JUburton wrote:

thephan wrote:Synema identifies differently. Be more woke bro. I do like that she went to BYU.

Misremembered. I have edited.

JFLNYC wrote:I'm sorry. I wasn't clear on a couple of points. First, electability is a big factor to me but I don't think it's a factor that favors Buttigieg. Second, I really like him but I'm not sure he's my preferred candidate because I think he's got electability issues.

As Trent alluded to a day or two ago, electability is my #1 issue. Everything else is secondary to getting Trump out of office. There's no sense hiring a decorator until you've first put out the fire.

JFLNYC wrote:Speaking of Dem candidates and electability, I love Warren's politics but her supporters terribly underestimate how much those outside blue areas dislike her. I live in a very red county. They hated Hillary but at least gave her her due. If Elizabeth Warren burst into flames people around here wouldn't piss on her to put the flames out.

thephan wrote:Joe going for a campaign reset. Seems to be doing the Biden thing where you step on it in an effort to make it all better.

CFP wrote:

thephan wrote:Joe going for a campaign reset. Seems to be doing the Biden thing where you step on it in an effort to make it all better.

https://twitter.com/mviser/status/1114195021673172993

slugsrbad wrote:

CFP wrote:

thephan wrote:Joe going for a campaign reset. Seems to be doing the Biden thing where you step on it in an effort to make it all better.

https://twitter.com/mviser/status/1114195021673172993

Sad thing is, that this will play well with some

Gimpy wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Speaking of Dem candidates and electability, I love Warren's politics but her supporters terribly underestimate how much those outside blue areas dislike her. I live in a very red county. They hated Hillary but at least gave her her due. If Elizabeth Warren burst into flames people around here wouldn't piss on her to put the flames out.

Those people aren’t voting democrat anyway. If a candidate’s message, vision, and experience resonate with you, I don’t think it makes sense to worry about how much someone who isn’t going to vote for them anyway dislikes them.

The deciding factor will be finding a candidate that energizes the base and gets people out to vote. If one of these candidates articulates their message and policy in a way where they can win the primary, I think they would be electable in the general too.

My biggest worry isn’t that a dyed in the wool red voter is going to dislike a candidate: it’s that a candidate won’t elicit enough emotion to draw out an apathetic populace.

Augustus wrote:“Electability” means 1 of 2 things for Democrats in 2020:

1. The candidate will win some of the much chronicled “white working class” voters that Trump peeled off in PA, MI, OH, WI, etc.

OR

2. The candidate will inspire enthusiasm among the Democratic constituent groups that often have lower turnout-people of color and young people.

The ideal candidate would do both (as Obama did). Hillary failed on both fronts, and still almost won. Trump turned out his base (as noted upthread) and nabbed not-insignificant amounts of the Obama coalition.

I think many of the current Democrats would do one or the other, a few do neither, and I’m not sure any do both. I’m more inclined to support the second approach. I’m sure some of the white former Obama voters voted Trump because they hate Hillary, because the Dems didn’t offer a progressive economic agenda, etc, but I think most of them just really, really like Trump. I’d rather focus on getting higher turnout in Philly, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee.

Some people seem to frame “electability” around the idea of persuading the middle of the political spectrum and winning over suburban moms and dads. This seems very 2004 to me. Our politics is more polarized now. Turn out the base.