Electability. Electability. Electability.
In case you haven’t read today’s papers yet, Campaign Desk is here to inform you that electability is the prevalent theme in Sunday’s campaign coverage.
It may or may not be high in the minds of voters, but it’s the nearly universal chorus of the media choir.
This was no doubt spurred by a Des Moines Register poll released late Saturday that recorded “The ability to beat Bush” as the most attractive strength for candidates John Kerry, John Edwards, and Howard Dean. There are pieces stressing electability as the top priority to caucus-goers in today’s New York Times, Washington Post, and Des Moines Register. And if three papers aren’t enough for you, then continue on to the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, which both dedicate fewer words to the theme but declare, as Mark Z. Barabak writes in the Los Angeles Times, “Electability, that intangible sense of who stands the best chance of beating Bush in November, appeared uppermost in the minds of many Iowa Democrats.”
–T.L.
Thomas Lang was a writer at CJR Daily.