John?s fleeting analysis is intriguing. However it begs for us to examine an implicit assumption. Will the party ? the rank and file voters in key electoral states as well as the campaign and fundraising professionals ? rally round and support the nominee?
It is here that Governor Dean?s comments, well reported last week, about the strategic behavior 1.5 million Deaniacs is relevant. If you are a Democrat who chooses to fight the opposition on one or another field and a nominee emerges who simply cannot engage on your preferred issues, do you stay home? Can the Dean/anti-war/MoveOn energy be transferred to a candidate like Gephardt, Kerry or Edwards. Probably not. A values candidate, more likely it could.
Put another way, would the libertarian-leaning and smaller government segments of the Republican electorate turned out in force had Gary Bauer or Elizabeth Dole emerged from Iowa in 2000 as the party?s standard bearer? I don?t think so. Presidential politics is necessarily coalition politics and in 2000 there were several candidates ? Bauer, Dole, Keyes ? who had trouble reaching beyond their core supporters while others ? Bush, McCain, Alexander ? were much more effective. (A third category defied definition and included Steve Forbes, Orrin Hatch and Dan Quayle.)
