A dis­as­trous Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tion in the White House. A var­ied field of Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates, rang­ing from a Ver­mont pro­gres­sive who opposed the Iraq War to a more mod­er­ate fron­trun­ner who vot­ed to autho­rize it. A mobi­lized pro­gres­sive base torn between the desire for ambi­tious poli­cies and the need to win the gen­er­al election.

In the primary, voters are partly deciding not on the basis of which candidate they like but on whom they believe a majority of Americans will like next November.

We speak, of course, of 2004, and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic cam­paign to unseat Pres­i­dent George W. Bush. Writ­ing in the mag­a­zine after Sen. John Ker­ry (Mass.) won the Iowa cau­cus and New Hamp­shire pri­ma­ry, In These Times’ David Moberg argued that ​“intense assaults” on the elec­tabil­i­ty of for­mer Ver­mont Gov. Howard Dean, then run­ning as a pro­gres­sive, helped pave the way for Kerry’s success:

[Vot­ers’] desire to be with a win­ner cer­tain­ly helps Ker­ry, espe­cial­ly since at least one Newsweek poll just before the New Hamp­shire pri­ma­ry showed him beat­ing Bush by a small mar­gin. Pri­ma­ry vot­ers this year have often sound­ed more like pro­fes­sion­al cam­paign strate­gists than cit­i­zens pick­ing lead­ers who cham­pi­on their issues. In that way the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry resem­bles econ­o­mist John May­nard Keynes’ descrip­tion of stock mar­kets. Rather than pick­ing a com­pa­ny based on its intrin­sic mer­its, Keynes argued, the suc­cess­ful stock-pick­er guess­es which stock is most like­ly to be picked by oth­er peo­ple. In the pri­ma­ry, vot­ers are part­ly decid­ing not on the basis of which can­di­date they like but on whom they believe a major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans will like next November.

Moberg him­self was dis­in­clined to take this sort of risk, warn­ing that ​“sup­port­ing a can­di­date because he is ​‘elec­table’ is a cool­ly cal­cu­lat­ed and ephemer­al polit­i­cal com­mit­ment. Any pas­sion for Ker­ry, for exam­ple, seems to come less for the man him­self than that he rep­re­sents a vehi­cle to defeat Bush.” This lack of pas­sion, Moberg argued, could hin­der Kerry’s chances: