Someone’s Protesting Too Much…

Senator Clinton endorsed Barack Obama today, and at least some of the crowd reportedly booed him. There’s nothing wrong with that of course – people can and should have strong feelings about their choice of candidate. Politics used to be something of a contact sport.

But the apparently significant number of voters who are refusing to vote for Obama or promising in some cases to vote for McCain should finally put the “electability” argument to rest. For months Hillary’s supporters have been pounding on her electability as the signal reason that superdelegates should throw the election her way. There was some empirical support for their claims as well, based on national polls about hypothetical matchups. Of course the argument only works if winning the election is the only important consideration.

the only important outcome is getting a Democrat in the White House
Hillary is the Democrat most likely to win
therefore, Democrats must nominate Hillary

This argument was supposed to trump all the others, and yet it didn’t. It turns out that primary voters (and caucus goers) decided that who won the White House was also an important factor beyond their merely being a Democrat. As we’ve seen, they preferred Obama to Hillary by a slight margin. However flawed the process might be, however sexist the media, however bitter the contest, what should we do now? Let’s try the syllogism again.

the only important outcome is getting a Democrat in the White House
Obama is the Democratic nominee
therefore, Democrats must vote for Obama

Now, I’m not making this argument – I think voters should feel free to vote against party affiliation (and I hope a lot of Republicans do) – but Hillary’s supporters explicitly were making it when they crowed about her electability. What we’ve found out, now that some of them are unwilling to stomach the new conclusion of their own argument, is that they never really believed the premise in the first place. The most important outcome was never getting a Democrat into the White House, but getting Hillary into the White House.

Q.E.D.

- jack*

Comments

[Zenji]

very nicely demonstrated.