I am curious about the notion of electability and its relationship to American identity. How does a voter define someone as electable?
If you recall from my rantings in the 2004 election, morality was a major concern of the voters. Most people who voted for George W. Bush cited moral values as the most important issue of the campaign. I strongly argued that people evaluated both candidates in relation to an image of how closely they thought an American (male) was supposed to act. Bush more accurately resembled the stereotype of an American male - gritty, working class, tough guy who is a straight shooter (there's enough irony in these characteristics that Alanis could write another half dozen songs) - while Kerry's effeminate attitude was likened to his European (and possibly even *gasp* French!) aristocratic background.
Moral values may arise again later, but for now people are evaluating Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton in terms of their electability, and I am wondering on what this value is based? How do people come to a decision that one candidate has a better chance of being elected than another? On one side, the concept is a bit absurd to me. I liken it to my misunderstanding of the stock market (I will be the first to acknowledge that my understanding of the market is extremely limited); people fear a stock's value will decrease, so they sell their stock. This, in turn, causes the stock's value to decrease. I vote for a candidate who I consider to be electable, but my act of voting for the particular candidate is what defines her as electable. It is almost as if we treat the act of considering electability and the act of voting for a candidate to be separate. Or, perhaps, that someone can possess the ability to be elected, which remains separate from actually being elected.
I suppose that we are really talking about predictions. People attempt to predict what their fellow voters are thinking (which often is not hard, as the media...
If you recall from my rantings in the 2004 election, morality was a major concern of the voters. Most people who voted for George W. Bush cited moral values as the most important issue of the campaign. I strongly argued that people evaluated both candidates in relation to an image of how closely they thought an American (male) was supposed to act. Bush more accurately resembled the stereotype of an American male - gritty, working class, tough guy who is a straight shooter (there's enough irony in these characteristics that Alanis could write another half dozen songs) - while Kerry's effeminate attitude was likened to his European (and possibly even *gasp* French!) aristocratic background.
Moral values may arise again later, but for now people are evaluating Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton in terms of their electability, and I am wondering on what this value is based? How do people come to a decision that one candidate has a better chance of being elected than another? On one side, the concept is a bit absurd to me. I liken it to my misunderstanding of the stock market (I will be the first to acknowledge that my understanding of the market is extremely limited); people fear a stock's value will decrease, so they sell their stock. This, in turn, causes the stock's value to decrease. I vote for a candidate who I consider to be electable, but my act of voting for the particular candidate is what defines her as electable. It is almost as if we treat the act of considering electability and the act of voting for a candidate to be separate. Or, perhaps, that someone can possess the ability to be elected, which remains separate from actually being elected.
I suppose that we are really talking about predictions. People attempt to predict what their fellow voters are thinking (which often is not hard, as the media...




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