what does electable mean?

[mopinko]

seriously.
disclaimer. i love howard dean. i do not like kerry. but...

electability was cited by many people in the exit polls. and god knows has been discussed ad naseuem here. but mostly, to me, it seems like a pretty squishy concept. and it seems to me like it is rethugs picking our candidate for us.
so- does it mean- no skeletons in your closet? nothing in your record/personality for rove to work with? (impossible, if you ask me) you look pretty? you are not too extreme? you look good in the polls?
it just seems to me to be the product of the echo chamber. the thing i think that makes dean electable is the breadth of his organizing efforts. he has been everywhere, pretty equally for quite a while.
primary wise- how does kerry's organization stack up? i'm sure they are well on the ground in the early primary states. but if the battle goes beyond super tuesday, does the balance tip for the doctor?
if he keeps the fight going past super tuesday, does that make him look like a winner?
please stick to the question- electability, what does it mean. this is not about the candidates, in particular. you can use them as examples, but please not- why kerry can win, etc.

[bahrbearian]

1. They are all electable

except Lieberman, Sharpton could Kick Chimpy's ass in a debate.

[OutlawCorporatePolls]

13. It's a way to sway voters before voting..

..why else would Newsweek have published the now infamous Kerry 49 to Bush 46 on FRIDAY last week? To help the undecideds make up their mind, that is why. the corps(es) and their adverstising arm, the media, have a lot at stake. dean said that idealogically, he would break up big media, and that has em all worried.

[OutlawCorporatePolls]

15. and...

... the majority of americans have been conditioned to pick a team, and who wants to vote for the losing team? they need to outlaw all corporate media polls, becuz their owners DO have a candidate they like.

[xultar]

2. Wesley K. Clark n/t

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. It means has a lot of money and will implement PNAC strategies

without making waves.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

4. here it is

e·lect·a·ble ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-lkt-bl)
adj.
Fit or able to be elected, especially to public office: an electable candidate.

e·lecta·bili·ty n.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
_________________________________________

notice that this reference is for the year 2000. perhaps, though, most of the research was done before the swearing in of Bush.

[dolstein]

5. Electable = capable of defeating Bush

It's a fact that the candidate most popular among Democratic primary voters isn't necessarily the candidate who would be strongest in the general election. The primary electorate doesn't look anything like the general electorate. At least some primary voters seem to grasp that and are voting more strategically. Unfortunately, many of these voters are concluding, based on a single poll, that John Kerry is electable. They're wrong. He won't lose by as great a margin as Howard Dean would, but he'll still lose.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

6. It means someone who wins elections.

Someone who loses elections is 'unelectable'.


It's not rocket science.

[mopinko]

7. i am beginning to think that

DU mudslingers are not capable of an intellegent discussion of anything, much less this very important issue.
what a bunch of stupid trash answers.
if this is the basis of people's voting decissions then all the candidates and their supporters need to be able to discuss, understand and campaign on this.

[AP]

8. If it means that voters view you as a person who

compormises his convictions in order to win, then Republicans will have a field day with "electability.'

[Indiana Democrat]

9. Kucinich is not, Kerry is.

I don't know what's so hard to understand about that.

Or maybe look at it this way (Where passions are not part of the equasion)...

Gary Bauer is not, George Idiot Bush is.

[trogdor]

10. lowest...common...denominator

simple as that.

[dansolo]

11. Electability is what the media says it is

The media keeps harping on electability on the mere hypothesis that people will reject the candidate. Then the candidate gets labeled as "unelectable", so the people stay away. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (and is quite intentional).

[mopinko]

18. ding ding ding

we have a winner. so how do we break out?? even here, it is everywhere. i know nobody wants to elect the next dukakis, but that CAN'T be the major focus.

[ScreamingMeemie]

12. Electable=another buzz word the media has implanted in our

heads to go along with "coalition","gaffe", and "WMD"

:hi:

[OutlawCorporatePolls]

16. Electable means..

..you are from inside the beltway. simple as that.

[mopinko]

19. so, we need

an unbuzz word.

[JI7]

14. something Bush isn't

the opposite of bush.

[union_maid]

17. It means "can win some red states"

One big reason why "electable" is different for a governor or senator or congressperson than for President or any other office in the land for that matter.

[mopinko]

20. still

did you watch howard's speech last night? the people in that room would not shut up.

[TopesJunkie]

21. The notion that Kerry is electable is simply bizarre --

He is our Mondale, our Dukakis, our Gore. He is not the candidate who will find a way to win. I am appalled by the foolish way we repeat this type of history.

[zonmoy]

22. I suspect that electability simply means

that the canidate is one that the ruling cabal would chose for us to pick between him and another cabalistic canidate.