Electability, or desperation?

[Cuban_Liberal]

Many voters in this year's Democratic presidential primaries are sending a new and rather curious message that they are willing to compromise their values and beliefs for the sake of backing a candidate they believe has the best shot at unseating President George W. Bush.

"Electability" seems to be the buzzword of this campaign cycle. Large numbers of those going to the polls indicate they are putting aside their personal preferences for candidates in order to back the one who they believe can best give the president a run for his money in November, even if they don't personally like him.

There is hardly a poll conducted that doesn't ask if the electability of the candidate a voter selected wasn't a motivating factor. The answer is that it is. In one poll, Newsweek found 39 percent of voters said they made their decision based on candidate electability. In a recent Christian Science Monitor online poll, 52 percent said it's OK to vote based on electability, even if it means subordinating their prefernce for another candidate.

Our candidates themselves are voicing the electability mantra.

"I am more electable because I know what it's like to grow up in a working class family," Sen. John Edwards told Newsweek. "We are the only campaign that has a chance of beating George Bush," Gov. Howard Dean said while stumping in Iowa and New Hampshire. Wesley Clark even hosted a rally at which electability was the theme.

The disdain we Democrats have for George Bush is omnipresent. Most of us still harbor anger for what we believe was Republicans stealing the White House in 2000. Questions regarding the faulty intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and on Bush's entire rationale for going to war -- along with mounting body counts -- also serve to fuel our ire.

At least regarding Iraq, Bush will have to answer to war-mongering charges when our nominee is finally selected in Boston. It is unfortunate that it will take such a challenge to compel the president to be forthright on an issue he should have been open and honest with us about from the beginning.

In the meantime, we can expect the thinning ranks of our candidates to spend less time on delving into substantive issues -- and outlining their positions on them -- and more time on pleading their case for electability.

We've already witnessed the power of electability has in this campaign. It resulted in the downfall of several candidates and the bolstering of others.

Before even a vote was cast in 2004, Gov. Howard Dean held the fancy of impressive number of likely Democratic primary and caucus voters. He was clearly the front-runner and was so sure he'd be chosen that he called for the party to unify under him weeks prior to the Iowa caucuses.

It was a bold move that is now an embarrassment to Gov. Dean, sadly. He may have been the pre-election favorite, but once voters considered a Dean vs. Bush matchup, they backed away and his "electability appeal" plummeted.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, who could well have stood toe-to-toe with President Bush regarding Iraq and the Middle East -- he did and still does support the invasion -- never registered on the electability scale even though many Republicans believed his more moderate views would have posed a greater challenge to the President. Maybe his mild manners and politeness -- two qualities for which Democrats who are sharpening their long knives to attack Bush find of little or no use -- was his "unelectability" downfall.

Then there is Sen. John Kerry who the party insiders seem to think is 'the anointed one'. Sen. Kerry won decisively in both Iowa and New Hampshire and, while he didn't sweep last Tuesday's elections, he did take five out of the seven states.

While his winning percentage is enviable, Kerry has only locked up a sliver of the delegate pie. Still, his "electability quotient" promises to gain him center stage at the Democratic convention, if not the nomination itself.

Kerry is using his war record -- he is a decorated and heroic Vietnam veteran -- which Democrats think gives him credibility on issues like Iraq. He attacks the president for the sorry state the country is in. Downplayed is the fact that, as a long-standing senator, he himself has had a hand in shaping the country as it stands today. But politics are never about self-blame or even logic; rather, they are about pointing fingers at the other party.

Despite this Kerry has become the current 'most electable' candidate -- at least among the majority who've voted so far. If he gets the nod -- certainly not a foregone conclusion, at this point-- it awaits to be seen how well he'll fare against Bush.

Putting party before personal principle in a primary election is an unusual twist. Perhaps the reason is that we Democrats are hell-bent on knocking off Bush at any cost -- even if it means forgoing the opportunity to vote for our favorite candidate. That says as much about how desperate our party is to beat Bush as it does about the otherwise good and honorable candidates we choose to abandon.

