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 a recent poll, Newsweek found 39 percent of voters said they made their decision based solely on a particular candidate's 'electability'. In a Christian Science Monitor online poll, 52 percent said it's OK to vote based on electability, even if it means subordinating their actual prefernce for a different candidate, one they actually LIKE better.

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," Dr. Howard Dean said just a month ago while stumping in Iowa and New Hampshire. Wesley Clark even hosted a rally in NH at which electability was the theme.

The disdain we Democrats have for George Bush is omnipresent. Most of us still harbor a deep 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 has won 15 of 17 primaries and caucuses, althugh not all of them decisively. 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 strong 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, or at one's primary opponents.

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 themany otherwise good and honorable candidates we have chosen to abandon.


Note: This is a re-post of a post I did 2/7/04.

[Cuban_Liberal]

1. Self-kick

[bryant69]

2. This is also a backhanded slap at Kerry and Edwards

The assumption that this article makes is that most Democrats would rather see Kucinich or Dean or Sharpton on the ticket, because they are better in some way. They are more liberal or more pure or whatever.

It discounts the notion that someone could have looked at the field of candidates and decided that Kerry or Edwards were the best in the field. And it will play out in the right wing media this way; Kerry as the soulless man, as the Democratic parties deal with the devil to get rid of President Bush. They will say a million times between now and November "Liberals really don't like Kerry all that much, they've just decided he's more electable." We'll say it to ourselves too, to help them out. Unless we don't, which would be my preference.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Cuban_Liberal]

3. Umm, I wrote this 'article', so...

... rest assured, it's not intended as a backhanded slap at Edwards or Kerry. I just find the phenomenon interesting. I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime.:)

[bryant69]

8. I didn't mean to imply you meant to slam them

Just to say that by trumpeting electability, it implies that they aren't who we really want.

[Cuban_Liberal]

11. Oh, OK. I misunderstood.

:hi:

[BL_Zebub]

6. I would just like to say, for the record that if the party had made a deal

with me, the Devil, that John Kerry would not have been involved. :evilgrin:

[Cuban_Liberal]

7. LOL!

49% of my soul is available for barter. You have a proposition for me? :P

[BL_Zebub]

4. great post!

As a Devil for Dean, I managed to posess a human form in order to attend a caucus up on Earth and I was amazed to find that none of the so called "Kerry supporters" could justify voting for the man, aside from repeating the media mantra "he can beat Bush". They didn't know what he believed or represented, and it appeared that they didn't even care.

And that crowd thinned out considerably after the Dean and Kucinich contingents had their say, with each group getting about a third of those originally "for Kerry". The demons I have sent up to report on other elections have reported similar results. Kerry's "support" may be miles wide, but it's not even an inch deep.

[Mr Switters]

12. Have to agree...

I have to agree with you on this one Devil. I am a little put off by folks that have recently changed how they cacuas or who they support throughout the primary because the media is convincing them through polling that "he can beat Bush." Exit polling, and subsequent reporting on the exit polls, is a delicate matter and should be approached much more carefully by the media.

I think its an overstatement to say that all those supporting Kerry are doing it based on electability alone, but it's hard to disagree when you see such large swings in election results. However I have consistantly found, even among my peer group, very few people that can cite actual policy or platform as to why they support Kerry. Most simply say "he can beat Bush."

Electabililty shouldn't be our primary concern, athough it should be a play SOME role in the decision to ultimately support a candidate. The Democrat running this year is getting our votes regardless... lets not let the issues get left in the dust in our vigor to oust "W."

The country is more impressed by Edwards every day he remains on the campaign trail. I am a Clark supporter, and even though my candidate endorsed Kerry... I am backing Edwards. Had Clark not been involved in this race I believe we'd all be talking about Edwards as the frontrunner if not the nominee by this point in the game. Go back and look at the math.

[Nashyra]

5. There are those who actually like Kerry better than Edwards

I liked Clark better than either one, but I like and respect Kerry better than Edwards now that Clark is out that is why I encourage others to vote for him. Also I respect Clark's choice on who to endorse and have more faith in his reasoning then 90% of those here on DU. I have made my mind up on my own not by the press or fear of electability. In fact one reason I did not pick Edwards as nice a guy as he is, he does not have experience in foreign policy. I don't think he would garner the respect of the world as immeadiately as Kerry would and the new president will have to hit the ground running and this is no time to train on the job. Edwards would make a good VP, although I would rather see Clark, it would not be fair to think that Edwrds would not be a good man on the ticket. This obviously is my opinion, so I take offense to saying that Kerry is only being supported because he is the annointed one. The primaries suck big time and just like it was proven how fucked up the electoral college system was it is time to go to perhaps a NPD so that our nominees are vetted more thouroughly nationwide. It would be interesting to have a NPD and and then a runoff if some one did not get over 50% with a certain number of candidates getting say over 15% and then they could have a run off until one candidate gets over 50%. Oh well wishful thinking

[Jai4WKC08]

10. Me too Nashyra

I most definitely think Kerry is more qualified than Edwards, for all that I'm not real enthused about either.

But since I also happen to think Kerry's more electable, it's hard for me to say objectively how I would feel if I didn't. Given what we've got in the White House, and the machine behind him, electability IS an important issue. At least as important as any other single issue. But since I don't think either Kerry or Edwards is real electable in the abstract, I guess that doesn't matter much.

