Instinctively, Hillary Clinton has long seemed by far the more electable of the two Democratic candidates. She is, after all, an experienced, pragmatic moderate, whereas Sanders is a raving, arm-flapping elderly Jewish socialist from Vermont. Clinton is simply closer to the American mainstream, thus she is more attractive to a broader swath of voters. Sanders campaigners have grown used to hearing the heavy-hearted lament “I like Bernie, I just don’t think he can win.” And in typical previous American elections, this would be perfectly accurate.

    But this is far from a typical previous American election. And recently, everything about the electability calculus has changed, due to one simple fact: Donald Trump is likely to be the Republican nominee for President. Given this reality, every Democratic strategic question must operate not on the basis of abstract electability against a hypothetical candidate, but specific electability against the actual Republican nominee, Donald Trump.



War:

I don't really buy it. Donald Trump can't win a general. The big secret about these primaries is that very few people go to these things and they are often not representative of either parties interest in the state. The people that come out to primaries and caucuses are the really politically involved. The reason Donald Trump is doing so well is because it is super easy to get the outliers all to vote at one time, and the general populace tends to be more apathetic to this early election stuff. The general election for a presidential candidate is a whole different beast. I'm pretty confident Clinton or Sanders could beat Trump in a general if not from just the sheer amount of disgust for Trump.


posted 2982 days ago