Kerry was quite electable until he got Swiftboated. And I think that’s key: whoever the Dem nominee is, s/he will get the Swiftboat treatment, one way or another.
The Hillary advantages here are two: (1) there really isn’t anything new to throw at her (and if it’s old stuff, potential swing voters will be saying, “heard this, yaaawwwwn”), and (2) she’s got a track record of knowing how to fight back.
No he wasn’t. He was never electable. He was always a stiff who was incapable of warming the cockles of swing voters’ hearts.
I tried to point out his non-electability way back in January '04, but my arguments got no traction here or with primary voters.
And I’ll tell you right now that Hillary is not electable either.
Screw electability.
I hate the doctrine of “electability”. It assumes that you shouldn’t vote for the candidate whose positions you support, but the one most palatable to the masses. This assumes that you’re somehow immune to the most electable candidate’s charms, but are still able to identify that effect on others.
Maybe people who study politics professionally can do that, but I sure can’t. I only know who I like, and I have trouble getting into the heads of poeple who might vote for a Republican at this point in history. At the moment, I like Obama, and I freely admit that this is as much because of his image and the way he’s portrayed in the media as it is because of his stances on the issues. I think he’s likeable (I like him), I think he’s electable (I’ll vote for him), and most importantly, I think he’d be a good leader.
Now, Hillary Clinton is currently in the lead, and I suspect that her supporters feel exactly the same way about her as I do about Obama. And as there’s more of them, they’ll probably win this one. Oh well, that’s democracy.
Don’t try to guess who the most electable candidate is. Vote for who you like, and don’t play armchair political analyst. Know that if they convinced you that they’d be a good president, they have a good shot at convincing everyone else.
(I suppose that this isn’t as good advice if you’re a true radical with views far from the mainstream of your party or country, but that’s obviously not Clinton’s problem in this election)
I’m with Menoccio in not caring much about ‘electability,’ but I’ll still debate the point.
Kerry lost the 2004 election by 2.5% - Bush got about 50.75% of the vote, Kerry got about 48.25%, and the various minor-party candidates combined for the remaining 1%.
So if the Swiftboating swung 1.3% of the voting public, then Kerry would have won the popular vote without it.
‘Electability’ is all a sales job anyway. Kerry was a stiff? So was Nixon. More recently, so was Bush Sr.
It seems Hillary is further center than the other Dems, and she’s still winning the primary. The voters want to end the war without admitting outright that the US blew it in Iraq and also while maintaining “support for our troops.” Hillary seems to be walking that line the best of the Dems. FWIW, polls show she will win the Dem primary.
Voters don’t want the “next Bush” now. If the GOP aims for the center in its primary, it will likely hold its collective nose and put up Guliani.
The GOP has little credibility on Iraq and attempts to distance themselves from Bush don’t seem convincing enough. Also, the economy isn’t so hot. This puts a lot of centrist votes in the Dem column from the start. The GOP has an uphill battle to (1) reclaim the center; and/or (2) turn out the religious right vote in a big way.
Which of the GOP candidates will inspire the right to turn out in a big way? None of them. Further, my hunch is the anti-Hillary vote is not compelling enough to bring out the right in droves, especially since the right has no GOP candidate they can really hang their hats on. The right doesn’t have enough anti-Hillary hate to turn out big, IMHO. I think the right may be tired of her, but that’s not enough.
Assuming Guliani gets the GOP nod, he and Hillary will both vie for the center and it will be a good fight. However, Guliani’s dirt will be “fresh” while Clinton’s dirt is stale. Also, the centrist voters seem to recall Bill Clinton and that era fondly and probably regret failing to elect Gore. So a vote for Hillary is a proxy vote for Bill and, to a lesser extent, Gore. Also, don’t forget the “end the war” voters will lean Dem by default. Also, the anti-war Dems will turn out big as will the feminist Dems.
So, we should see high Dem turnout. Also, we should see the center voting anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-weak-economy, and anti-hypocrisy on gay & child molesting sex scandals (i.e., anti-GOP). The GOP is tired and will now have time to rest. The right will stay home in the general, and the GOP can’t wrestle the center from Hillary. Hillary will win.
One thing. Karl Rove has you Democrats convinced you’re going to lose before the election campaign has even started. He’s convinced you that you’re going to lose no matter what, and so you beat yourself. And that’s just ridiculous. Karl Rove and Rovism has hamstrung the Republican party for a generation. Sure, he managed to get Bush into the White House…except the first time he didn’t win the popular vote, and the second time was by the narrowest of margins.
You all think that Karl Rove is a master political manipulator, when the truth is that he’s won on two flukes. Compare the strength of the Republican party in 2000 to today, after seven years of Bush and Cheney and Rove. The Republican party is tearing itself apart, and who’s going to save it? Guiliani? Romney? McCain? Thompson?
