Can an establishment-moderate Pub coalition get Kasich nominated?

[Mr. Morden]

I don't agree with the thesis from the OP exactly, but Torie, what are your thoughts on this Nate Cohn column from January?:

"The Surprising Power of Blue State Republicans"

I don't think he even mentions one advantage that more moderate GOP voters have in presidential primaries, that I've talked about here in the past: Their power is amplified by the fact that most states use some kind of WTA by congressional district delegate allocation, in which every CD gets the same number of delegates.  So the Republican primary voters in Nancy Pelosi's district (who are very few in number) collectively have as much clout as the Republican primary voters in a solidly Republican district elsewhere in California.  As seen in both 2008 and 2012, those urban Republicans are more likely to vote for the "moderate establishment" candidate than the more conservative insurgent.

[Mr. Morden]

I sort of think the whole thing is by design. The Pub establishment is well aware that perhaps a majority of their primary voters want candidates that tend to be politically toxic in general elections. So the dice are loaded.  

As Cohn notes, it's not just that the dice are loaded towards the more moderate candidates in the presidential primaries, but that things are skewed the opposite way, towards more conservative candidates, when it comes to GOP Congressional representation.  (As he points out, 40% of all GOP primary voters live in the 18 most solidly Democratic states.  Yet those same states include just 7% of all Republican US Senators.)  This skews people's perceptions of what the median GOP primary voter looks like.