Political parties are always concerned about electability, but much of this is speculative. I read in comments sections that the Republicans want Obama to win, because they know they can beat him - so vote Hillary. I have read people assert with equal vehemence the contrary notion, that the GOP would rather face Sen. Clinton in the general.
This is need for narrative and false belief in a controllable universe at work. People making these assertions usually seize upon one (or even two!) ideas and try to ride that all the way home. McCain will look old next to Obama...Hillary will carry the Latino vote in key states... Yawn. Very few people have the knowledge of what really does turn elections, those few will tell you it is chancey and complicated, and even they shy away from predicting this far out. The rest of you, you don't know.
One thing we can predict, however, is that if the Democrats lose in November, there will be enormous I-told-you-so's from one faction or the other, sure that their candidate would have beaten McCain, if only the others had listened.
If history tells us anything, it is that in the era of constant polling, the attitude of the electorate is in a constant state of flux. What the polls show today will not likely be applicable next week. Some have compared the Dems to 1968 - two factions of the party deeply divided. After the convention in '68, the Dems were down 20 points and the election wound up a dead heat. Very little had changed - only people's attitude. Since the media feeds upon itself, they all want to be able to go back and say they were the first one to spot this trend or make that prediction.
ReplyDeleteThey will never remind you of the majority of the times where they were completely off base. It just brings us back to the most basic truism of elections - the only poll that counts is the one on election day. Stay tuned.