The truth is that Rovism has crippled the Republicans, and imagining that the Republican party some unstoppable unified media juggernaut is just pathetic. The only thing the Republicans have left is the desire to somehow stop Hillary, which is going to work about as well as “anybody but Bush” did in 2004.
And to paraphrase an old saying, if the score isn’t close, their sleazy tactics won’t work. The “Swiftboat” thing worked against John Kerry and squeaked Bush into a second term, that doesn’t mean it’s a brilliant unstoppable tactic that will always work every time. Bill Clinton wasn’t stopped by such tactics was he?
I keep saying that, but I think a lot of people don’t want to believe it.
So Conservatives will choose to not vote (ensuring HRC victory) rather than hold their noses and vote for someone who holds at least some of their values.
I’d rethink that bit of “logic”.
I don’t think there’s enough difference between Hillary and Giuliani in the eyes of many on the right to inspire them to turn out for Giuliani as an alternative to Hillary. Hillary provides some negative motivation to the right, but Giuliani does not provide much positive motivation to the right.
You don’t need positive motivation to get out and vote. Negative motivation is quite enough.
If you think Hillary only provides “some” negative motivation, you’re just not looking objectively. There is no imagineable candidate that would polarize our nation more thoroughly than Hillary, with the POSSIBLE exception of Jeb Bush.
You know how much you hate Jeb Bush? How utterly fucking disgusted you are by the concept that there’s a one in a hundred-million chance that he could be our president? Well, that feeling is how the other side thinks of Hillary.
Perhaps. Maybe I just don’t see it. From what I see and hear, and my gut, the level of anti-Hillary motivation isn’t that strong. However, my gut also told me the Bucs would beat the Jags this week (NFL). FWIW.
Is there any polling data to support the notion that there’s a large rabid anti-Hillary bloc that will turn out solely for that purpose?
I don’t like her, and I’m pretty large.
But not rabid.
Cite? 
… or I suppose we could just look at Hillary v Rudy polling …
Thank you. Guess the shots helped.
Sure did. Give me a couple more shots, and I’ll start in telling everybody about how smart you are.
Ridicule can be a powerful political tool, so I don’t think it’s a non-starter. I’m not saying that Rudy-in-drag will have the same impact as Dukkakis-in-a-tank though. After all, the conservative cultural icon Rush Limbaugh is an acknowledged drug addict.
Here, here! But if the economy tanks any Democrat will be electable. (Obama passes the TV-personability test, right? Edwards is adequate. Does anybody have an opinion on Richardson?)
Too strong: see my earlier post (bottom of p1) on his strength among the evangelical rank and file. But I think Hillary can beat him, though others could cream him.
Ok, but that’s an argument against the primary system and for the return of smoke-filled rooms. Seriously, is there another Western democracy that nominates its candidates in this way?
The primary system forces the wise voter to act like an amateur political consultant. I wish that it didn’t, but we’re stuck with the existing situation: there’s no sense in ducking the issue.
But look me in the eye and tell me that Obama or Edwards has a serious chance of getting your vote next November. The people who really hate Clinton are Conservatives - and they’re not going to vote for any of the Democrats who are running.
Guiliani’s problem is that he will move genuine swing voters - but unfortunately for him, in both directions. To get the nomination, he’s got to convince Republicans he can swing more voters towards him than away from him. And to get the Presidency, he’ll have to do it.
There’s a decent argument that it’s about turnout differential: if you take the 25% of Americans who instantly seethe at the mention of her name, and assume 90% of them will vote if she’s the nominee, but only 60% will show up if it’s Edwards or Obama, you’re theoretically talking about 10-12 million votes, if the 2004-2008 increase in voting registration is anything like that between 2000 and 2004. (PDF - Census report on voting and registration in November 2004.)
That’s the argument, anyway. Here’s what I think about it:
Realistically, Hillary’s name won’t make that big a difference. But it’s quite plausible to me that her name would be worth an additional 4-5 million in right-wing turnout if the election were held next week rather than next year.
I think the best antidote to this, paradoxically, will be Hillary. The more people see of her - and they’ll have a lot of opportunities, next year - the more people realize that, whatever she is, she’s not the boogeyman (boogeywoman?) of the past 15 years of wingnut propaganda.
Whenever I’m trying to get a read on what’s going on in the heads of conservative voters, I can generally find a bellweather or three amongst my in-laws. In this case, I’ll be watching my wife’s grandmother, a sweet old lady with hardly a bad word to say about anyone - but who absolutely hates Hillary, and sends five or ten bucks to various anti-Hillary organizations whenever she can spare it.
If, over the next year, she decides Hillary isn’t particularly better or worse than any of the other Democrats, rather than being the Antichrist incarnate, then I’d say the chances of an anti-Hillary turnout surge are way down.