Posted by Jim at January 29th, 2004

Electability is supposedly a factor in how people are voting in the Democratic primaries this year.

I’m not sure precisely how people determine that and I’m not sure that they know either. Bearing in mind that most people aren’t pollsters, campaign managers or political analysts, they don’t really know what makes a person electable in the first place–not that the professionals know either. The professionals can just make a more educated guess.

As such, I’m going to guess that for most people electability is a mixture of two basic approaches.

Approach 1: Analysis based on a list of personal criteria for electability based on what they’ve heard about a candidate in the media. Examples: So and so’s too liberal to be elected. So and so makes too many gaffes. So and so has better credibility about war because of his military record than Bush…

Approach 2: Assuption of electability based on what the candidate is currently doing in the polls/primaries. Example: Kerry’s winning–I’ll vote for him.

Neither really seem particularly wonderful to me. A mixture of the two doesn’t excite me either. I’m hoping that certain amount of “Approach 3″ is in the mix. Approach 3 would be liking the candidate’s views, having some confidence in his character, and believing he’d be a good and effective leader.

According to a questionnaire that matches views that Ed pointed out, I should therefore be voting either for Dean or Clark. I should most definitely not be voting for the Constitution Party’s candidate, Bush, or the Libertarian Party’s candidate.

I’d kind of suspected something like that. Alas, none of the candidates match my views particularly closely. That’s the bad thing about being a moderate, you’ve got a lot in common with a lot of people, but not really enough to get excited.