Edit: typo

[sallyseven]

1. I listened to all the candidates

and in my opinion I should vote for the one who talks about the things that mean most to me. Elect ability is important. This should be included in the dynamic. There is much to be said for people who are attracted to a candidate who then for one reason or another decide that that person is just not quite the person they thought he was. This happens all the time. It is great to have ideals and vote for the person who represents those ideals. There are times however that things change and that person is not viable after all. Look into your heart and decide just who you want to lead this nation of ours.

[bigtree]

2. These are a lot of words

to describe how you feel. But thousands of voters have already registered their opinion with their vote. How many voter's expressions aren't covered by your logic? How many voters went into this with their own page of reasons and justifications for their candidate of choice?

Kerry's support is based on votes cast. Not polls, not punditry, but on the votes already cast. And the amount he will get in the future.

Those votes already cast should influence. It is perfectly legitimate to cast a vote based on the impression that a candidate can get votes elsewhere. Especially in a primary where we are mostly on the same side. That's not to say there aren't differences between the candidates. But sometimes the fact that others will vote for a candidate can be the only deciding measure left for a conflicted voter. That reasoning is as valid as any other. To dismiss a voter's reasoning here in your appeal as the result of an 'electibility mantra' is an incredibly arrogant substitution of their judgement for your own.

I reject your mantra of the uselessness of electibility and your assumption that these voters aren't thinking for themselves.

Folks have a right to make up their own minds and neither you nor I can read them. We can't tell by a poll or anything anecdotal what voters are taking into consideration when they vote. All of the wasted print on voter trends can't divine that.

I would suggest that the votes cast are the most dependable measure of public opinion and let it go at that. Anything else is mere presumption.

Present the details of your candidate and let the voters decide what factors will go into their decision. Otherwise you are no better than the punditry you decry.

[Cuban_Liberal]

4. "...I reject your mantra ...."

I have no 'mantra', but merely an observation about electability as an unusual factor in this year's primaries. I nowhere state that it is 'useless'-- that is YOUR word, not MINE. Any other 'take' on this opinion is twisting the words I wrote into an unrecognizable form.

[bigtree]

8. "Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad"

"Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad"The sky is falling"Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad""Electiblity is bad"


Not.

So we agree?

[Cuban_Liberal]

10. I didn't say it was.

Did I? :eyes:

[Virgil]

26. Can people tell you what Kerry would change?

People see a lot of recommendation from the establishment on tv. They see him say "Bring it on." But who can tell you what Kerry wants to change. The Fantasyland Five that control most of the media have been created that way by design. People did not make an intellectual decision on who would be the best President. The electablity thing was a way of getting the herd to vote for the establishment's candidate and ignoring the real issues before us. When the media could have talked of the removal of paper trails and its failure to remedy once found out, they ignore the issue and said "Look at these polls" and "Kerry is electable."

Kerry, and Edwards too, are part of the establishment that handed over most of America's media over to five conglomerates- Westinghouse, GE, Newscorporation, Time Warner, and Disney. He made paperless trails an acceptable corruption to all things proper and sensible. Kerry may be electable, but I will not vote for him. The Republicans and Democrats both serve the concentrations of wealth. Kerry represents the opposite side of Bush, but they are the same coin.

The issue before us is the entire corruption of the American government. If we had many sources of independent news people would already know that. There is your media for you. It was made that way by design.

[Cuban_Liberal]

27. If not kerry or Edwards, who do you plan on voting for?

Just curious. :hi:

[Virgil]

29. Kucinich

The reason Nader got what votes he did in the last election is because they rejected the idea that either nominee is the best man for the job. I will probably only vote for people that are not Democrat or Republican and when there is not a third party candidate, just not vote.

[Cuban_Liberal]

30. OK

I certainly hope that there are enough of us who are focused on how truly disastrous a second Bush term would be for this country that we can offset votes such as those.

[Virgil]

33. The only way you could lose

The only way the Democrats could not beat the worst president ever is if they prove themselves the worst party ever.

[Cuban_Liberal]

35. Or...

... it could also happen by nominating the worst candidate left, too, which we are in danger of doing, IMO.

[THUNDER HANDS]

3. the ONLY thing that matters is beating Bush

The ONLY thing.

