I can’t tell you how often I am hearing critics ridicule the Democrats for wanting to elect someone ‘electable.’ Now it is David Brooks. It is fashionable for them to call this focus on “electability” postmodern too, “an election about itself, with voters voting on the basis of who could win votes later on. It’s the tautology, stupid.” Well, Brooks, the contempt of the contemptible is a compliment, IMHO. First of all, it is a well-known longstanding and, yes, perhaps pitiful, voting phenomenon that the electorate is pulled toward joining the winning team; nothing new there. But, in the current race, it is ludicrous to talk about the Democratic voters’ focus on electability without acknowledging how desperate they are at this juncture to find someone who can beat Bush (beat Bush again, that is). It is no accident that it is Republican handmaidens who lampoon the phenomenon now. You did not hear them derogating the intelligence of the electorate in 2000. Ridiculing “electability” is a testimony to the pundit’s lack of intelligence, not that of the electorate. But if you think this is ridiculous, you can bet this is just a preview of the battle for the hearts and, especially, the minds, of the voters you’ll see this fall in the general election campaign, as it will be scripted by Republican strategists. Of course, the President himself won’t use the ‘s-word’ for fear of alienating voters, but his machine will get its mouthpieces in the conservative press to insinuate how stupid those who do not back administration policy are. Conservatives like Kevin Phillips are turning against the Bush dynasty because of the extent to which it represents an elitist patrician sentiment very different from the Republican populism that propelled REagan, for better or worse, into captivating the nation int he ’80’s. Let us hope the populace sees the contempt in which Bush’s organization holds them.

Another problem with the arguments of Brooks and those of his ilk about the folly of going for an electable Democrat is that this is not necessarily what the Democrats are doing. The primary campaign is not yet over and conclusions about Kerry’s victory are greatly exaggerated, it appears to me. While many are whitewashing his flaws in flush of bandwagon effect, it is not lost on other Democrats what a mistake going with Kerry would be. (Jack Beatty: “Listening to him, I saw a long line of Democratic bores—Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Bradley, Gore—who lost because people could not bear listening to them. John Kerry belongs in their dreary company. I fear he could talk his way out of victory…” —The Atlantic)