Democratic Candidate for President 2020 - 2 Electability

Dear Friends,

I am driven to write by the constant media reports and conversations about who is the most electable Democratic candidate for President.  Virtually daily there is some new article or analysis in the media attempting to define "electability".  Following are just a few that I have read lately:

"Nobody Knows Anything About 'Electability'" by Peter Beinart in the Atlantic (here)
"the electability trap" by Linda Hirshman in The Washington Post (here)
"The Problem With 'Electability'" by Perry Bacon, Je. at FiveThirtyEight (here)
"Opinion: The Real Electable Democrat is Kamala Harris" by Bakari Sellers at BuzzFeed.News (here)  [I am not supporting or opposing Kamala Harris, but I found the article interesting.]
"How to Choose the Most Electable Democrat in 2020" by Bill Scher at Politico (here)

There are three things that I want to highlight from all of the discussions about "electability".

First, who a person views as "electable" is phrased as others will not support that candidate because she is a woman, because she/he is a person of color, because he/she is too far left/right, etc.  Essentially what that person is saying is I'm not racist, sexist, etc. but the rest of the electorate is.  This approach essentially means that straight, white, Judaeo/Christian, upper class, male centrists are electable and others are not.

Second, often an electable candidate is defined as a candidate who can attract swing voters.  I am sure there are probably a few million swing voters, but the person to attract is the non-voter.  The percentage of eligible voters voting hit a high in the 2008 Presidential election with about 62% of the the eligible voters actually voting.  In the 2016 Presidential election 59.2% of eligible voters voted for President. In 2016 there were just about 231 million eligible voters which means that the three percentage point difference in the eligible voters that voted represented almost 7 million voters.
Elections are won by turning out the people who will vote for your candidate.  There is no doubt that if 62% of the voters had turned out in 2016 instead of the 59% that did, Hillary Clinton would be President now.
There are approximately 25 developed countries with higher voter turnout than the United States, with Belgium topping the list with 87% of its voting age population voting.  The United States has about 250,000,000 age eligible voters.  If 87% of those people voted in 2016, we would have had almost 81,000,000 more voters.  If a candidate can get 10 million of those people to the polls, that candidate will win.

Third, the Democratic establishment has been pushing "electable" candidates on us for years.  Since the 1976 election, three Democratic candidates have won the presidency and five Democratic candidates have lost the presidency when running for a first term.
The Democratic candidates that have won are:
Jimmy Carter - age 52 when ran, 4 years as a Georgia state senator and 4 years as the governor of Georgia
Bill Clinton - age 46 when ran, 2 years as the Attorney General of Arkansas and 11 years as governor of Arkansas
Barack Obama - age 47 when ran, 7 years as an Illinois state senator and 3 years as US Senator from Illinois
The Democratic candidates that lost are:
Walter Mondale - age 56 when ran, 4 years as Attorney General of Minnesota, 12 years as US Senator from Minnesota and 4 years as Vice President
Michael Dukakis - age 55 when ran, 8 years in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and 12 years as governor of Massachusetts
Al Gore - age 52 when ran, 8 years a member of the House of Representatives, 8 years as US Senator from Tennessee and 8 years as Vice President
John Kerry - age 61 when ran, decorated Vietnam War veteran and 28 years as US Senator from Massachusetts
Hillary Clinton - age 69 when ran, 8 years as First Lady, 8 years as US Senator from New York and 4 years as Secretary of State (she was far and away the most experienced and qualified person to run for President probably forever)

What are the lessons from this data?
Democratic presidential candidates who are political outsiders win.  All of the losing candidates had at least 20 years of public service before running for President (if you count Hillary Clinton's time as First Lady).  Except for Dukakis, all had been US Senators for at least 8 years.
The oldest winner was 52 when he ran and the youngest loser was 52 when he ran.  Based on this sample younger candidates do much better.
Except for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, all are white men, and in that category four lost and two won.
I would categorize all of these candidates as to the right of center in the Democratic Party and in that category five lost and three won.
So from this data one could say that a younger candidate who has not been in public office for very long is the best bet.

