The American Interest on why Jeremy Corbyn took the top spot of the British Labor Party. But this sounds like a good working theory for why Hung Hsiu-chu is the Kuomingtang's presidential pick in Taiwan as well:
“If you are doomed to lose whatever you do, you might as well let your freak flag fly.”
Sure, nominating kooks politicians of dubious electability might feel good if they promote views hardcore elements of the party strongly adhere to. But as I see it, the problem with "letting your freak flag fly" is two-fold:
First, nominating radicals poses the danger of splitting a political party — something we're already hearing murmurs of in both Britain and Taiwan.
And second, in doing so, a political party sends the electorate the message that the party in question is fundamentally unserious and not to be trusted near the levers of power.
Not being either a British Laborite or a Chinese Ultranationalist, I'm entirely comfortable with both of those consequences.
POSTSCRIPT: The Taipei Times, suggesting that Hung's goal isn't to win the presidency at all, but merely to change the terms of the debate within the KMT. (That is to say, she wishes to marginalize the KMT's "Taiwanese" faction, and strengthen the party's Chinese unification faction.)
“I want to make changes to the party I belong to,” Hung said with tears in her eyes on Saturday.
[…]
…there is no room (and no need) for Hung to step back, especially if her goal is to foil the growth of the local factions within the party, which could lead the KMT away from its “core [unificationist] values.” She has little to lose, too, except a KMT founded on expedient coalitions, and she is obviously willing to trade a big KMT for a smaller one with stronger faith. [Emphasis added]