Interesting little piece by Kevin Carey, in the Washington Monthly, explaining “Why Presidential Races Are so Limited“:
… Given the nine percent unemployment rate and the fact that the Democratic incumbent is a liberal black man, many political observers are wondering if the vaunted Republican political machine has slipped a gear. I don’t think that’s likely. Instead, they’ve run up against the laws of probability at the best possible time for Barack Obama.
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That’s because sometime during the last half century, the guardians of conventional wisdom decided that only three kinds of people are qualified to run for President of the United States: those who are (or recently were) senators, governors, and Vice Presidents. So instead of finding the best candidate among 300 million people every four years, we’re only allowed to choose among about 200.
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And actually, a lot less than that…
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All of which means that in any given election year, each major party only has about 20 people from which to choose. At that point, the population is so small that the laws of probability come into play. Some cold feet here, a sex scandal there, a couple of unknown skeletons in the closet, a few ill-considered remarks about Civil War, and eventually a year will come when there is simply nobody left. 2012 is looking like that year for Republicans. They have mountains of corporate cash, an army of well-trained political consultants, and a structurally winnable race. But the candidate pool dice roll has come up snake eyes. Thus, the increasing possibility of a Pawlenty vs. Mitch Daniels race that broadcast networks will be unable to televise due to the risk of viewers having their souls erased by the creation of an anti-charismatic vortex of absolute personality zero…
Click over for a reminder of how skillfully then-candidate Barack Obama managed the dull tools of the pundits’ CW to his advantage, and ours. (Yes, I did look for Mencken’s snide comment about Coolidge’s candidacy, but my google-fu wasn’t up to the task.)
Open Thread: The Conventional Wisdom BottleneckPost + Comments (72)