The True Test of Electability

This a reworked email from January 22, 2007. I am reposting it here because of questions I have received. It is probably worthwhile to review because not a lot has changed except the amount of money raised among the candidates:

It is interesting to think about the concept of electability. "On The Media" did an very good piece on Dennis Kucinich back in January, You can listen to it here: http://www.onthemedia.org/ (January 19, 2007)

It is increasingly apparent that the main stream news media try to effect who is "electable" by deciding which candidates get covered and how they are covered. I can't claim to understand the motives of the main stream news media, but I do know that competent government, and peace, don't sell as much advertising as incompetence and war.

Of the candidates on the Democratic side. Bill Richardson is both the most experienced and the most electable. While not the front runner today, it is often interesting to watch Iowa and New Hampshire knock people out of the front runner status.

I base my own electability statement on statistics. I know people don't want to believe statistics. Especially those in the news media, except when they suit the spin they want on the story. However, in the last 80 years, or during the lives of 99.997% of Americans alive today, we have elected exactly 1 person President, who was a Senator. Further in the last 60 years, only a single person claiming to be from a northern or eastern state has been elected President. ( In both cases that person was John F. Kennedy) Now, you may not want to believe the statistics, you may want to believe that this time it is different. Perpetuating that belief and covering the horse race, sells adverts. Here is the thing. Being the governor of a southwestern state gives Richardson something like a 5 to 1 advantage over the other candidates going in. Remember Bill Clinton? Governor of a small southern state? Didn't have a chance in 1992, before New Hampshire, did he? But he "stole" the Presidency from Bush 41.

So, perhaps we are seeing among the Democrats the race for vice President. This is the office Obama, and Hillary and Edwards really want, because serving as vice President makes one much more electable. Serving 8 years under a President Richardson, makes one a shoe in for the Presidency in 2016.

This is not the way the MSM will cover it, but the MSM have the credibility of used car salesmen. Also nothing in life is certain. There are only degrees of probability. But I tend to be 3 steps ahead of the rest of the world. I am not using a crystal ball either. Just history and numbers. Those have a way of being right 99.73%* of the time.

What Democrats need to do is to be more like Republicans in this respect: Stop being lead around by the news media. Democrats are not how the MSM portrays them. They just believe they are. If the Democrats would get behind a real candidate early, it would be amazing what we could accomplish. However, the divide and conquer strategy used by the conservatives and the MSM since 1975 has worked well, keeping liberal ideals from being institiutued.

*The 99.73% number is a statistical limit called the 3 sigma limit which defines a normal distribution. Within the 3 sigma limits events are distributed on a Gaussian (bell) curve around the mean. Events falling outside the 3 sigma limits are considered special cause events. They are very rare and extraordinary. From the standpoint of statistical theory, to elect a non male, or non European, Senator, (as opposed to Governor or Vice President) President would be truly extraordinary. Statistically our first woman or non european President will most likely be the Governor of a southern or western state, or as mentioned above someone who has served as vice President.