Opinion: We’re finally inching toward a smarter understanding of 'electability'
Sen. Kamala D. Harris , center, and school principal Radewin Awada take a selfie with students at Miller Elementary School in Dearborn, Mich., on Monday. By Paul Waldman Paul Waldman Opinion writer covering politics Email Bio Follow Opinion writer May 7 at 12:38 PM Many Democratic voters are agonizing over whether they should support their favorite candidate or the one who is most likely to defeat President Trump next fall.
There has been a lot of conversation by pundits about “electability” and “who can speak to the Midwest?” But when they say that, they usually put the Midwest in a simplistic box and a narrow narrative, and too often their definition of the Midwest leaves people out. It leaves out people in this room who helped build cities like Detroit. It leaves out working women who are on their feet all day—many of them working without equal pay.
The other big question in this debate is gender. Large numbers of Democrats, justifiably traumatized by 2016, have decided that despite all the formidable women running, the only way to beat Trump is with a man. Many voters arriving at that conclusion are women. History tells us that our assessments of who is electable usually turn out to be wrong. Trump and Obama looked completely unelectable at the outset of their campaigns, while supposedly electable candidates such as Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, John McCain and John Kerry ended up losing.
Let’s take one example. We’d all agree that we don’t want our party to nominate someone who might get caught in too many controversies or outright scandals. But nearly every candidate will face at least a potential scandal at some point. The real question is how resilient they’ll turn out to be, how skillful they are at dealing with the crisis.
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