There are plenty of instances in history of a party’s base pursuing their agenda to a degree that proves fatal to the party’s political ambitions. The classic is the Goldwater Republicans who “would rather be right than win”. Whether that is so in this case is less clear to me; the article talks a lot about Republican fratricide but not much about how well this stuff polls with the voters.
But let’s not forget that the Democrats have gone into the weeds like this several times during my lifetime. McGovern, Mondale, and to a lesser degree Dukakis all came off well with the base but predictably poorly with the voters. Youngkin’s victory suggests that a similar vulnerability may be brewing now.
I read somewhere that this sort of failure is largely a feature of the current system of primary elections and that historically, when candidates were chosen by party bosses, electability trumped ideology all the time.
There are plenty of instances in history of a party’s base pursuing their agenda to a degree that proves fatal to the party’s political ambitions. The classic is the Goldwater Republicans who “would rather be right than win”. Whether that is so in this case is less clear to me; the article talks a lot about Republican fratricide but not much about how well this stuff polls with the voters.
But let’s not forget that the Democrats have gone into the weeds like this several times during my lifetime. McGovern, Mondale, and to a lesser degree Dukakis all came off well with the base but predictably poorly with the voters. Youngkin’s victory suggests that a similar vulnerability may be brewing now.
I read somewhere that this sort of failure is largely a feature of the current system of primary elections and that historically, when candidates were chosen by party bosses, electability trumped ideology all the time.