Posted on 01/25/2004 3:10:34 PM PST by gitmo
For many Democrats, the "issues" are no longer the issue. What counts this year is winning.
Unified by their distaste for President Bush, the party faithful have adopted pundit-ese in their search for a 2004 Democratic nominee. The key, they say, is "electability."
"The only issue that matters to me is whether they can win in November," said Suzanne Whitley, a 34-year-old mother of two from Orangeburg, S.C. "That's what I'm looking for -- someone who can go all the way. We have to get that man out of the White House."
Dick Bennett, president of American Research Group in New Hampshire, has conducted polls for 24 years and says he's never seen anything like the 2004 phenomenon. The candidates who tried to focus on issues failed and retooled their messages.
"I can get people to say health care and the economy are important, but when it comes to choosing a candidate, they don't care," Bennett said. "Anyone's better than Bush."
Candidates get the message, incorporating Electoral College math and practical politics into their speeches.
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, for example, is trying to twang his way into the White House. Speaking to hungry Democratic voters who scorn their president and know their political history, Edwards points to his mouth.
By "talking like this," he says in his Carolina-bred accent, he can beat President Bush in the South.
Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut says he won't alienate cultural conservatives.
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts plays up his military experience in Vietnam.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean promises to give Bush the straight-up fight Dean thinks he deserves.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark will hold an "electability rally" in New Hampshire today featuring former S.C. Gov. Jim Hodges.
Republicans may have trouble understanding the venom directed toward the president, but for the hard-core Democrats who choose their party's nominee, Bush is the unmistakable enemy on everything from Iraq to the environment to tax cuts.
Starting with the "stolen" 2000 election, Bennett said, Democrats have united behind their desire to oust Bush.
Jamie Mieghan, 32, of Bedford, N.H., heard Edwards speak at a Manchester public library last week. Mieghan, who owns a small furniture manufacturing business, measured Edwards with a common field test.
"I want to see if he's viable to beat Bush," she said.
Democrats haven't always focused on electability, preferring passionate stances and liberal stump appeal to pragmatism.
The results: landslide losses for George McGovern in 1972 and Walter Mondale in 1984.
This year, said professor Stephen Wayne of Georgetown University, "No one has really captured that imagination, and so therefore if there's not an unusual attraction at this time to any one candidate, why not use electability as the prime reason for deciding who to vote for?"
That's happened in the past, too. Bush benefited in 2000 from his presidential pedigree and fund-raising skills, persuading party leaders early on that he was the best candidate for the fall.
Sometimes, the "I can win" strategy fails. In 1996, Lamar Alexander's ABC campaign (Alexander Beats Clinton) never energized Republican voters.
In other years, candidates have overcome doubts about their mass appeal. By March 1992, Bill Clinton was hounded by hints of scandal, but he kept his primary-season lead and won in November.
Last week's Iowa caucuses demonstrated the importance of electability. According to polls, more than a quarter of caucus-goers cited the need to back a winner as their top priority.
That hurt Dean and helped Kerry and Edwards.
Betty Carlson of Long Grove, Iowa, said she found Dean too cocky. She decided the positive message from the two senators would work better in November.
"People who like Dean because of his stand on the war realize that he truly is a god with clay feet, that he has potentially self-destructive capacities on a campaign trail that would work against him," said Denison University professor Emmett Buell, an expert on the presidential nominating process.
Voters' focus on electability forced Dean to retool his campaign after his third-place finish in Iowa, which he capped with a now-infamous shouting speech. Now, as he prepares for Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, he's touting his record as governor, auditioning the chief-executive moves he hopes to try against George Bush.
Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000, said electability arguments can come in many forms, from crowing about foreign-policy experience to boasting of a motivated base of volunteers and donors.
"It's never not been there," she said of electability. "It's been there as a salient issue, but now it's more of a message point."
This year? Is he kidding?
Doesn't he recall the famous Clinton line, "Well, I guess we'll have to win then."
In short, winning at all costs has always been the Democrat goal. That's why they never solve problems, they just keep the issues alive for campaign purposes.
-PJ
The Democrats Top Ten priorities are always in this order:
1. Do whatever is best for yourself (i.e. keep yourself in power).
2. Do whatever is best for the party.
3. Do whatever is best for your contributors.
4. Do whatever it takes to destroy the Constitution.
5. Do whatever is best for the United Nations.
6. Do whatever is best for the special interest groups.
7. Do whatever is best for the French.
8. Do whatever is best for every murdering dictator around the world.
9. Blame America for everything!!
10. Destroy all conservatives, anywhere.
Doing what is best for the United States, what is right for the United States, does not even make the top ten. In fact, it would not register at all in the liberal mind.
Democrats, and may I say many Republicans, are interested in only one thing: Gaining power and keeping power. And how do they gain power? Money. They take our money through taxes and money is power. They get elected with money. They spend out money to convince others with money to give them more money. When they want to get elected, what do they alway promise: Spending more of OUR money.
Doing what is best for the country and the Constitution? Does not even cross their minds.
True. I am from an area where there have been no Republicans on the ballot for local elections for years. Everyone in the family was a registered Dem. However, everyone has left the party as the liberals have taken over (especially the abortion issue).
In the last election my parents lived to vote in, 2000, everyone voted for Bush but my elderly father. He said he voted for Gore because the Dems said that if Bush won, Social Security would be cut off. If I ever get the opportunity to speak with Mr. Gore I want to congratulate him for scaring my father to death to get a vote, the last he cast. I will also let Mr. Gore know that his actions have strengthened my resolve to get all libs out of office and to be more active in doing so.
With respect, horsecrap. What you're saying is that when the Democrats nominate Stalin, we must nominate Himmler or we will lose the election. The rightmost candidate who is viable is Bush, not some jackass from the Constitution Party or the Losertarians. Elections are not won by the extremes in this country, they are won in the center by candidates who offer a vision for the future.
The extremists have nothing to do with it.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
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