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Max: The "nevermind" was directed toward what I overwrote, not toward anything anyone else wrote.
Ok, sorry -- I hadn’t read your reason for editing at the bottom : )
I am (for good reason) quick to claim naivete (maybe a slight exaggeration) in things politic. I would stay sidelined and just listen but I learn more by making mistakes.
Perhaps we are playing semantics with the meaning of "electability". Ultimately we vote for someone less because we think they can win and more because we identify with their positions.
Max: Electability is only known in retrospect. Nobody knew Jeb Bush was unelectable until he failed to get elected.
(This is what I mean when I say we might be playing semantics.)
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with Jeb Bush and electability. In real time he proved himself to be unelectable. He ran a terrible campaign, was a poor debater, did a poor job of articulating his positions and didn’t have the fire to do what’s needed to get elected. Hence, it was increasingly apparent during the primaries that he was not electable -- even if one was able to see through the fiasco of his campaign and get to the heart of his positions and agree with them. Here’s what Politico had to say:
His slow, awkward stumble from August through October encapsulates everything that caused the operation viewed as "Jeb!, Inc." to fail. Bush was on the wrong side of the most galvanizing issues for Republican primary voters, he himself was a rusty and maladroit campaigner and his campaign was riven by internal disagreements and a crippling fear that left them paralyzed and unable to react to Trump.
I didn't say that the issue of electability itself is something that at this early point needs assessing. On the contrary. What needs to be assessed over an extended (too long) period of time in watching debates, reading policies, gathering information, primaries, etc. is whether we think a given candidate is right for the position. Only then can we factor in electability. Even if one considers a candidate a long shot that does not preclude the candidate being considered electable.
I think we are largely on the same page with things. The thrust of my previous comments was to say that any conversation here on E will go nowhere if the language of the conversation is polarizing.
Incidentally, there is a conversation taking place on this board (Auden and Cerf on Pound) about the manner in which Cerf and Auden exchanged opinions about publication of Pound’s work after he exposed himself as a traitor to his country. In today’s social media environment it is rare that such a measured, thoughtful exchange of ideas (there is a link to their letter exchange in the thread) could ever take place. Of course, I’m sure it does, but it is largely drowned out by the quick-to-condemn commentary of social media and the associated intolerance for differences of opinion.
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