Because the ultimate purpose of the election is not just to produce an outcome, but to determine the outcome one way or another. For freedom to be respected, the aim of the political process cannot be simply to determine who wins or loses. It must include an effort to persuade the voters that it is better for them and for their country that one person wins their support, rather than another.
I think in the 1st sentence, he meant to say that the purpose IS to produce an outcome, NOT to just determine the outcome.
The 2nd sentence specifically says the process can't be to determine the outcome, and the 3rd sentence says the process is to persuade the voters.
That's just a nit, but it was important to me because if that's what the 1st sentence does mean, it echos (or I have been echoing) what I have been saying, that Giuliani supporters are defeatists who look at polls and shrug "what can we do", while the rest of us look at polls and say "what WILL we do".
Elections are about winning the hearts and minds of the electorate, and we need a candidate who will do that, not a candidate who simply reflects our interpretation of what polls tell us is the current heart and mind of the electorate.
I think he got it exactly right.
Try reading it again.
Great point.
But we no longer have the backbone to do that as a nation. We haven’t had it for a long time.
As I have said before, we are in the a similar situation as the twilight of the Roman Republic.