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Electing the Electable
By DAVID BROOKS
Let us review the Democratic presidential primaries so far:
In the beginning, John Kerry surged to a big lead in the New Hampshire polls because he seemed so electable. He had plenty of experience, lots of money and big hair, and, as somebody said, he looks like an animatronic version of Abraham Lincoln. But then Howard Dean raised a lot of money, and New Hampshire voters figured that he was bringing so many new people into the process that he must be electable — and if he was electable, then they should probably support him because they wanted somebody who could beat George Bush.
So Dean's poll numbers rose, and the news media noticed his momentum, and other voters noticed how much great press he was getting. And that led to a self-reinforcing upward spiral of electability as more people concluded that he was electable because so many other people were concluding he was electable. People around the country saw that Dean was doing so well in New Hampshire they, too, concluded that he must be electable, a perception that led to an impressive rise in the national polls, which only enhanced his electability.
All this time, Kerry had not changed his views particularly, and he had not changed his campaign style, though he might have changed the bags under his eyes, depending on whom you ask. But savvy Democratic voters wanted to vote for somebody who could win the most votes in November, and they decided that since Dean was ahead of Kerry, therefore Kerry must be less electable, so voters moved away from Kerry. So Kerry's support plummeted, and the more his support plummeted the more he looked pathetically unelectable.
So Kerry fired his campaign manager and moved to Iowa, where fewer people had formed a conclusion about his electability. And lo and behold, Dean started saying some weird things.
These weird things didn't really bother Democratic primary voters, but primary voters imagined they might bother general election swing voters. And since electability is all about Iowa and New Hampshire liberals trying to imagine what Palm Beach County, Fla., independents will want in a presidential candidate nine months from now, this created ripples of concern that Dean might not be so electable after all. The media picked up on the doubts, which created a downward unelectability spiral.
Meanwhile, a bunch of Democratic insiders drafted Wesley Clark, who may have been a Republican and who didn't seem to have a single domestic policy idea in his head. But he did seem electable because he had worn a military uniform and thus could negate the Republicans' biggest electability advantage, national security.
Clark seemed so immediately electable to so many Democrats that the day after he announced his candidacy, he shot up toward the top of the national polls. These voters are nothing if not principled, and their primary principle is that they should win. This, after all, is a party of ideas.
But Clark decided not to campaign in Iowa because everyone knew that organization is everything in Iowa, and a defeat there might mar his aura of electability.
Suddenly Kerry, who had not changed his views particularly, nor his campaign style, began to see his poll numbers rise in Iowa because Dean seemed a little less electable. Then other Iowa voters began to notice the momentum behind Kerry, which made him look still more electable, so more voters decided that maybe Kerry was the man to support after all.
And, what do you know, Kerry won the Iowa caucuses, and from that moment on the election turned into a postmodernist literary critic's idea of heaven. It became an election about itself, with voters voting on the basis of who could win votes later on.
It's the tautology, stupid.
So New Hampshire voters who had dismissed Kerry as a pathetic, unelectable loser days before took a new look at him after Iowa and figured that if he could win an election, he must be electable (which is sort of definitional), and concluded he is a triumphantly electable winner. Now Kerry is riding this great wave of electability, and he has a huge seething army of fanatical Kerry supporters who will follow him to the death, unless, of course, he stumbles — in which case they will abandon him faster than you can say "electability."
In which case, John, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
