It must have come as something of a shock to the political professionals to pick up the New York Times in mid-November and find a front-page story about a couple of polls of Iowa and New Hampshire voters. Headlined “Polls Find Voters Weighing Issues vs. Electability,” the article reaffirmed the conventional wisdom that electability will heavily influence primary and caucus voters. But the shock came when these voters considered who is the most electable: 47 percent of Iowa Democrats and 68 percent of New Hampshire Democrats named Clinton, and a plurality of Republicans in both states gave the nod to Giuliani. In less than a year, the two candidates had managed to turn what was thought to be their Achilles’ heel into one of their greatest strengths.Which just goes to show how squishy and even bankrupt “electability” is as a political concept. Unlike political judgments that are based on concrete assessments of, say, a candidate’s record or even something as grubby as his fund-raising prowess, those that are based on a candidate’s supposed electability can change on a moment’s notice. And then change again. Electability is completely ephemeral. Even those hoary and maddeningly indefinable political qualities like “character” and “authenticity” have more meat on their bones.
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