek support of black voters during the primary," said Rove. "William McKinley understood that elections are about addition and not subtraction. That's why he went after the votes and these people who were not nominal Republicans."
One candidate he didn't mention in the category of candidates with cross-cultural appeal was the frontrunner, Donald Trump.
A new CBS News Battleground Tracker Poll shows Trump is back in the lead in all three early voting states. But Rove's feeling is that Trump has "a high floor and a low ceiling."
"He's shown himself an ability to get a big group of the Republican voters but he can't consolidate above that," said Rove. "And increasingly it looks like, if you're not a Trump voter now, you're not necessarily a Trump voter later."
The two have been critical of each other in print this election cycle. Last week, Trump slammed Rove on Twitter for his investment in the 2012 GOP election, after Rove had written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, criticizing the presidential candidate's performance at the fourth GOP debate.
Rove, who is a co-founder of American Crossroads, said the super PAC will stay on the sidelines for the 2016 presidential race.
"We're involved in the primaries for the Senate - we raised a $103 million dollars in the last cycle 2014, but we won't be involved in the presidential primary this time around."