Is it a love that can't speak its name?

dkos and mydd polls maintain Clark and Feingold at the top of the heap.  

I am no longer sure that these polls predict much.  They are a measure of the opinion of ten thousand bloggers who visit daily...its nice to know who we as a community support but it is beginning to feel meaningless in the context of the real world. (30-35 million watch Idol every Tuesday and 59 million voted for Kerry in 2004.)

Maybe I am wrong and Clark or Feingold will pull away attracting the populace, but somehow I am not so sure.  

PS I love the spellcheck feature. thanks.

So, whose crystal ball do we use to decide this?   I am against electability.  I want policy, conviction and articulation.

I think I agree with the thrust of this post, although I've seen it in a slightly different way.  I question whether those people who worship at the altar of "electability" really know what "electable" is.  John Kerry lost the election.  Doesn't that mean he was not "electable"?

I know that's a facile point, but I have a hard time believing that Kerry's 47% and 250-260 electoral votes was the absolute best that could have been done by a Democrat.  Maybe it was, but then by definition no Democrat was "electable" and it wouldn't really have mattered who was nominated because they were all "unelectable."

What Chris suggests would redefine what it meant to be "electable."  If that could be done successfully, then maybe those "electability" voters will eventually get it right.

Gore should definitely be in these straw polls. If he makes a murmur about running he goes to the top of the heap subito.... And he seems to have found some "fire" in his belly. We need someone with credibility who isn't afraid to take on the wingnut crap machine.

To say that anything other than electability should be the most critical priority is ludicrous. But ideology and image are a huge part of that. Kerry was probably the best candidate we had in 2004 and he did do quite well, but could not win, because of two major problems, I voted for it before I vote against it and the swift boats. He also faced a popular president in war time. He also had a bad image, he is rich snob and unable to relate to normal people. He also was known as someone with a questionable ideology. Blunting this charge is critical regardless of how much changing of ideology the candidate has done throughout their career. This is why 4 term senators are terrible presidential candidates.

With respect to 2008, Hillary Clinton, Mark Warner, Evan Bayh, Gen. Clark, Sen. Feingold and others have to prove they can win. If Hillary Clinton cannot garner support in the high 40s consistently and is not viewed favorably by a close to 50% of the country, she should not be nominated. I respect Hillary, but we need to take power away from the GOP at almost any cost. Electability has to be the foremost concern.

What you only allow bumper sticker thinking?

I was in Iowa during the summer of 2003, and I can not tell you how many people threw the word "electability" at me.

So many smart smart white folks knew EXACTLY what the stupid masses were capable of understanding, so it was simple enough.  Let's give them the guy that looks most like a president.

And it worked like a charm...obviously.

I tell you, I've not heard a single one of those smart smart people take any kind of responsibility for their mistake, nor is it in their smart smart brains that they art not so much smarter than the "stupid people".

The reason Feingold may be climbing so rapidly in these straw polls is that he is hitting all those points.

This is a great post, and should be essential reading for every Dem. We are our own worst enemies sometimes.

This does describe Feingold to a T. No nonsense, independent, reform-minded and looks out for the average American. It was the McCain-Feingold reform bill after all. No reason why Feingold can't capitalize on his efforts as well.

The media talking point issue is a far more difficult issue for Dems though IMHO. While I'm encouraged that Alito has helped put a fine point on the lack of coordinated message amongst issue groups, 'liberal' pundits and legislators alike, our message machine will need to work without the benefit of think-tank produced chattering heads.

We are sorely lacking the perspective of the school-of-hard-knocks WWII-era intrepid reporter. What is today's equivalent in the traditional media? Reporters and pundits all seem to be cut from the same Ivy-league cloth discussing the merits of Ivy-league schooled judges and politicians while dissing the 'ivory tower, elitist' Dems!!! Maybe because I was brought up in a Union household, I'd get a good chuckle out of this if it wasn't doing its share of electing neocons.

This is a really good post and I take a couple of things away from it.

1 - We need to stop forming firing squads in a circle.  We should continue to exchange ideas and debate them but we have a habit of making disagreements personal and taking them public.  The Repubs are much more disciplined and for the most part keep their personal disagreements private.  When all the intra-party fighting is done, they come out as a unified front (see yesterday's House leadership fight).  If we want to be a majority party, we would do well to behave the same way.

2 - Viability, Not Electability.   We should not let the media define electability for us.  If we had done so in 1992, Bill Clinton would never have been the nominee after the Jennifer Flowers scandal.   Candidates prove their electability on the campaign trail and it is very hard to predict through a crystal ball.  Some you instinctively know, others surprise and others disappoint.  Viability revolves around raising money, developing a base, putting together a campaign, developing a message, etc.  For example, Dennis Kucinich had some interesting things to say but he was not a viable candidate.

