Craven de Kere wrote:Personally, I'd like to see the democrats make only a perfunctory effort for the south. [..] The president is elected by the EC.
I've seen the calculations that show that one can achieve a majority in the EC without winning any Southern state, of course. The most simple one submits that if you just win all the states Gore won, plus New Hampshire, you're already there. Fair enough.
I find that a risky logic, though. I mean, elections are unpredictable. Though its true, like you say, that many states are quite predictable, there's always going to be the odd states that do something just different from what you expected. So a calculating approach that leaves the South aside because, theoretically, you could also win if only you just win all the states A, B and C, sounds ... yeh, risky. Noone's won a national election without going for an all-union strategy, including some Southern states, yet.
Quote:And like I said, you can find a knock on anyone, and even find polls that will support it. <shrugs>
For sure. Lies, damn lies and statistics. Only good way to use stats is to underbuild a premise that already makes sense by itself, with some concrete indications of evidence - or to convincingly falsify one's theory by sheer weight of contrasting evidence.
Obviously, I dont think that in this moment of Big Mo, I could find any poll that could credibly 'falsify' the premise that Kerry could actually well be quite successful. I
did, however, find stats that vividly reinforce my independently argued fear that he could well
not be. And thats about the extent stats go ...
Quote:For e.g. the polls you post about matchups against Bush all show Kerry as beng a more solid Dem candidate than all the others against Bush.
True - and I keep posting them - my dislike for Kerry doesnt go
that far!
I did add the observation, though, that from what I've seen,
anyone who gets upwind, who gets on top thanks to some big or small momentum, immediately profits from that very fact, again, too. The Dems and some independents are desperate to find a 'winner' against GWB, and apart from Dean, most candidates still benefit from a relative unfamiliarity - allowing the voters to project their hopes upon their blank slate a little. Kerry being a perfect case in point.
In much the same way, when Clark came up,
he was suddenly the most 'electable' from the Dem candidates in hypothetical match-ups against Bush. Even Dean ended up doing as well as his competitors in such poll match-ups when he seemed like the sure-fire winner. Now Kerry is profiting from the fact that being a winner makes you
seem like a winner ... and thus more electable - and thus the obvious choice to opt for, now that some choice needs to be made.
In an ideal world, that would ride him right through to the elections, but alas, no matter how Big the Mo', it wont sustain that long. There'll be regular scrutiny, again. With that, the argument of electability goes away from national polls again, and into estimations of what one thinks will work for or against a candidate - for which the more specific polls provide better fodder.
To just annoyingly return to that poll just now for a moment - Missouri is a swing state. Kerry won there, resoundingly - some twenty or thirty percent better than Edwards. But among the Independents who took part in that Dem primary, he did a lot worse, only some ten percent better than Edwards. How about Independents who did not come out for the Dem primaries, but whom you
would need for a general election win? Or moderate Republicans?
In general, I think that in terms of electability, its better to opt for the candidate who does better under Independents than under Democrats, than vice versa, since its that direction you're going to have to be hunting for new voters. I mean, God knows I hate the system, and I'm deeply grateful for having proportional representation here in Holland. But thats how it goes. You
also need to bring in the base, and the people who might as well stay at home, the not-so-very-interested. Thats why I think a little populism is OK - it helps rally the core and some of the alienated, while it doesnt need to take you programmatically too far leftfield to lose your appeal to politically aware moderates.
Quote:To me it's not just "swing voters" but "swing voters in swing states".
So for the purpose of simplicity let's just say we agree on all of what you've posted. But who do you think is the best Dem candidate by the S.V.S.S. criteria?
I gotta say, like I did before - you need someone with a solid I'm-one-of-your-kind, ordinary-folk appeal, that will resonate with blue-collar communities, with small-town communities, and not just with the metropolitan areas on both coasts. (This is not just a strategy question, btw - I feel very strongly that this is also something you should
want).
All down the Mississippi, from Wisonsin to Missouri to Arkansas or Louisiana -- all the Midwest, the Southwest too -- you need the newly unemployed, the lower middle class in those states -- and they wont vote for you because you're against the Iraq war, or even just cause you've got a good health insurance plan. You will need some kind of process of identification, too. Thats why I really picked up on that segment of voters for whom it was most important that they felt the candidate "cared about people like you", in that poll. That'd be classic floating-voter material, people who are not into policy finesse, but will switch to GWB if the Dem against him doesnt seem like the right kinda honest, regular guy.
I dont think even state-by-state polls will cut it, therefore, to predict how candidates will do in a few months' time. I think you will need to look at which kind of voters a candidate appeals to within each state, too - and whether that is the segment that would go and vote - and vote Democratic - in any case, or whether they are good new or cross-over groups.
That was one reason I was getting uneasy with Dean. There was a lot of
talk about pulling in new voters, but his campaign, even in Iowa, targeted mostly the university towns, the big cities. aded for Gephardt and Edwards that they did the opposite - both in terms of strategy and sympathy. (Yeh, fat lot of good it did Gephardt, I know. But it sure helped Edwards.)
That factor plays big for me in future unease about Kerry. Swing voters in swing states - whether Penn. or Tenn. -
dont think Bush is an extremist and an ideologue, as Blatham put it, and they will vote for him again if the Dem is not someone they can identify with -- no matter what the policy issue of the day. So -- I dont think Kerry will make it.
Alternative options, its true, are not great. Dean is obviously out. That
leaves Clark and Edwards. Clark, like Dean, suffers from an all-too transparently inflated ego. But as a cross-over voter himself, an army man, a Southerner from modest background, he could jump over that shadow and still be 'one of us'. He's been doing better already, recently.
But yeh, for now I gotta go for Edwards. He's still trailing in the polls, but he does well with all the cross-over kind of voters - did so both in Iowa, Missouri as well as South Carolina. I dont think, if he becomes the candidate, that he'll have to worry about the liberals and the coasts, Kerry's bedrock of support - they went for Clinton, too, and he was a centrist from the outback, after all. And he'll do well among those groups that Kerry will, imho, get into trouble with. You already have Revel mouthing Coulter's "gigolo" quip (hi Revel
). This personal stuff about him being elite
will stick. Edwards and even Clark have a better shot. But then you knew already that I was going to say so ;-).
