Bull Moose Base
Sr. Member
Posts: 3,488
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« on: December 28, 2010, 01:54:51 PM » |
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A less electable candidate can win within reason. Obama, head-to-head, polled weaker than Hillary and Edwards. I'm not sure why Palin is pointing to Reagan as a relevant precedent instead of Bush Sr. though when defending her electability. Bush Sr. trailed Dukakis by double digits 6 months before Election Day. He made up the ground by successfully attacking Dukakis's record, famously on Willie Horton. She could at least try to argue that Obama's record will be similarly vulnerable enough for an underdog Republican to close the gap. And the side benefit to Palin bringing this up is that she throws the subject out there as a deterrent to Huckabee. And she'd set Pawlenty up for trouble in case he gets a foothold. I'm not saying she'd put the electability question to bed obviously, but she could mitigate it to win over some primary voters who do prefer her in other ways.
As for 2004, I guess Kerry was superficially the most electable as a decorated war hero facing a war time incumbent. I suggested last year that 2012 could parallel 2004 with Romney, like Kerry, a Massachusetts flip-flopper, linkable to the vilified president's signature policy, could likewise overcome that because his background would be best suited to challenge the incumbent that year. At the time, I thought Howard Dean was the most electable: as a consistent war opponent, the clearest contrast on Bush's biggest mistake, and a moderate except I guess a liberal on social issues. And I took FOX's ravenous distortion of the "Dean scream" as a sign that they felt the same way and were eager to destroy him. Though it may have been more short-sighted than that. I guess Rove is probably right that Edwards was the most electable, but I couldn't see it because even then he seemed like a greasy lawyer.
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