3 - Standing For Something.  Bill Clinton turned his Presidency around when he stood up to the Repubs and shut the government down.  People respected that he finally stood for something after 2+ years of being all over the place.  Successful candidates choose 4-5 major issues and drill them over and over again.  The fact is Kerry and Gore were all over the place and had a different message almost everyday.  It is a lot easier to portray a candidate as a flip flopper when they have no coherent theme or message.  The press and the Repubs said the same thing about Clinton but because he had a message and stuck to it, the rhetoric didn't work.

4 - Big Tent.  If we want to be a majority party, we have to be a big tent and tolerate Dems with different views.  I am from NYC but I have also lived in VA and Oregon.  I know a Dem with my views cannot win in VA but I'd happily take a Dem that agrees me 70% of the time over a Repub that never agrees with me.  This does not mean we should tolerate Dems who trash other Dems publicly.

Chris, you are so right on target. It drove me crazy every time I heard that we had to nominate Kerry or Clark in order to have "credibility" on security and foreign policy. This type of thinking reinforces a Republican narrative that is 100% TOTAL ABSOLUTE COMPLETE BULLSHIT. Republicans have ZERO CREDIBILITY on security or foreign policy. All we needed was a nominee with the balls to speak the obvious truth and smack down the blatant Republican lies - to point out that Emperor George had no clothes. Jesus, I'm getting all worked up again just thinking about it.

Overall, I really like this post, but I don't really see the difference between this "Republican" narrative:

"X is principled and has a lot of backbone" reifies the Republican narrative that Democrats don't stand for anything."

X is a straight talker / sincere. The notion of the insincere politician plagues both parties, not just Republicans or Democrats. It is much like the notion of the corrupt politician, which is why the "reformer" label is so important. Because this narrative plagues both parties, it does not reify a Republican narrative about Democrats. Rather, it reifies a national narrative about politicians in general. When people believe someone is sincere, they are more likely to vote for them, no matter to what party they belong.

An upright, principled person is pretty much always an sincere straight talker.  I see the point about which part of the persona to magnify, but in content, I think the two memes are the same thing, really.

Am I the only one who thinks some of this is absofrickinlutely nuts?  All of the following suffer from a logical fallacy.  You have taken statements that under some circumstances might be taken to reinforce bad conclusions about Democrats and then you have forthwith declared all such statements illegitimate.  The problem is that there are perfectly good reasons to say these things and that your exhortation to "attack" people who use them is a) rash and b) divisive.        

"X is a moderate" reifies the Republican narrative that Democrats are not mainstream.

How does this follow?  "X is a moderate" offered as a reason that "X is more electable" implies the premise that moderates are more electable.  It doesn't imply that Democrats are not mainstream, especially if X is a Democrat.  In fact, "X is a moderate" can be used to argue against a moderate Democrat in favor of a more progressive Democrat.  In my district, I'm sure "X is a moderate" implies, re-elect Barbara Lee.    

"X is a war hero" reifies the Republican narrative that Democrats are weak on defense.

No.  This doesn't follow either.  Being a war hero is usually a plus no matter what party one is in.  "X is a war hero" no more implies that Democrats are weak on defense than "X is a football star" implies that Democrats are bad football players.  Both, however, provide good reasons to suppose someone will be elected, or at least that these qualities will be a positive plus for the electorate.

"X is principled and has a lot of backbone" reifies the Republican narrative that Democrats don't stand for anything."

1) People often say something like "You might disagree with him, but at least you know where he stands on the issue" to explain the popularity of certain pols that cuts across party lines.  This is true of members of both parties.  So it makes perfect sense that a candidate's principled stands would be put forth as a reason for someone to think that a candidate is electable.  

2)  People want principled political leaders.  People of both parties have a pretty dim view of your average politician.  So it makes perfect sense, irrespective of the party of the candidate, that people will laud someone perceived as principled.      

"X can talk values" reifies the narrative that Democrats are hostile to people of faith.

You have completely conflated two things.  There is a difference between being hostile to people of faith or to "values voters" and being unable to communicate effectively with them.  I do think that a lot of Democrats have done a piss poor job of communicating our values.  That doesn't mean that I think we don't have values, quite the opposite.  And we really ought to elect people who are good spokespeople for our values.  What the hell is wrong with that?

I agree that we need to avoid reinforcing Republican narratives about Democrats.  But you cannot simply eliminate legitimate political discourse simply because some convolution set or premises could be added to the natural meaning of the words to somehow reinforce a GOP talking point.  I think this ought to be obvious.  

