We’re still in the early stages of the 2020 presidential campaign, but a common media frame has emerged already: will Democrats prioritize pragmatic electability when selecting a challenger to President Trump, or will the party instead prize ideological purity? Again and again, news coverage of the Democratic nomination contest has boiled a well-populated, multi-faceted candidate race down to this either-or choice, with Joe Biden usually personifying the “electability” option while Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren represent the “purity” alternative. …
One problem with this increasingly ubiquitous concept of the race is that Democrats might not register an obvious collective preference after all. As a general rule, most political analyses in the “now we have come to a fork in the road” style don’t turn out well in retrospect; politicians and voters alike are demonstrably adept at avoiding clear choices and generally muddling through. CONT.
David A. Hopkins, Boston College