Americans are enthralled by a specious concept when choosing its leaders: electability.
It's the idea a voter should care what everyone else thinks about each candidates' chance of winning before ultimately deciding who he will vote for. More often than not, the voter will choose to vote in line with the conventional wisdom, whether of his party in the primaries or with public opinion in the general election.
Here's a prime example from an article in USA Today:
Ask Democrat Ann Cunningham what she's shopping for in a presidential candidate and she replies, "I want a winner, first and foremost." She's still mulling which Democrat is most likely to deliver the White House .... Nearly half the Iowa Democrats in a recent New York Times/CBS News poll -- and nearly seven in 10 New Hampshire Democrats - said New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is the party's most electable candidate.
What do we get in return for believing in this superficiality? Crappy candidates ... consistently.
This year is no different as Democrats and Republicans rally around the frontrunners, those "electable" candidates Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton.
Yet a new Economist/YouGov poll finds Americans believe each leading candidate, brimming with electability, is devoid of morality and honesty.
So under the illusion of electability, Americans vote for candidates they believe lie and cheat (if this report is right, Rudy does both at the same time), but in an age of extreme partisanship, it's more about beating the other guy than principled democratic politics.
It's enough to make me long for the integrity of my high school's student council elections. We never did get whatever Melany promised, but she sure was "electable!"
