Electability re-revisited
Feb. 1st, 2004 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinThis is fascinating to me: As more people get interested in the presidential campaign, differences are starting to open up in polls about the hypothetical performance of the various Democratic candidates versus Bush. But those differences are positively tracking the opening gaps in Democratic nomination preferences. John Kerry's "if the election were held today" performance improves as he becomes the more likely nominee.
I'm not exactly gloating about this, because Kerry's about my third, maybe fourth favorite of the candidates (though I'd gladly vote for him in the general election); and you probably shouldn't listen to my analytical posts about politics anyway, judging from what I said earlier about the genius of Dean's (ex-) campaign manager Joe Trippi. But I will note that the positive correlation between general-election and primary numbers contradicts a popular notion (especially among conservative opinionators) about the political situation today, that the country is so angrily polarized that the Democrats will drive off a cliff by nominating somebody who is outrageously unpalatable to the general population. That may be true of core activists, which is why the fundraising round in 2003 looked so starkly different from the primary situation today. But what recent developments tell me is that most Democratic voters are closer to the national mean than is often believed, and the centrist voters are real.
Either that, or Terry Neal and Stuart Rothenberg were wrong and Democratic voters really are playing a second-level strategic game and worrying about electability; but I tend to agree with Matthew Yglesias's observation (which I can't dig up right now) that talking about electability is usually a proxy for supporting the candidate you like anyway.
I'm not exactly gloating about this, because Kerry's about my third, maybe fourth favorite of the candidates (though I'd gladly vote for him in the general election); and you probably shouldn't listen to my analytical posts about politics anyway, judging from what I said earlier about the genius of Dean's (ex-) campaign manager Joe Trippi. But I will note that the positive correlation between general-election and primary numbers contradicts a popular notion (especially among conservative opinionators) about the political situation today, that the country is so angrily polarized that the Democrats will drive off a cliff by nominating somebody who is outrageously unpalatable to the general population. That may be true of core activists, which is why the fundraising round in 2003 looked so starkly different from the primary situation today. But what recent developments tell me is that most Democratic voters are closer to the national mean than is often believed, and the centrist voters are real.
Either that, or Terry Neal and Stuart Rothenberg were wrong and Democratic voters really are playing a second-level strategic game and worrying about electability; but I tend to agree with Matthew Yglesias's observation (which I can't dig up right now) that talking about electability is usually a proxy for supporting the candidate you like anyway.