# Why is the 'safe' candidate considered more electable? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 7, 2020, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042 "2020-03-07T03:22:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/21 "2020-03-08T01:36:40Z")
Reagans win was not just a wish of the people for a far right candidate. It was a result of a lot of groundwork of the far right dominionist forces in the US. Notice that the win at all costs ethos transferred from nixon to Reagan. It didn’t seem like an eisenhower or even a Bush thing. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/22 "2020-03-08T01:45:00Z")
> [@Yankees\_1996\_Champs](#): > > Mondale and Dukakis were not moderate. > > They were left wing. > > Electable does not mean moderate. And yet, both Mondale and Dukakis lost. I agree with much of what Sanders says but I’m not convinced that he’s explaining his goals like he should. For instance, the most common objection to UHC seems to be that we can’t afford it, and that new taxes would have to be imposed to pay for it. With a lot of people, you can shut down the debate by saying that. The truth is that the money is already _there_, it’s just that a huge part of it isn’t going to actual medical care. AFAIK Sanders doesn’t point this out, which makes UHC seem like a pie-in-the-sky pipe dream. It’s hard to go into nuts-and-bolts details when (a) most people can’t handle more than a 30-second soundbite, and (b) even Bernie Sanders probably has some supporters that such ideas might threaten. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/23 "2020-03-08T04:04:24Z")
Another point worth mentioning is that Trump is an INCREDIBLY divisive and unpopular president. So all that is needed to beat him (the theory goes) is someone who isn’t going to scare away the people in the middle. Someone who every one of the 60% of Americans who don’t like Trump will be willing to, if not excited to, vote for. Which is presumably someone calm and boring. Contrast that with a situation where the Republican incumbent was incredibly charismatic, successful and popular. In that hypothetical, you can’t win with a boring and uninspiring candidate, because they’ll get steam rolled. So you nominate someone exciting and charismatic who brings something new to the table and gets followers pumped up, someone who takes your party in a new direction that might actually excite people, and hope for the best. Granted, none of that represents anything other than best guesses, but they’re at least vaguely reasonable guesses, imho. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/24 "2020-03-08T04:11:51Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > And yet, both Mondale and Dukakis lost. Because they were both terrible campaigners, not because their ideas necessarily were bad. If you don’t clearly remember the 80s, you don’t realize how bad Mondale and Dukakis were as candidates. They made Gore, Kerry, and Romney look charismatic. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/25 "2020-03-08T04:28:19Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > “Biden 2020: Let’s try to avoid disaster…Again!” Do you think Trump should be re-elected? If people say the answer is no, then they should shut the fuck up and just vote against him. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/26 "2020-03-08T04:39:54Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Do you think Trump should be re-elected? > > If people say the answer is no, then they should shut the fuck up and just vote against him. That’s a good technique for avoiding authoritarianism. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/27 "2020-03-08T05:15:03Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Do you think Trump should be re-elected? > > If people say the answer is no, then they should shut the fuck up and just vote against him. Biden is a risk in many ways you do not see. Mentally, policy, the campaign strain, the hypocrisy/tu quoque, the loss of huge issues and avenues of attack for dems by running joe with his baggage, the idea of the incumbent worst potus ever running as the “outsider” against the dem in 2020?? I see bernie being healthy through the campaign and into a successful adm. Can you see that for Joe? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/28 "2020-03-08T05:26:31Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > I see bernie being healthy through the campaign and into a successful adm. You see Sanders being healthy through the campaign? Do heart attacks not count as a health problem? ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/29 "2020-03-08T05:45:52Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Biden is a risk in many ways you do not see. Mentally, policy, the campaign strain, the hypocrisy/tu quoque, the loss of huge issues and avenues of attack for dems by running joe with his baggage, the idea of the incumbent worst potus ever running as the “outsider” against the dem in 2020?? > > I see bernie being healthy through the campaign and into a successful adm. Can you see that for Joe? Is this a joke? Sanders has had a heart attack and look how skinny he is. Bernie’s never going to be a GQ model but he looks like a toddler wearing clothes he’s supposed to grow into. ---
