“Electability” was the only argument the Rossi people had. Now it’s gone. In fact, I think Rossi is less electable than Didier when you consider who is most likely to show up at the polls in this off-year election...even in Washington State.
You are probably right about electability. Too often people fail to consider name rec when evaluating polls. Its a catch 22 game. Chuck DeVore suffered from it, Patrick Hughes suffered from it and it is hard to over come. What happens then is the lack of favorable poll numbers become an excuse to hold an otherwise very electable conservative down. The NE and the NW have never been truly as blue as they appear to be based upon voting history. A very large segment of the voting public is apolitical to some extent. Very few are like us or desire to be like us or our counterparts on the other-side at Kos and DU. When you poll on ideology and what people really think you find people are far more conservative than both political parties. Even among the intellectual and social classes you find that Democrat/Liberal affiliation is often a product of their environment not their strongly held personal beliefs.
There are however a lot more of us and those who trend to our way of thinking. The big thing we have to deal with is many of them don’t know enough to know what they are politically and that is not their deficit as much as it is the problem the GOP has which where as the Democrat party has been proud of where they stand on issues and very vocal. Many in the GOP leadership are standoffish, when they could be embracing the principles of this nations founding with a sure path to victory and domination in politics for the near future they instead insist on blurring the lines. The only reason the GOP has been so clear now that they are in the minority is because of us. If it hadn’t been for us and the likes of Sarah Palin and talk radio Obama and the Democrats would be well on the path to have Obama’s face on Mount Rushmore.