Tuesday’s Slate article, Kerried Away – The myth and math of Kerry’s electability, discusses the problem of electing a candidate based on his perceived electability. It says:
How did Kerry win? By racking up a 4-to-1 advantage over Dean among voters who chose their candidate because “he can defeat George W. Bush in November.” Among voters who chose their candidate because “he agrees with you on the major issues,” Dean and Kerry were tied.
Let me say that again: Among voters who picked the candidate they wanted based on the issues, not the candidate they thought somebody else wanted, Kerry did not win the New Hampshire primary.
The problem is that voting for a candidate based on whether he can beat President Bush involves dangerously circular reasoning. People perceive John Kerry to be the most likely to beat the president, so they vote for him, making him the nominee not because they agree with him on the issue but because of a bandwagon impression that other people have confidence in him. If each voter selected the candidate who best matched up against his own stance on the issues, we’d end up with a candidate who best represented the beliefs of the voters. Instead, people seem to have forgone the spirit of representative democracy out of a drive to remove the sitting president from office at all costs.
Saletan goes on to point out that what’s going to matter is not who democrats believe can beat Bush but who gets the votes of moderate republicans and independents. The thinking is that since democrats are by large willing to vote “not Bush” no matter what, the most electable candidate is the one who can win over the undecided. While I disagree with this push toward to middle for the sole sake of ousting George W. Bush, I do strongly feel that there are a lot more people out there who disagree with the current administration than popular opinion holds.
The problem is figuring out what the non-vocal majority thinks. Saletan quotes exit polls from the past few weeks’ primaries, but I’m not sure this is a valid way to answer the question. There’s no way to know that independents and republicans showing up to vote in democratic primaries are voting their hearts. I’d actually assume that republicans voting in these elections are doing so to screw up the system. I myself, a democrat, voted for Howard Dean not because I want to see him elected (though I do like a lot of his issues), but because I think it’s important to keep him in the arena to encourage discourse.
2000’s race was a tie. I’m interested to see how far to the left or the right this country has swayed in four years. Has President Bush’s strongly conservative footing alienated everyone who had been on the fence?