[kentuck]

5. Almost everyone thinks their candidate is "electable"...

But most Democrats seem to think Kerry has more of that quality than any other candidate. It's hard to stop a train once it starts rolling full steam.

[Cuban_Liberal]

6. Exactly.

:hi:

[displacedtexan]

7. So my 'compromise' in supporting Clinton was wrong?

Clinton was way too conservative for me to support in the '92 primary, but I voted for him in the GE, and he turned out to be great.

Yes, I compromised my principles in supporting him, but the reward was electing a great president... even if he was conservative.

Just vote for the candidate of your choice and support the party's nominee in November.

[Cuban_Liberal]

11. I didn't say that.

I am merely commenting on how electability is an unusually-important issue in the primaries this year. :)

[bigtree]

15. I reread your piece

You went a long way around to claim that the voters were choosing John Kerry because of his percieved electibility without taking his record into account, which you claim hurt the country. Talk about presumption. You can't divine what voters make their choices on. It will likely be a combination of things.

Don't think you are gonna slip by me with your declaration that support for my candidate is less about his record (which I think is outstanding) and more about 'electibility". I think votes are an amalgamation of interests and concerns. The foremost reason may be Bush sucks. But nothing, no poll, no anecdotal punditry can disern the rationality of the voter when he or she makes their choice. The vote is the ultimate expression of how they feel. It is perfectly valid to make a choice on that basis, without us assuming that their reasoning was shallow.

I think that is what your post infers.

[Cuban_Liberal]

17. One may think what one will.

Whether that is what I wrote is another matter. To say that I 'went a long way around to clain(sic), etc...' is, at best, a stretch. My piece is about how unusually significant a factor 'electability' is in this years' primaries, and any other 'spin' on it is just that---spin.:shrug:

[bigtree]

22. And you went out of your way to insult John Kerry

That is the most revealing part of your article. Would you have the same view if your candidate was in the lead? Would you allow someone to declare that your candidate's support was just about electibility? Course not.

This 'mantra' of yours fits your distain for John Kerry, and exposes your rejection of the appeal of electibility as a rejection of John Kerry's appeal of electiblity.

You reason that he is not as electible as voters have percieved. You further cast responsibility for the state of the nation onto his his back. This is an attempt to denegrate the support he has already recieved as unimportant because, in your view, the voters just cared about his electibility and ignored, you say that, "He attacks the president for the sorry state the country is in. Downplayed is the fact that, as a long-standing senator, he himself has had a hand in shaping the country as it stands today."

Sly dig, but it won't do. Voters have a lot more information at their disposal than you give them credit for. Their vote cast is an important measure of a candidate. It should not be disregarded.

[Cuban_Liberal]

23. No, I did not go out of my way to insult Sen. Kerry.

That is a baseless and untrue allegation.

[bigtree]

36. I accept your characterization of your remarks

and I apologize for my misunderstanding of them. :)

[Cuban_Liberal]

37. Apology accepted.

I think we all occasionally tend to see what others post here in a different light from that intended by the poster.

No blood, no foul.:hi:

[Duder]

9. Like Sam Smith said back in January:

'IF things keep going the way they are, the Democrats will nominate for president a man who was wrong on the Iraq war, wrong on the Bush tax cuts, wrong on the Bush education disaster, and wrong on the Patriot Act. And despite intimations of immutability by the media, all this has happened many, if not most, Democrats being unaware of the aforementioned.

In short, the Democrats are preparing to nominate someone who agreed with George Bush on many of the major issues of the day and has only lately discovered that this may not have been such a good idea and so is making gentle adjustments in both his opinions and autobiography. Not that the latter couldn't use some help, since the most interesting elements of it, according to the candidate's own repeated testimony, occurred more than three decades ago.

...

This election has much more in common with 'American Idol' than it does with its electoral predecessors, a point dramatically illustrated by the number of voters who think it's their responsibility to find an electable candidate rather than one with whom they actually agree. This is a deadly trap, ultimately fatal to what remains of democracy, because it reduces the citizen to the status of a sitcom producer rather than an active political participant. If we are all trying to guess what each other thinks, we will all drown in our suppositions about each other.

