Abstract

The 'Electability' Contest

The sense that U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry has the capacity to dispatch the nation's forty-third President, as opposed to any newfound love of the man or his patrician-populist message, has lifted the Massachusetts senator from also-ran to prospective nominee in the course of two months. On February 3, Kerry parlayed wins in Missouri, Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota and Delaware, and solid finishes behind Wesley Clark in Oklahoma and John Edwards in South Carolina, into official front-runner status. Kerry didn't just win delegates, he won "electability" bragging rights. Alone among the contenders, Kerry can claim to be more than a niche candidate, having competed seriously--and for the most part, successfully--in every primary and caucus held so far. He was the clear favorite of Latino voters in Arizona, African American voters in Missouri, rural voters in North Dakota and union voters just about everywhere. What has suddenly made Kerry so appealing? Not his personality or his consistency on the issues. Kerry's strength was as a political warrior: 78 percent of his Missouri voters ranked his top quality as "can beat Bush"; the figure was 71 percent in Delaware and 65 percent in Arizona. But Kerry still has vulnerabilities that Bush will exploit--unless his Democratic challengers do so first. Kerry will be a better candidate in the fall if he is forced to sort out his stands on free trade, the war on Iraq and the Patriot Act before Bush asks, "Why are you criticizing me now when as a senator you backed so many of my initiatives?"