The logical coherence of Chris' argument is easy enough to understand. I sincerely don't understand how you can fail to grasp it. I suspect that it touches a personal nerve, because perhaps you have used such arguments in the past to bolster your affinity for or against certain candidates. I could be wrong.

I realize this is somewhat of a cop-out, but your "logical coherence" is so tortured and unconvincing yet elaborate that I really don't even feel like expending the effort to go through it point by point.

Couple of points Chris,

While you make some great points about choosing primary candidates and doing so without reinforcing republican narratives i think you chose the wrong springboard in electability.

In fact, it was a discussion that apparently dominated the off-line world as well, as somewhere between 35-40% of the Democratic primary electorate identified "electability" as their number one issue in 2004.

I'm going to be pretty critical here, apologies. The study you cite has "electability" coming in LAST place of TWO questions ACROSS the board. that by no means shows it to be a dominant requirement among democrats, and certainly not enough evidence to say "huge percentage of the Democratic electorate votes based on electability."

Further, the answer people were choosing was not "electability" it was "Picking a candidate who has the best chance of defeating George W. Bush"

That's just as easily the anybody but Bush vote. And also just as easily the, "if my guy doesn't win the primary," or, "i don't care who wins the primary," i'll back whoever does, cause ABB.

Compare the "who do you support" numbers vs. the "who can beat bush numbers" Only a small percentage jump ship on their candidate and back someone else +/- 4 points. It's not 35-40 percent as you claim. People are, for the vast majority, voting for who they want to win, not who they think can win.

electability has played a major role in Presidential primaries

I have a huge problem with this, not only cause there is NO proof for it, but also, it gives credence to the notion that we need to select our candidates based on things like race and religion.

That's just simple job descrimination.

Which brings me to my last point. You are talking about a distinctly different kind of electability than the conversation I was engaged in in the thread at dailykos that you linked to. You are talking about picking candidates that ARE best suited to do the job, not those that APPEAR to be best suited for the job. The latter is the electability I object very strongly too, routinely suggesting at dailykos.com that those "practicing" that sort of electability filtering are exercising bigotry.

You can't argue that race, religion or sex should have any part in deciding who, among the primary candidates, represents the democratic party. That's a lose-lose argument.

I could go on forever, but I'll stop, Thanks Chris, enjoyable read. I think you are redefining electability, and redefining for the much, much better. Always an interesting and important discussion even though some feel it's has an "ugly head."
:)

Can I make the same point here that I made on the dKos comment thread, that Governors have a significantly better chance of winning then Senators do, and we should factor this into our calculus when deciding on a candidate?

This graph makes the basic point, and I further lay out the case here (in Jan '04) and here this week (stats corrected).  (There's a comment thread on it here.)

One objection is that the sample size is small, which is true, but it's also been pointed out that in the entire history of the US, only two sitting US Senators (Harding and Kennedy) have made it to the Presidency -- and we know that Kennedy's win (as a minority president) was by the skin of his teeth.

It's surely true that a solid senator makes a better candidate than a weak governor, but all things being equal, it would seem foolish to keep throwing senators out there when the record says they just don't win.

(BTW, in the modern era, post-World War II, ex-Generals have a perfect winning percentage!)

First, of all, I appreciate the response.  

That said, I think where we disagree is that I do not find the statements Chris put up (as examples of what not to say) sufficiently self-interpreting to justify his conclusions. Of course, there are ways people could say those things that could lead to the results you described.  But it's hardly necessarily the case.  So while I agree that we need to avoid buying into the Republican narratives about Democrats, that's a far cry from agreeing that Chris correctly identified utterances that ought to be considered illegitimate.    

You wrote:

"For example, trumpeting someone as a great candidate for the party because their war experience makes them more credible on military matters and thus more electable can give the impression that Democrats have something to prove in this area."

Fair enough.  But that is completely consistent with the multiplicity of other reasons why being a war hero legitimately makes one more electable.  You are imputing all sorts of premises that might not exist, and without which Chris' argument is completely incoherent.  Being a war hero typically says something (or is taken to say something) about someone's character.  The symbol of "war hero" has all sorts of meaning that are relevant to politics without touching upon credibility in military matters.  

Saying that a war hero is more electable, ceteris paribus, is not at all like saying "Bush is a likeable guy," which is one of the narratives Daou identified.  

