Dean: Electability May Be Deciding Factor
Guest post by Scan
While I have certainly had some issues with Howard Dean’s leadership at the DNC recently, this Financial Times piece from Friday was encouraging.
“If it’s very very close, they [the superdelegates] will do what they want anyway,” said Mr Dean.
“I think the race is going to come down to the perception in the last six or eight races of who the best opponent for McCain will be. I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote or anything else.” (emphasis mine)
I believe that Hillary will win the popular vote with all contests counted, even if taking the elected delegate lead looks nearly impossible at this point. What’s striking is that Dean seems to be saying that electability may be the ultimate deciding factor in this race, trumping both votes and elected delegates in importance once the contests are over. He’s got a point, too. Isn’t winning the whole point of running in an election?
Luckily for us, Hillary is the most electable, and I believe this will become more obvious in the weeks to come. This factor, in combination with the popular vote win, may well push her over the finish line.
Mr Dean appeared confident that the uncommitted superdelegates would know what to do in early June even if he could not specify which yardstick they would use to select the winner. “Politics is a herd mentality,” he said. “There is a gestalt in politics when suddenly people see things in a synchronous way. Politically there will be some feeling at the end of this process that somebody is better than the other person in terms of taking on John McCain.”
Maybe Pennsylvania got him thinking. Who knows, but I consider his stressing of electability to be a positive. In other words… calm down, let the process play itself out, and let the superdelegates do their job of picking a winner. Smart guy.
Now, about Michigan and Florida…
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