**Author:** ![LoneRhino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lonerhino/32/1311_2.png) [@LoneRhino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LoneRhino)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/30 "2020-03-08T11:23:01Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > So “moderate” is a red herring. I think it may be more accurate to say that B Clinton and Obama were “not safe” candidates because they didn’t have much experience–Obama a first term senator, Clinton a small-state governor, which compared to Mondale or Gore or Kerry seems kind of picayune. OTOH, Dukakis wasn’t any better qualified than Clinton–no national experience, voted out of office once. I’m not sure why you consider governors as being less experienced. IMO governors are more qualified than senators to be president. Even governors from small or medium sized states. ---
**Author:** ![LoneRhino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lonerhino/32/1311_2.png) [@LoneRhino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LoneRhino)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/31 "2020-03-08T11:26:53Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > My cite is their actions. They can call themselves Middlers for all I care, but we know that if they were conservative they would already be in the Trump camp and if they were liberals they would already be in the Biden/Bernie camp. Whatever we call the undecideds, they are not firebrand conservatives or liberals. > > And we either know that they are content, can assume that they are content, or discard their unhappiness (for electoral purposes) because by their historical collective behavior in presidential elections they have shown that they consistently: 1) reject radicals on both sides, and 2) end up siding with the person who is most charismatic or relatable. > > We have seen politicians of all stripes fall into the trap that there is this underlying current of resentment of the current system ready to rise up and deliver a revolutionary verdict. Newt Gingrich is an excellent example of this. Because in 1994, the GOP voters showed up because of a general unhappiness with a complacent congress, he took that to mean that Americans are mostly conservative Republicans wanting to dismantle any form of government, except the military, established since the New Deal. It was a mistaken proposition and Clinton beat him (through Dole) pretty easily. > > Anyone who says that Dole lost because he wasn’t a right wing firebrand is delusional. Some Republicans say that McCain and Romney lost because they were RINOs. Well, if the swing voters voted for a Democrat, then they would certainly vote for a RINO. > > Each election is sui generis, but those things have been consistent since FDR. For Bernie, or any candidate, to say that this election is different and that people are looking for a radical change is swimming against history and should show some compelling data to support that. And so far, the data shows otherwise. The people you’re describing probably make up the majority of non-voters. I think people that vote regularly are somewhat less likely to fall into this category. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/32 "2020-03-08T11:29:33Z")
> [@LoneRhino](#): > > I’m not sure why you consider governors as being less experienced. IMO governors are more qualified than senators to be president. Even governors from small or medium sized states. The American system is weird - by any objective measure, cabinet members are more qualified than either, and yet they never seem to get elected. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/33 "2020-03-08T12:23:42Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The American system is weird - by any objective measure, cabinet members are more qualified than either, and yet they never seem to get elected. I don’t see it. From my perspective, a cabinet member fields one subcategory of the ‘presidenting’ job — ‘agriculture’ or ‘housing’ or whatever — and does so while serving at the pleasure of the president, so whenever you disagree with the boss you find out that he gets to make the call on this one. So if you’d get it wrong in every other subcategory, the public never much needs to notice; and, to the extent that you occasionally get overruled by the president in private, well, likewise. But if you’re a Senator, you don’t just vote on one subcategory; you routinely show America where you stand on all sorts of issues. Should we confirm this nominee to the Supreme Court? Should we invade that country? Let’s talk for a while about student loans, and take a vote; and let’s talk for a while about federal prisons, and take a vote; yesterday I publicly weighed in on agriculture and housing; but tomorrow it’s going to be health insurance and immigration — and I don’t answer to the president on any of this; I vote ‘aye’ or ‘nay’ as I see fit. So the question becomes: does a given Senator keep getting it right or keep getting it wrong? To my mind, they each rack up an ‘unsupervised generalist’ track record; and so, for the top ‘unsupervised generalist’ job in the land, that seems like a big plus over this or that supervised specialist. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/34 "2020-03-08T13:38:27Z")
