It's Electability, Stupid

Good morning, fellow spinners. Interesting night, wasn't it? Shaun Dale at Upper Left was sure excited last night. His man carried the day. There wasn't too much happiness in the Dean camp, however, and if we thought he was the last angry man yesterday, just wait till we see the new version today. As I've said before in these pages, I was a doctor in my former life, not a political activist, and, despite my last name, not a political pundit either. So that leaves me free to make it up as I go along. However, since that's what they do I'm not at any great disadvantage, so here goes.

Scroll down and read the title of my post from yesterday morning; read the whole post if you want. It seems that is exactly what the caucuses in Iowa told us last night. For Democratic voters this year the issues are secondary if they matter at all. Electability is numbers one two and three on the voters' list of concerns. It's not a surprise that the anger among Democrats is what made Dean phenomenon possible. But the Iowa caucuses proved to me that this anger is not irrational; otherwise, the result in Iowa would have been different. It is a cold, calculating anger, and the calculation made last night was that Dean can't win. Of the major candidates competing in their state Iowans decided that Kerry was the most likely to beat Bush. I don't happen to agree with that assessment, but it's a whole lot more rational than what’s been coming out of the Dean camp. I personally think that Edwards may have a better shot at beating Bush than Kerry.

So what did Iowa tell us? One, that the Democrats want to win in the worst way and that issues are not terribly important. And two, that they recognize that to accomplish the former, they need a candidate who can stand up to the he-is-a-traitor argument from the Republicans. That is the reason Edwards didn't win this race going away. (He is the most inspirational candidate out on the stump, although Clark is not too far behind.)

So in a year when electability is the only issue who stands out? Kerry still suffers from the fact that he can be labeled a Massachusetts liberal, and, despite what we saw in the last week, he still doesn't connect well with voters. Edwards is great and he comes from the South, which is important, but he suffers from a lack of gravitas primarily because he looks twelve. Dean is still in this if for no other reason than money, but his air of inevitability is gone, and the voters have shown that they want a winner and he's not. The only way he wins now is through the back door and I don't think that’s going to happen.

Let's play a game for second here: let's create our ideal candidate to win the nomination. The electorate has told us that issues aren't important so we don't need to run to the left to get nominated; better to be in the center and be able to attract some independent and moderate Republican votes. Better to be a Southerner because this also makes it easier to compete in the Republican south. And finally, the candidate needs two other things: gravitas and a Teflon® shield on foreign affairs/national security. Okay, we have the profile for our ideal candidate; now who comes closest to matching it? Wes, stand up and take a bow.

Not only is Wes the ideal candidate, but he's running a national campaign and has the money to compete. So my prediction today is a long primary season with Wes Clark prevailing and just for the heck of it with John Edwards as veep.

Mickey