Larry Hosken: New: Democratic Primary, a.k.a. Shooting Themselves in the Foot

You may recall a couple of years back I blogged about "electability," specifically, if a USA political party wants to pick an electable candidate, they should listen to voters in states that are median party lean. E.g., don't ask California voters: they're in a liberal echo chamber and will tell you some damned hippie is most electable; but then the rest of the nation will reject that hippie. And don't ask the Wyoming voters: they're in a reactionary echo chamber and will tell you some billionaire trust fund baby is most electable; but then the rest of the nation will reject that baby. Instead, ask the voters from the battleground states. If some candidate appeals to the middle-of-the-road Pennsylvanians, they've got a decent chance with the rest of the country.

So I got excited when I saw the Democrats had voted to move their first Presidential Primary election away from (too right-wing) Iowa. Then I saw they'd voted to move that first primary to South Carolina… even further away from the median, towards the nutjob end of the right wing. The news says the Democrats wanted a state with a large African-American population% to make sure those voices were heard… and Georgia was right there; higher A.A. population %, battleground state, just an all-around great choice.

Oh well. I'm not sure I'd know how to react to an American political party that was nominating appealing candidates nowadays.

In case you're curious, here's a table of states with 538-estimated partisan lean and electoral college votes.