...

This hyped-up, hurried-up primary system seems to have produced a candidate that few Democrats know, pursuing a politics that even he can't define, and with rapidly diminishing opportunity to do anything about it. And it's not even February yet.'

[snoochie]

31. "This is a deadly trap, ultimately fatal to what remains of democracy"

Got a link to that perhaps?

Thanks for posting it.

:(

[Raya]

12. Critic is Forgeting "This IS EXACTLY How a PARTY System Works." You vote

for the leader of your party who can win for the party, not just
whom ever you like.

That is a different type of democracy.

[Cuban_Liberal]

14. I 'forgot' nothing.

i did, however, observe that electability is playing a largely unprecedented role in this years' primaries. I find no recent modern primary in which this has been the case.

[Raya]

19. In Every Recent Primary It has been the case.

Clinton vs. Grass-roots Brown
Gore vs man of the people Bradley

[Cuban_Liberal]

20. I plainly and completely disagree.

:shrug:

[texasmom]

13. Perceived electability

in the general election is what they are voting for. Perceived. My take is that they believe Kerry is the most well-rounded with political, elected experience and military experience.

The people who really will elect the president are the middle "swing voters" and it's difficult to figure out who they will vote for. I do think they vote for the guy they LIKE the best--not a resume (or they would have overwhelmingly gone for Gore). They want someone they will enjoy listening to--or at least the one who won't grate on their nerves. I have thought about this and thought about this.

I really think the people who have chosen Kerry for perceived electability with that group (not because he's their candidate of choice) are going to be very sorry and disappointed. It probably depends on how mad they are and how much the press leads them along in the fall, but I don't think he will pull in those critical voters.

That said, Clark is my choice because of his life experience, stands on the issues, *and* perceived electability!

[kentuck]

16. It is also a "perception" that Kerry will be attacked more effectively

than one or the other candidates. We should not assume that. They will all be attacked equally harsh. How they respond may make a difference. Who is the best communicator? Who can counter the charges the best? From what I have seen so far, I think General Clark is the best at countering the Repub War Machine, no offense to supporters of any other candidate.

[texasmom]

18. Absolutely.

It is going to be incredibly ugly. Whoever gets the nom. must have a crack staff to anticipate the attacks and respond in a strong, yet positive manner at lightspeed. Tough tightrope to walk.

[Raya]

21. This whole "Electability" Story is Concocted and "Polled" by Media

as a way to dismiss the support for Kerry without any substantial
presentation of Kerry himself. They use to give Kerry 1/5 the coverage of Dean. Now it is about even.

The media cabal is bound and determined not to give Kerry credit for
being a great leader or even a great campaigner even though he
won against all odds, including a total media black-out of his
campaign in its efforts to bury him.

[blm]

24. I DESPERATELY want the BEST QUALIFIED man for the job -John Kerry.

And I DESPERATELY want Dean to be unmasked as the fraudulent populist he is.

[Cuban_Liberal]

25. Kick

[lcordero]

28. I guess "electability" is what a candidate has when a

candidate doesn't have anything good to offer.

[Cuban_Liberal]

32. Possibly. n/t

[sandnsea]

34. Electability encompasses issues

People make that decision based on Kerry's breadth of knowledge on every single issue and the solutions he offers.

His credibility on Iraq doesn't come from his war record, it comes from being involved in national security and foreign policy issues for 20 years.

His credibility on foreign policy comes from his work in Vietnam, Cambodia and other foreign countries as well as his work on Kyoto, Jordan Trade Agreement, etc.

His credibility on domestic security comes from being involved with first responders for years. It comes from investigations into money laundering, drug & gun smuggling, and similar issues related to terrorism for years. And recommending courses of action that we now see were right, like reorganizing the CIA.

His credibility on domestic policy comes from cops on the street and crime legislation, welfare reform, budget reductions, small business interests, womens rights, education, health care, etc.

His electability is based on his credibility which is based on what he's done for 20 years. When you put that record up against any other candidate, the rest all fall short. Kerry is more electable.

[Padraig18]

38. Good analysis, Tony!

I don't agree with everything you conclude, but overall find your analysis to be sound. :)