On Electability

I would have thought—after the surprises of the 2008 campaign and now this primary campaign—that media folks and academics would have acquired a degree of circumspection, if not humility, about their claims to know who is or is not electable. What these recent campaigns have shown is that the electorate can upend our expectations and that the opinions of voters are not static. Those opinions can change in response to the changing dynamics of an electoral campaign—you know, what we used to call “politics.” Not only did the voters in 2008 cast their ballot for a black man—something many right-thinking people were sure was not possible in the United States (remember the Bradley Effect?)—but now, to an increasing and unanticipated degree, they are casting their ballots for a self-declared socialist from Brooklyn. And not only is it not the limousine liberal set that’s voting in this unexpected way, as was the case during the 2008 primaries when wealthier Democrats backed Obama and poorer Democrats voted for Clinton. This time around, Clinton’s main base of support seems to be coming from the upper-income brackets of the party, while lower-income voters are flocking to Sanders. So could we perhaps stop making pronouncements about electability, about whom the voters will or will not support, with such confidence? Could we stop assuming we just know who the voters are and how far they will go? If nothing else, we’ll know in a few months if Sanders or Clinton is even minimally electable. So maybe we can allow the voters to deliver that verdict and not presume we know it on their behalf. Hey, that’s a radical thought: let the voters decide!