Jill Biden Admits – Campaign Already on the Ropes, Gasping for Air
Jesus. Jill Biden is a fucking national treasure, but hang it up already. Democrats have tried and failed to scold voters into trudging to the voting booth because “centrism” and it hasn’t FUCKING WORKED!!! What do you not get about that?
“You may like another candidate better, but you have to look at who is going to win,” she said, citing Mr. Biden’s consistent lead in early surveys.
You don’t go to that line until you know that your candidate doesn’t have the juice. From the same article, here is a tidy review of that strategy:
“(In Iowa) I did not meet one Biden voter who was in any way, shape or form excited about voting for Biden,” Mr. Murray said. “They feel that they have to vote for Joe Biden as the centrist candidate, to keep somebody from the left who they feel is unelectable from getting the nomination.”
Every time Democrats tell voters to take thier medicine and trudge joylessly to the polls, they lose. Yes – it is that simple.
Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine – Centrists Lost
Barack Obama/Joe Biden – NonCenterist Won
John Kerry/John Edwards – Centrists Lost
Al Gore/Joe Lieberman- Centrists Lost
Bill Clinton/Al Gore – Centrists Won
Michael Dukakis/Lloyd Bentsen – Centrists Lost
Walter Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro – Centrists Lost
Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale (incumbents)- Centrists Lost
Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale – Centrists Won (vs Nixon’s Handpicked Successor, Ford)
As long as Democratic primary voters try to employ some calculus about who is most electable while Republican primary voters just vote as individuals for whom they like best, this will continue to happen.
I believe the Democratic establishment is more interested in stopping the party’s left flank than it is in winning elections or thwarting the Republicans (for a number of reasons) so it doesn’t surprise me that they employ this rhetoric.
What is surprising is that primary voters seem to buy it. The whole point to elections is so that you don’t have to use this calculus. If you like a candidate, chances are others do too, so your personal preferences should guide your thinking about who is most electable. Even if you’e not in the majority, but everyone still votes for whom they most prefer, then by definition the most electable candidate wins. The calculus Jill Biden is asking voters to employ at the individual level is already built in to the system.
(And I realize that part of the argument is that the preference of one side’s primary voters doesn’t transfer to the entire voting population, but, as AOC pointed out, the voters the Dems need to swing are non-voter to Dem voter.)
“I believe the Democratic establishment is more interested in stopping the party’s left flank than it is in winning elections or thwarting the Republicans (for a number of reasons) so it doesn’t surprise me that they employ this rhetoric.”
100% agree.