>im starting to think that 'electability' is a trap for dems.
>
>when dems vote based on some mythical metric of who they think
>*other* people will vote for...they lose (kerry, mondale,
>etc). when dems just say fuck it and go for who they are most
>inspired by and passionate about...they knock it out of the
>park (obama, clinton, etc).

The whole thing's clouded by the vagaries of small-number statistics, but I think there are counterexamples.

Maybe it was a different time, but George McGovern wasn't running on electability. He ran on big ideas and got a lot of people really passionate, and he fell like a rock.

Clinton was the darling of the Democratic Leadership Council. He was the one who got people talking about "New Democrats."

Obama, yeah he was an exciting candidate, but he also came to everyone's attention through a speech about there not being a "red America" and a "blue America." Then he made a point of running to the right of Hillary Clinton on nearly every issue in 2008.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were exciting AND electable.

The way I see it, both of these are necessary but not sufficient conditions. In general, we need both. And sadly I don't think there's anyone right now that has both.


The only winning Dem I can think of who only had only one of these was Jimmy Carter, who didn't run an exciting campaign at all. But as a southern governor he didn't scare anybody and was able to coast on the unpopularity of Gerry Ford.

That's why my money, and probably my vote, is still on Biden, even though he finds a new way to infuriate me just about every day.