You’ve got it backwards. The most electable candidate is considered “safe.” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/35 "2020-03-08T13:53:55Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I don’t see it. From my perspective, a cabinet member fields one subcategory of the ‘presidenting’ job — ‘agriculture’ or ‘housing’ or whatever — and does so while serving at the pleasure of the president, so whenever you disagree with the boss you find out that he gets to make the call on this one. So if you’d get it wrong in every other subcategory, the public never much needs to notice; and, to the extent that you occasionally get overruled by the president in private, well, likewise. > > But if you’re a Senator, you don’t just vote on one subcategory; you routinely show America where you stand on all sorts of issues. Should we confirm this nominee to the Supreme Court? Should we invade that country? Let’s talk for a while about student loans, and take a vote; and let’s talk for a while about federal prisons, and take a vote; yesterday I publicly weighed in on agriculture and housing; but tomorrow it’s going to be health insurance and immigration — and I don’t answer to the president on any of this; I vote ‘aye’ or ‘nay’ as I see fit. I see it like being a COO or CFO before being hired as CEO, or being a division commander before being appointed corps commander - you have a lot of responsibility, and you serve directly under the person whose job you’ll be filling, learning what (and what not) to do. You have to learn how to navigate DC and run a huge, complex government organization. Remember, someone like the Secretary of Defense is responsible for far more employees than any state governor - possibly more than all of them put together. Running the White House is a lot more like running DoD than it is like running Maryland. Besides, cabinet members make life or death decisions far more often than governors, and \*definitely \*more often than Senators. Appointing a cabinet member just means promoting from within rather than hiring an outsider. Lots of organizations do it. It’s a perfectly legitimate management decision. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/36 "2020-03-08T14:11:25Z")
But there’s a crucial problem: members of the US cabinet are not politicians nor necessarily party members. I get “haha, maybe that’s a good thing” but you have to win an election still. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/37 "2020-03-08T14:20:02Z")
It’s a vicious cycle: the cabinet is considered a political dead end, so politicians don’t want to be in it. Conversely, if the cabinet \*were \*a path to the White House, then the cabinet would be comprised of politicians. Politicians go to where the power is. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/38 "2020-03-08T14:47:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You see Sanders being healthy through the campaign? Do heart attacks not count as a health problem? Oh the irony: none of Bernie’s competitors made his heart attack an issue, but now here they are suggesting that Biden’s in early stages of dementia, and that the guy who had the heart attack and who is older is more fit to be president. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/39 "2020-03-08T14:55:37Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > It’s a vicious cycle: the cabinet is considered a political dead end, so politicians don’t want to be in it. Conversely, if the cabinet \*were \*a path to the White House, then the cabinet would be comprised of politicians. Well, look, I like to think I get how it works in the present scenario: I _see_ ‘politician’ types in the Senate, and like I said I see them weigh in on Supreme Court nominees, just like they weigh in on military policy, and on education policy, and on farm policy, and on housing policy, and on healthcare and immigration and anything else where they can take a deep breath and get into campaign mode and speechify. I can imagine a Senate where, oh, say, five of the most brilliant politicians in the country each make a passionate case for their position and then vote on issue after issue after issue — in effect, constantly saying, _hey, this is what my position would be if I were the president._ What do you think it’d look like if those five ‘politician’ types were occupying cabinet posts? Do you envision each of them going into full politician mode and having something to say each time a Supreme Court nominee is proposed, and each time there’s a question about military policy or student loans or health care or the space program or whatever? If you’re a hell of a politician, and you’re in the Senate, I expect you to play orator on everything from A to Z. If you’re a hell of a politician, and you’re the Secretary of A, would you publicly stake out a position on B and C and D? (And: if you’re you’re a hell of a politician, and you disagree with the President about A, what does that look like if you’re in the Senate, and what does it look like if you’re in the cabinet?) ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2020, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042/40 "2020-03-08T15:08:27Z")
It depends on whether you want to choose a president based on their positions, or based on their abilities. The way I see it, senators get to show their positions, but not their abilities; cabinet members get to show their abilities, but not their positions; governors get to show both, but in a minor-league setting. None of them are perfect gauges of presidential ability. IMHO, the perfect candidate is someone who has served both in the Senate and in the cabinet. That way, we can see what they believe in, and we can also see whether they can do the job. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-safe-candidate-considered-more-electable/849042.md?page=3)