Electability update.
Needless to say, I'm honoured to have been chosen as one of Lance Mannion's "guest stars" this week(ish), and sorry I don't have more time to post. Lance has his own post up about that nebulous concept, "electability". It's full of good stuff. The only thing I would quibble with (at least without wandering into the no man's land of whether the 2004 election was sufficiently clean) is Lance's claim that 40% of voters are up for grabs; I'd say it's more like 20% (though Kevin's most recent post suggests it might be growing again, to the Dems' benefit).
This part of Lance's post pretty much says it all:
Voters do care that a candidate stands for something.
They want her to stand for them.
And with a pool of about 100 million voters that might possibly be wooed by a main party candidate, that can potentially mean just about anything. I like to think of it as a question of locating and staking out a tenable position on the spectrum between unthreatening and inspiring. Alienating is the flip side of charismatic; milquetoast is the flip side of inclusive. In trying to map out a position sufficiently inclusive but not totally compromising, it's going to be pretty damn easy to err too much one way or the other. Especially since circumstances will work to push that sweet spot up and down the dial. I still think, in 2004, the Dems could have won by running cleanly and angrily against the decision to invade Iraq, with the whole Democratic chorus just bashing and bashing the White House and the hash it had made in the international community and the Middle East. I think the Kerryites lost for being too cautious, too accomodating of American ambivolance about Big Man Bush. But I don't think that was true in 2000, despite the fact that Gore Inc ran a far more cautious, accomodating, mushy campaign than Kerry did (or likely ever would). The electorate wanted mush and "bipartisan" optimism (and a solid dose of sanctimony, which it got from both campaigns) in 2000; they wanted clarity and control, even if it came packaged in a "swift boat" of partisan anger, in 2004. Both the last Democratic campaigns missed their respective sweet spots -- critical mass -- by just enough to make all the difference. But of course, like any junkie with an opinion, I could be wrong -- and could be very wrong about what and who will work for 2008 as well. At any rate, this "electability" stuff certainly ain't easy.
This part of Lance's post pretty much says it all:
Voters do care that a candidate stands for something.
They want her to stand for them.
And with a pool of about 100 million voters that might possibly be wooed by a main party candidate, that can potentially mean just about anything. I like to think of it as a question of locating and staking out a tenable position on the spectrum between unthreatening and inspiring. Alienating is the flip side of charismatic; milquetoast is the flip side of inclusive. In trying to map out a position sufficiently inclusive but not totally compromising, it's going to be pretty damn easy to err too much one way or the other. Especially since circumstances will work to push that sweet spot up and down the dial. I still think, in 2004, the Dems could have won by running cleanly and angrily against the decision to invade Iraq, with the whole Democratic chorus just bashing and bashing the White House and the hash it had made in the international community and the Middle East. I think the Kerryites lost for being too cautious, too accomodating of American ambivolance about Big Man Bush. But I don't think that was true in 2000, despite the fact that Gore Inc ran a far more cautious, accomodating, mushy campaign than Kerry did (or likely ever would). The electorate wanted mush and "bipartisan" optimism (and a solid dose of sanctimony, which it got from both campaigns) in 2000; they wanted clarity and control, even if it came packaged in a "swift boat" of partisan anger, in 2004. Both the last Democratic campaigns missed their respective sweet spots -- critical mass -- by just enough to make all the difference. But of course, like any junkie with an opinion, I could be wrong -- and could be very wrong about what and who will work for 2008 as well. At any rate, this "electability" stuff certainly ain't easy.
1 Comments:
I think Kerry lost because he didn't stand up for himself, which people interpreted as not being willing to stand up for THEM. If he can't kick someone's else ass when he is personally being attacked, how can he kick ass when America is being attacked? That's a tad vulgar, but you get the point. They didn't necessarily agree with the war, but they felt like Bush was at least doing SOMETHING. Bush was the opposite of Clinton - he was decisive when Clinton was perceived as waffling, and his lack of intellectual ability didn't seem like an issue - Clinton is brilliant, but that didn't seem to make up for his alleged indecisiveness (even tho Clinton was actually very consistent on a number of issues).
The opposite of Bush will be someone who can think about the issues, listen to all sides, but then make it clear what his position is, and stick to it. People are willing to listen to a President if they feel like he/she is listening to them in the first place. On this score, I think Hillary has a problem - she does not impress me as someone who is a good listener.
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