Electability

Well, now it's down to just Clinton and Obama. They will be debating the issues tonight (8pm est, CNN). At the moment, I'll leave it to the candidates to highlight the contrast in their approaches to the issues faced by our nation, and instead look at the problem of electability. We Democrats will all rally around our candidate once we're past the primary. You can argue the merits of one candidate over another, but with three potential Supreme Court appointments waiting for the next president, it is absolutely essential that we elect a Democrat in November. Here are just a few people who have shared thoughts about who has a better chance of winning against the eventual Republican nominee.

(Also, keep in mind that we're not just electing a president. If we have a weak nominee, that will have an effect on the state and local races. We need to look at which candidate will get out our own forces without motivating large numbers of the opposition to go to the polls and vote against our down-ticket candidates.)

If, as it appears, McCain is the Republican nominee, an Obama nomination would mean the stark contrast between the past and the future. Hillary as the nominee would solidify the right-wing, who otherwise cannot abide McCain, behind him. With McCain's appeal to independents, Hillary might find it difficult to compete in the midwest and west. With McCain's prominent role in comprehensive immigration reform, he would not be automatically dismissed by the hispanic community.
-- Paul Abrams

The GOP has no one to rally for, so the ONLY way the Democrats risk losing this key advantage is if they give them someone to rally against.

That someone is Hillary Clinton. Clinton has been the subject of GOP slander for almost two decades, leading to her having the highest negative rating of any of the major candidates at a whopping 47 percent (compared to Obama's 20 percent). Obama's message of unity has led him to outperform Clinton among independents in every primary and caucus so far, a fact that has spilled over to him out performing her against GOP challengers in the national polls.
--Lawrence Grandpre

Republicans HATE the Clinton's - truly hate. They hate the Clinton's as much as Democrats hate Bush. That's OK. No problem. The problem is that many Democrats HATE Hillery and are not really happy with her husbands racial remarks of late (the ones where he says blacks are not smart enough to vote for white people and will only vote black?). I personally know three people that have told me that if Hillery is the choice, they might be forced to vote Republican. My mom HATES Bush but she said there is no way she will EVER vote for Hillery - she would vote for McCain.

I know I know, this is crazy talk right? But even though WE (the sane people) say it's crazy, it's still out there. And if my liberal friends think that, there has to be others around the country that ALSO think that.

Taking it a step further.

Many Republicans hate Bush. But that also hate Hillery. If Hillery is the choice the Republicans will come out IN FORCE, add all of the "I hate Hillery" Democrat's and it now becomes a coin flip.

If Obama is the choice - Democrat's win easy - there is no way any Republican can beat Obama because I know of some cross-over Conservatives that like him.
-- Grinder

So it'll be McCain for the Republicans. This is an extremely significant fact because a substantial chunk of the Republican base hates John McCain. I mean, really despises the man. They respect his foreign policy chops, but not much else; on domestic policy, they don't consider him a true conservative or a real Republican. On the contrary, they view him as an apostate on several core issues (immigration, taxes, campaign finance, interrogation, etc.) and a disloyal, MSM-loving sellout who cannot be trusted to uphold their principles. As such, they have no interest whatsoever in voting for him. Thus, on November 4, many of them will stay home.

Unless Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.

Needless to say, pretty much the entire Republican base hates Hillary Clinton with the heat of a thousand suns. By contrast, the anti-McCain segment of the base only hates McCain with the heat of, oh, perhaps five or six hundred suns. So if he's running against her, many of the McCain Derangement Syndome folks will do something they wouldn't do in virtually any other potential matchup: they'll hold their noses and vote for McCain. Whatever it takes to stop Hillary.

This categorically would not be the case if the nominee were Barack Obama, whose policies might be anathema to the right (he is, after all, quite liberal) but whose personality and political history simply do not inspire the sort of revulsion and loathing that Clinton's do. In fact, from what I've seen, a lot of average voters who disagree with Obama's politics still seem to genuinely like the guy. So I just can't see too many McCain-haters holding their noses and voting for Mr. Straight Talk just to prevent the calamity of an Obama victory. (Okay, so a few racists, particularly among the nativist segment of the anti-McCain crowd, would indeed vote for McCain to stop Obama. But c'mon: which is more prevalent on today's right? Racism, or Hillary-hatred? "Anybody but Hillary" is a much more effective rallying cry than "Anybody but Obama.")

In comments, Andrew -- while agreeing that "HRC is an easier opponent for McCain than Obama" -- argues that I am "overstat[ing] the degree to which the GOP right 'despises' John McCain and would thus stay home." But I'm not arguing that whole base despises him, or that they'll stay home en masse. I'm saying that a large enough portion of the base will stay home that it'll seriously hurt McCain's chances. I agree with Andrew that a lot of GOP base voters would ultimately vote for McCain over any Democrat because of Iraq and terrorism, but I still think there would be enough recalcitrant MDS folks to make a major difference. Against Hillary, though, the recalcitrants' numbers would be tiny indeed.

On top of all that, Obama has much more appeal to independents, moderates and centrists than Clinton does. So basically, in a McCain-Obama race, you have Obama getting solid Democratic support plus competing strongly with McCain for the middle, while a significant portion of the Republican base stays home instead of voting for a nominee they hate. Sounds like a recipe for Democratic victory to me, probably by a comfortable margin. By contrast, in a McCain-Clinton race, you have Clinton getting solid Democratic support but making fewer inroads to the middle than Obama would, thus allowing McCain to do well with moderates while holding onto the GOP base because they hate Hillary so much. It would be yet another pitched partisan battle and state-by-state GOTV war -- no chance for a comfy Democratic victory. Indeed, any Dem victory at all would be a surprise. Most likely, McCain wins that matchup.
-- Bendan