Democratic candidates try to avoid electability trap

Electability is the watchword among many Democrats this spring as they begin to evaluate the evergrowing field of candidates for their party’s presidential nomination. The question of who can beat President Donald Trump weighs heavily in voters’ assessments. But is that the real measure that produces presidents?

Electability is an elusive concept. It is not one of those that fits into the category of “I know it when I see it.” It is born of individual biases and the conventions of history, often the search for something that seems to replicate something that was successful before.

But a look back at presidential campaigns of the past suggests something else has been more powerful in determining who wins the White House.

Four years ago at this moment, almost no one believed that Trump was electable. He wasn’t even a formal candidate, after all. Although he had been on the edge of the political stage, conventional wisdom afforded him little chance of becoming the 45th president. On the electability scale, he was in the low range.

Twelve years ago at this time, Hillary Clinton was judged to be the most-electable Democrat seeking the nomination. A New York senator, former first lady and part of the then-best brand in Democratic politics, she had the attributes that added up to being most electable.

Barack Obama, then a relatively new U.S. senator, was considered much more a long shot. As he said later, he believed he had about a 25% chance of winning the nomination — good enough to make the race but certainly no iron lock for someone whose race alone made him a long shot in the eyes of the conventional wisdom committee.

Four decades ago at this moment, Jimmy Carter was a little-known, one-term governor of Georgia, just starting to make his way around the country, carrying his own bag, sleeping in the homes of friendly Democrats. Who thought he was electable in a field of more than a dozen candidates, including several prominent senators with vastly more experience and recognition within their party?

What these successful candidates had was something other than the aura of electability.

They had something that connected with voters more directly, more personally and more deeply. They stirred passions and in some cases anger. They excited. They inspired. They built followings. Obama’s “Hope and Change,” and Trump’s “Make America Great, Again” were not based on the theme of electability. Quite the opposite.

Obama’s pre-campaign book was entitled “The Audacity of Hope” for a reason.

The best candidates tell a story, paint pictures, turn personal biography into something that connects them to the wider electorate. Experience can matter, but it is not enough just to argue personal readiness to serve as president.

Successful candidates match a moment in the history of the country.

For Carter, running two years after the resignation of Richard Nixon, it was the promise of something fresh, untainted by Washington, a message of integrity, rectitude, even righteousness, after the poison of the Watergate scandal.

The most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll looked at two sides of the question of what Democrats and Democratic-leaning American are looking for in a nominee to challenge Trump in 2020. Do they want someone who agrees with them on issues, or do they want someone who beat Trump? What is their priority?

Defeating Trump looms large in the minds of Democratic voters, but past elections show that electability is not by any means the quality that elevates a candidate. Voters want something more — and they know it when they see it.