What is more important? Electablity or views?

What do people think is more important in the Democratic candidate for president? That they agree with as many of your opinions as possible, or that they have the best chance of being elected?

I am not referring to any specific candidate, rather I am talking general opinion/philosophy.

even if the person is ultimately elected, you've already abdicated representation, so whats the difference?

How do we call ourselves a "democracy" when, in practice, only two parties actually have any power?

With the concepts of checks-and-balances and separation of powers, the Founding Fathers were quite forward thinking. On the other hand, our structure of election and governance, in contrast to most other modern western democracies, is exceptionally flawed, non-pluralistic and at its base, anti-democratic.

In a perfect world a candidate that agrees with many of my opinions would be fantastic, but we don't live in a perfect world, so I would like the person to have a high regard for personal integrity.

I see it more as a question of who you like the best verses who you think has the best chance of winning. On rare occassions you get both, but more often than not they were two different people.

will have more views in common with me than any Republican.

Right now I just want someone who will appoint justices to the SCOTUS that will not be like Scalia or Alito.

During the primaries people vote their 'ideal' candidate or as close to that as possible. I don't have an ideal. None of my idea candidates have ever been the candidate. As far as electablity goes, people seem to have some pretty divergent opinions on who is electable. People thought Kerry was electable. I didn't. I wanted to be wrong, though.

There doesn't seem to be any consensus on who is electable. I think if we knew for sure it would be a slam dunk.

Mz Pip
:dem:

We need both, but what we seem to have is the candidates with the best balance of both stuck in the middle of the pack.

It appears that name recognition - not ideas or electability - is the most important part of primary politics. Which is silly, because anybody who wins a primary will have instant name recognition in the General. If voters took the time to examine ideas and general-election strategy like we do here every day, then I think the strongest candidate would emerge the nominee.

I can sacrifice some views in favor of someone that can win. But not to the extreme. For example, Obama is electable and in line with most all of my views. Hillary isn't in line with some of my views, but is electable. Therefore I support Hillary.

You have to get into office before you can impact policy and if you lose then the country will continue to get fucked in the ass big time. We shouldn't take any chances! I vote elect-ability.

I am so sick of hearing how people in Peoria or anywhere else for that matter will vote. I do not believe the opinion of someone I do not know, or worse yet a talking head that I don't like... should affect my thoughtful selection of a candidate.

George W. bush was elected. Did I vote for him? No. Would I ever vote for him? No. If Joe Lieberman were considered electable, would I vote for him? No. That term is somewhat subjective.

her/him can whistle in the wind.

Look at how * has abused the presidency with votes of people who did not compromise on issues like abortion, stem cell research, same sex marriage, prayer in schools, etc.

Some/many/most voters who did not compromise on such issues now regret voting for * but * and his handlers are laughing all the way to the proverbial bank while looting America.

saints weren't electable, it wouldn't do anyone much good in an election, nu?

Given that there aren't any sorry-ass ignorant, criminal pigs running this time (except maybe that Rudy fellah) I'd go with electability. I don't agree fully with any of the Democrats, but I want ONE of them in there, and I don't really care who it is as long as they can win it.

Not that anyone actually knows who's actually electable until the election, of course.

We have a corrupt system of government with a veneer of representative democracy. A controlled mass media deals with elections as sports contests. There is no real discussion of issues, instead there are phony debates run by agents of the washington consensus to promote only safe well framed corporate kleptocracy safe pseudo-issues while ridiculing those who have managed to get on the Show without drinking the koolaide.

There is an endless stream of sound bytes posing as information, iconified in the utterly depraved phoniness of this format by the 'Dean Scream' incident. We don't have issues, we have Swift Boats. It is all bullshit.

If, by some quirk, the voting population attempts to make the wrong choice (but rarely is there a real choice) we have the most dubious election plumbing of all modern industrial 'democracies', a system wide-open to fraud and abuse, now on a national scale thanks to corrupt legislation putting kleptocracy friendly DRE voting machines into polling stations across the troubled Republic. We actually had a complete malfunction of the normal system in 2000 and watched a bloodless coup as the Supreme Court simply chose their guy to be president after the attempted theft of Florida fell apart.

What is more important? Electability is ordained and views are manufactured. I give up. You tell me.

Leadership and experience.

Because although nearly any democrat will do, (I don't expect them to be projections of my own belief system, just not evil) if they fail to hold onto their office because they are too inexperienced or don't have the personality to deal with the enormous pressure and opposition they will face, I won't support them.

After all it's a question of voting for someone you think can win verses someone you like the best.

I may find a candidate who is not exactly representative of my views more appealing because they make up for it with political experience or great leadership/personality qualities. "Electablity" to me simply means they are appealing to enough people to get the votes to win.

Kerry and Gore. (He wouldn't have been able to steal the elections if they hadn't been so close!)

We need a candidate who stands for something, who can communicate what he stands for and who can convince people to stand with him.

It is not their specific views per se, but their thinking process and how they reach their decisions that is MOST important to me.

I could vote for someone who agrees with 60% of my views over someone who CLAIMS to support 100% of my views, if I feel comfortable that the person who agrees with 60% of my views is principled.

In reality if someone has proven themselves unprincipled, I no longer bother listening to what they have to say, because it is all BS anyway.

What will it profit, if you gain the world, and lose your soul?

at this juncture, losing the 2008 election is not an option. Losing to someone like Rudy Guliani brings potentially catastrophic results. It's critically important that our party nominate someone who can win the general election. I like Hillary Clinton, and I think she'd make a fine president. That said, I believe with every fiber of my being that she'd lose the general election (barring the GOP nominating Alan Keyes). People here can flame away, tell me I don't know a thing, cite polls and whatever else. I don't care. She'll unify their base and have every religious conservative in the world beating down a path to their place of voting on election day. The polling will break against her late.