I mean, who here thought discussing Paul Hackett's military experience vs. Jean Schmidt's lack of military experience did anything to besmirch the character of other Democrats?  And suppose someone mentioned this during the primary in OH-02 before Hackett had gotten the nod.  Would that have been a sin?  Would it have tarnished the image of the entire Democratic Party? I would argue that it would not.  There are wholly legitimate reasons to discuss these things, and it is a fallacy to focus on one example of one undeniably illegitimate utterance and by focusing on that one example attempt to forbid otherwise legitimate speech.

But there is also a deeper problem with what Chris said, something that I did not identify in my first post, but something that upon reflection I was responding to.  

He wrote:

I do not think it is a stretch to argue that going on the media, or even on a blog, and making a case for one Democratic candidate over another based on any of these four reasons is the equivalent of Lieberman going on Fox News or Meet the Press and repeating Republican talking points about Democrats

I think this is a big stretch.  First of all, it completely obscures the fact that the four reasons he outlined are at times perfectly legitimate.  But second of all, there is a complete lack of a subject in his statement.  Who is like Lieberman? And why should we think they are like Lieberman, who is a prominent Democrat and an elected representative.  Both impose duties upon him that do not exist for most people.  And certainly, by including blogs, Chris has opened up a can of worms.

I mean, there is a difference between what is said to others and we what say among ourselves.  And even on a public place like MyDD, most of what we say is aimed at our own community.  If Lieberman came to Daily Kos and said the same types of things he says on Fox News, he's guilty of the same failings.  But if some political operative comes to a place like MyDD and said that candidate X is more electable than candidate Y because X is a war hero, so what?  

First of all, there is no necessary imputation that the normative standards that favor was heros is legitimate.  But if people do think Dems are weak on defense in the district, and if they won't think X is weak on defense, then maybe X IS MORE ELECTABLE because he's a war hero.  And second, by elevating such a statement to the level of Lieberman on Fox, you close out space for honest discourse.  Even if people are wrong, they are not necessarily wrong for illegitimate reasons.  I see Chris, ready to call for attacking and punishing all sorts of people, for all sorts of reasons.  And it is divisive.  And it alienates the hell out of me, even when I agree with his larger point.

Frankly, one of the strengths of blogs is that they facilitate free and frank discussion.  That discussion is not only valuable on the proviso that everyone is on the same page. If we need to educate Democrats, then let's do so without castigating them for their failures.  (Note, someone like Lieberman is different, if for no other reason than his position in the party reasonably raises our expectations of his speech and actions).  I mean, Chris doesn't even both to develop a consensus about his conclusions before he argues that we should:

"Call out and attack any Democrat who publicly repeats one of the above electability narratives when used to tarnish a prominent Democratic candidate."

How does that help us build a movement or take back our party?  When you're wrong and someone attacks you for being wrong, how receptive are you to their criticisms?  If you said Paul Hackett is more electable because of his military service how receptive would you be to someone who said you're like Joe Lieberman on Fox repeating Republican talking points?  

There is a nuanced way to do this, and then there is a destructive way to do this.  I agreed with Peter Daou's essay. But I disagree with the thrust of Chris' riff on it.
 

First, you are right to trace the "electability" scam to the 2003 campaign.

Second, you are right to examine the Republican noise machine's role in the use of the term.

However, my main concern is that, in retrospect, it now seems obvious that "electability" was the primary tool used by the DLC to sabotage the campaign of any candidate who did not have the DLC seal of approval.

Therefore I agree with your bullet that declares,
* 2. Call out and attack any Democrat who publicly repeats one of the above electability narratives when used to tarnish a prominent Democratic candidate.

The whole issue seems bogus, anyway. Was John Kerry really the most electable Democratic candidate in 2004???

Bob

We need a Air America TV.

Corporitization of Media is hard to fight because journalist need to keep their jobs thus wont do anything controversial.

Also training  liberal journalists--  but once they are in the corporate world they would also play safe.

People see through "electability".  Republicans and Independents I know who dont like Bush couldnt vote for Kerry and just abstained, not vote or voted for Bush.

We need candidates who are real LEADERS who are also Profiles in Courage and have results to back them up.

I like Mark Warner because I think he is like Dean-- a governor with results.

>Indeed I'm at a total loss to understand anyone suggesting Clark can win the democratic nomination. While he may have great qualities as a leader, at this point in time he has, in relative terms, no significant organisation, nor the cash required to compete at this level.

Well I lack your ability to see into the future. What I do know, having read his books, studied his career, and listened to his speeches is that apart from the new improved Al Gore, Clark strikes me as the only one with the potential to be an actually great President, something we will need if we are going to have a chance to repair the damage of the Bush years. So I'll support him for that reason and let others worry whether he can win the nomination.

Not entirely, most would have said that McCain was more electable than Gore