But yeah, if only Kerry and Edwards had been running since the beginning, I would be caucusing for Kerry. Doubt I would have done anything else.

I agree that Edwards would make an acceptable VP choice. In the traditional do-nothing VP model. That is, look pretty, speak well, and get ready to run 8 years later. I don't think Edwards is the best choice, because I think Kerry needs to do something more than the expected to maximize his odds of winning. Which frankly aren't great.

[Cuban_Liberal]

9. Kick

[elsiesummers]

13. What I don't get about "electability"

What I don't get about electability is that it is often cited, according to exit polls, as the main reason to support Kerry. I see Kerry as a potentially good president (I really like his CAFE standards efforts) who is unelectable. I prefer Edwards to Kerry, but only think he is slightly more electable than Kerry. Electability is not my reason for choosing Edwards over Kerry because I think they BOTH have huge electability problems.

I keep wondering what these Kerry voters, who support him because of electability, are seeing that I'm not seeing. A record as a war hero from long ago plus experience in government - it's fine and it's carried him this far - but if the Bush gang can shift the focus to his voting record, or the waffling script, then we are back to the liberal Senator from Massachusetts - and will get screwed in the general election. The way Kerry is always verbally fence sitting is a disaster waiting to happen.


I'm an Edwards supporter because I'm one of those who always go with candidates with a working class background - I have a serious prejudice against anyone who has inherited millions - so Edwards and Gephardt have been the two mainstream candidates who appealed the most, and I think Kucinich is terrific too. As far as I'm concerned the other main stream candidates have "ruling class" backgrounds that induce aversion.

This has always, from the getgo, been my problem with Bush, too. Bush's sense of entitlement and priviledge, reinforced by the Florida theft, that underlying theme that the presidency was the Bushie's to take and that the little people don't matter; It induces disgust. I want that spoiled rich boy elitist outta there.

I actually think Edwards has a big electability problem also - the Bushies will try to paint him as a light weight. Edwards, in the General Election, will have to shift, go wonky with lots of detail about his specific policy plans. I have no doubt he can do this (he's an achiever) but still think the Republicans might be able to sell him as a lightweight on foreign policy, based on resumé alone - in our soundbite oriented media market.

Bottom line - I think both Kerry and Edwards have serious electability problems so I go with Edwards because I find him most appealing on gutt level. It is his humble begginings that have appealed to me from the getgo - the idea that he might know what it's like to grow up without matching towels (it's my personal alternative to the "who would you have a beer with" question). Maybe I'm a sheep for buying into class warfare so heavily - but it is a class war and the rich are winning - and that is my basis for choosing a candidate.

Electability, Schmectability.

[Cuban_Liberal]

14. Well said!

:)

[elsiesummers]

15. Thanks for such a thought provoking original message!

:)

[Cuban_Liberal]

16. The things we ponder late at night, eh?

:)

[rodbarnett]

17. more on this subject HERE

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x393310

[jansu]

18. Good post! I ask the same questions, myself!

The only answer I can come up with, is some group of people want this to happen and this process to end. It is wrong! Everyone should vote FOR THEIR CANDIDATE OF CHOICE! After the convention, we can get behind our Nominee! I will, but for the primary, I will vote my choice. I will still vote for Dean.

[Nicholas_J]

19. Hardly desperation

When the frontrunning candidate is now seen as slaughtering Bush in the general elections by 12 percent, which would be indicative of an ovwewhekming landslide, five time as large a popular vote than Al Gore had in 2000. as things stand, if the Gneraly election were held today with Kerry as the nominee, he would beat bush by three million votes, not the 500,000 that Gore passed Bush by in 2000.

Before Kerry appeared to by the most liklely nominee, most polls showed Bush beating Democrats by a close or confortable margin.

[Cuban_Liberal]

20. Please, try not to be defensive.

That wasn't the point of the post; it was not a bash, obviously, since I included my own candidate.

Peace. :hi:

[DuctapeFatwa]

21. I think it is simply that voters like bush's policies but don't like bush

And how you say things is more important than what you say.

Both Edwards and Kerry are able to put some of the most appalling policies into much nicer-sounding words, and that means a lot more to the voting class than a few thousand dead children, or even being able to purchase medical treatment for their own.

[kang]

22. Lots of time before November

and the GOP dirt machine is just cranking up. IMHO, if it gets really nasty this year, I think the GOP will win by defacto having the incumbent president. Kerry needs to offer that "vision" thing. What's his alternative proposal. Not just singular issue/policy positions (like Gore), but something more akin to Edwards' "Two Americas" or Clark's "Higher Standard of Leadership."

The majority of the primary victories were handed to Kerry by the Democratic base, but these people will vote against Bush no matter what. Edwards does have some credibility problems when it comes to Foreign Policy and I'm not sure how he'd ever counter the Bush as "War President" campaign...perhaps if the economy continues to tank.

It's truly unfortunate in my book that Clark didn't enter the race a bit sooner, got into Iowa (keeping expectations low), and did some campaign "cramming" sessions prior to his decision to run. He's the outsider (Dean/Edwards), war-hero/military leader (Kerry), with Southern and moderate views (Edwards/Leiberman). Damn Iowa!! (j/k).