&c - Noam Schribers TNR Blog
KERRY 36,000: I couldn't agree more with Will Saletan and Jon Chait on the subject of John Kerry's electability. Kerry is clearly benefiting from the fact that people think other people are going to vote for him down the road, which is why they're voting for him now; they're not voting for him because he's the candidate they personally want to be president.
As Chait points out, this is classic bubble behavior--you buy a stock not because it's intrinsically valuable, but because other people are buying it and the price is going up (and you think both of these things is likely to continue). The problem with bubbles, both in politics and in financial markets, is that they tend to deflate just as rapidly as they inflate. Why? The answer is almost tautological: Because when you're buying something (say, a stock) not because you think it's valuable, but because you think other people think it's valuable, your opinion of its value changes the second you think other people's opinion of its value might change.
So, for example, you sell not because something has happened that undermines your stock's intrinsic value--and not even because something has happened that undermines its value in other people's eyes. But because something has happened that you think could undermine its value in other people's eyes. And because everyone else is thinking the same way, they all sell at that point, too.
This is what happened to Kerry when his candidacy hit the rocks last summer (thanks to all the early front-runner attention, there had been a bubble in Kerry stock, which then collapsed once Dean exposed his position on Iraq to be a tortured muddle--though this collapse was probably due as much to a change in Kerry's intrinsic value as to a change in perceptions of his value). It's what happened after Dean's third place finish and his caucus night speech in Iowa (there had been a bubble in Dean stock thanks to all the media attention surrounding his fundraising).
And it's what would happen to Kerry the second anyone managed to introduce a hint of doubt about his general election chances (and, believe me, it's not going to be that hard). If there were any justice in the world, those doubts would surface in the next few weeks, before Kerry sews up the nomination. Thanks to the infinite wisdom of the Democratic primary electorate, I fear they're not going to surface until the general election campaign. |
