Rank primary candidates from most electable to least

[Phony Moderate]

2012 Republicans:

Huntsman
Johnson
Romney
Perry
Paul
Gingrich
Santorum
Cain
Bachmann

Huntsman's electability is overrated, but he'd have done at least 1% better than Romney nationally imo. Johnson would have been decent if he had dropped the marijuana obsession (not that I don't agree with him on the subject). Perry was the best of the candidates from the right of the party. Paul is difficult to assess but I guess that the mainstream media would have taken care of him (endlessly playing clips of him with Alex Jones etc). Gingrich has too much baggage and the other three are just too out-there.

2008 Democrats:

Richardson
Obama
Clinton
Edwards
Biden
Dodd
Kucinich
Gravel

(Much as I like the last two, they'd have struggled to reach 40% in a general. Dodd is a walking stereotype for a longstanding corrupt Washington bureaucrat, Biden is too gaffe-prone, Edwards would be a good GE candidate if he wasn't, you know, a complete dick. Obama and Clinton are obviously very electable. Why Richardson at the top? Because he ticks the most boxes. Moderate (while not alienating liberals), Latino, good governing record, experienced, outside the Washington bubble.


More later, perhaps.