• Unpacking electability. If I could pick one word to eliminate from the English language for the next year and a half, it would be “electability.” It’s not the actual definition that bothers me—everyone wants to support a candidate who has a real shot at getting the votes. It’s the implications the word has taken on, particularly in the context of female candidates. Too often, it’s deployed as shorthand: “Don’t spend your time or energy considering this woman—we all know only a man can win.” Invoking the word has become the way to dismiss a female candidate without ever digging all the way down to the real question: not can a woman win, but can this woman win?
No wonder the women running for the Democratic nomination dance around the term in this New York Times piece—including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand who cuts herself off halfway through voicing it. Instead, the story looks at the specific evidence that three of those candidates, Gillibrand, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, have put forward that they can—and have—won over conservative and working class voters and triumphed over formidable rivals.
The story also notes the way female candidates find themselves tasked with answering for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss in a way their male counterparts do not. Yet the same people who read that race as a sign that a woman cannot win the presidency don’t seem to see the Pink Wave that swept through the midterms as having any larger electoral significance.
I recommend taking a moment to read the full story—though I can’t stop myself from spoiling the final paragraph:
“Ms. Warren, Ms. Gillibrand, Ms. Harris and Ms. Klobuchar can all claim an interesting distinction: They have never lost an election in their political careers. All of the most prominent male Democratic candidates, including Mr. Biden, Mr. Buttigieg, Mr. O’Rourke, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, have lost at least one.”
