This could cost presidential aspirants tens of millions of dollars; pull them far to the right ideologically, from hot-button social issues to foreign policy; and jeopardize their general-election chances. And in such a muddled lineup — officials are planning to squeeze 10 or more contenders onto the debate stage — candidates will be rewarded for finding creative ways to gain notice.

“We’re in a danger zone,” said Doug Gross, a top Republican establishment figure in Iowa. “When the party poobahs put this process together, they thought they could telescope this to get us a nominee who could appeal to a broad cross-section of people. What we’ve got instead is a confederation of a lot of candidates who aren’t standing out — and in order to stand out, you need to scream the loudest.”…

“If we go back to the old way of fighting amongst ourselves and saying, ‘You’re not righteous enough, you’re not perfect enough, you’re not this enough,’ we’re not going to win,” Bush said in a speech to RNC members this week.

This is particularly worrisome, considering the GOP is trying to shed its image as a retro party that protects the wealthy and project a more forward-looking vision by trying to demonstrate that Republicans care about the poor and disadvantaged and craft policies to lift them up.