Next time you talk about the electability of a candidate or you talk to someone else about it or you read/hear an analysis in the media, ask what do you really mean by electability.  Since the "experts" continually get it wrong about who is the most electable candidate, please do not rely on those "experts".  If an "expert" thought that Donald Trump was not electable and Hillary Clinton was, there is no reason for you to give that "expert's" opinion any weight in your decision making.

The most electable Democratic candidate is the one who can attract a lot of the nonvoters without losing too many of the traditional Democratic voters who voted for Hillary Clinton.  Simply holding on to those voters who voted for Hillary Clinton and adding a few swing voters will not even come close to assuring victory in the general election.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Democratic Candidate for President 2020 - 1

Dear Friends,

The number of people seeking the Democratic nomination for President in 2020 is huge, and we need to start winnowing it down.  I have yet to determine exactly what criteria I should use to decide for myself who to support.  There are, however, some criteria that are quite foundational for me.

The person must be able to motivate a broad electorate to participate in the process and to vote.  Democrats win elections when more people vote and especially people who do not traditionally vote. In order to have this appeal, the person must not be too old.

The person should not carry the baggage of being a member of the Democratic Party establishment.  Those people who have received the Democratic nomination who were from the Democratic Party establishment have lost time and time again.  Since Lyndon Johnson, the only Democrats to win the Presidency have been Jimmy Carter (a little known Georgia governor), Bill Clinton (a little known Arkansas governor) and Barack Obama (a one term Senator from Illinois); and the losers have all been candidates of the Democratic establishment-Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.

The ticket must be diverse.  I am sympathetic to, but not yet persuaded by, the argument that the candidate should be a person of color.  I am, however, certain that the ticket must not consist solely of white men.

With these foundational criteria in mind, I am prepared to rule out the following potential candidates in alphabetical order:

Joe Biden
I like Joe Biden.  He is a very nice person and has for the most part served our country well.  However, he will be 78 in November 2020.  He is the epitome of the Democratic Party establishment and carries with him all of his and the Democratic Party's prior sins (think Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill, credit card companies, Iraq war, etc.).

Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg will also be 78 in November 2020.  While he has not always been a Democrat, he is certainly establishment and if anything represents the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party establishment.  The last person we need as the nominee is a person who will self fund from his Wall Street gains and have the enthusiastic support of the 1%.

Andrew Cuomo
While Cuomo will only be 63 by the end of 2020, he has been around forever as a member of the Democratic Party establishment.  I cannot think of any good reason for him to the nominee.

Terry McAuliffe
Unless Hillary Clinton were to run again, there is no candidate more tied to the Clinton centrist wing of the Democratic Party establishment than McAuliffe.  He is at best a centrist and more like a center right candidate with all the baggage of the past and nothing for the future.

Bernie Sanders
As those of you who read this blog in the lead up to the 2016 Presidential election know, I was a big supporter of Bernie Sanders.  If it were not for the unfair intervention of the Democratic Party establishment, he would have been the Democratic nominee and would now be our President.  Nevertheless Bernie will be 79 by November 2020.  I still love his policies, but he is no longer the right candidate.  We need a person who supports the same policies but is younger and can avoid the issues that impacted Bernie's campaign last time.

Beto O'Rouke
Obviously, Beto is not too old.  I have two concerns about his candidacy.  First, his voting record is not at all progressive.  Second, he has never even won a statewide election and has little experience.  Even though he has demonstrated that he can motivate a broad electorate, I do not believe that he is yet capable of being on the national stage.  In his race for the Senate people saw in him what they wanted to see, not what his record actually shows.  That worked for Obama, but I doubt that he can do that on the national stage, and I certainly do not want a candidate that we don't really know.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal