DEAN, CLARK, & ELECTABILITY

(The following is my response to Paul's response to my response to the Iowa caucus, dealing primarily with the issue of electability)

In rereading my own writing, I wonder if I suffer from an affliction of mistaking my wishes that "electability" weren't a central campaign issue with my actual downplaying of it. And yes, electability is definitely, and irrevocably an issue to Democratic primary voters, as they want the guy with the best chance of ousting Bush to be in the ring with him. That being said...

I'm not as skeptical about Dean's ability to appeal to the center. He has plenty of cred in order to do that, short of actually calling himself a Republican and fundraising for them. He was a six-term governor with a history of consistently-balanced budgets. He has, in the past, stood up to those "special interests" that Republicans are always righteously crowing about. He can point to the kind words the NRA has had for him and yank the gun issue out from under the Republicans. And of course, he's a Doctor; he hasn't even begun to use his profession in his campaign. It's a nice thing to have on the bench, since people trust doctors a lot. Lastly, I don't think Dean has had the Democratic equivalent of a visit to Bob Jones University so far in his campaign. I look into Dubya's eyes and I don't see an ounce of genuine compassion, yet he sold himself in the general election as a "compassionate conservative".

Regarding Clark: Yes, that was a cheap shot in the above paragraph. But two of the prime reasons that Clark looks so darn electable right now are that a variety of people have been in a concerted effort to make Dean appear as unelectable as possible for months now, and that he entered the race very, very late. We saw what the media and others did to Kerry while he was the de facto frontrunner ("His hair!" "He's a waffler!"). We definitely saw the shellacking Dean has taken from the media, Bushian interests (regardless of their reasons) and the other candidates. Clark's delay in running was probably the result of him wanting to avoid such treatment for as long as generally (pun intended) possible.

If Clark entered the race last March, rather than in September, he would have received a lot of Dean-style treatment. His history, character and policy positions would have been twisted violently out of proportion, and another Gore-esque storyline would have been crafted by now. We've seen snippets of this ("He was fired from the army!", "He's 'prickly' and people in the military don't like him", and certainly the recent congressional testimony flap, unfair to him as it was), but one of the prime reasons we haven't seen more is because of Dean's frontrunner/target status. If Clark had been around and in the forefront all that time, his electability might have been as much in question as Dr Dean's is now.

Heck, his decision to skip Iowa means that his campaign hasn't even begun yet. Clark has a good idea in mind, to be the Knight In Shining Armor for the party once again, just as he was when people talked about his campaign in September. That way, he can be as pure a bio&policies candidate as possible come primary season. Trouble is, such a strategy could backfire: this presumes a shaky Democratic field heading into New Hampshire from which Clark would save the voters, and Kerry and Edwards look anything but shaky.

In short, Clark's "electability" is largely the product of his biography and positions without much day-to-day campaign input from the media, Rove's office, etc, and the current concerns about Dean's "electability" are the products of the campaign wear-&-tear he has taken from the just-mentioned groups. This will not be the story for long, however, as the spotlight turns, to a greater degree, to Clark in New Hampshire and the early February states. It's at that point that the relative electability of Dean and Clark really becomes a direct and relevant comparison to me.