On the heels of Markos' front page post this afternoon concerning why Hillary has run away with this nomination fight, I think he largely gets it right. When people see her, like my parents, they like her. In other words, they feel comfortable with her.
Prior to the campaign's "official" start in January of this year, she was leading in all polls due largely to name recognition and familiarity. I think we here all assumed that while Hillary led all the polls early, it was a soft lead due to name recognition. That once the other candidates started campaigning, and indeed, once Hillary started campaigning, the other candidates' strengths and message would win out, or at least, make it a closer contest.
But we were wrong to assume her lead was due to name recognition alone. It was also due to familiarity. And yes, familiarity and name recognition are not the same thing. It is one thing to recognize a name and a face. It is quite another to be familiar with with a candidate's life, history, opinions and character. And rank and file Democrats are familiar with Mrs. Clinton. They know her and her husband. They have fond memories of their White House years. They are familiar with the superb and winning campaign styles of her husband. They know Hillary is tough as nails. They know she fights back against Republican attacks. And they know she and her husband have in fact turned back Republican attacks and survived to go on and win.
That is a gigantic advantage that many of us discounted.
Once Hillary got in the race, she really only had to get past a couple of hurdles in rank and file Democrats' minds. Can they like her? Can they see her as President? Will she be a good campaigner?
And, as Kos has said, what we have seen over the past nine months, as more and more rank and file Democrats have seen her campaign, whether in person or not, the answer to all of those questions is an unqualified "yes" in many minds.
And that is the reason her "name recognition" lead has transformed into a solid and growing lead in all the polls.
To be fair, this race is not over, at least if most of us here at Daily Kos have anything to say about it. Did you notice how I referred to "rank and file Democrats" above? I did that for a reason. We here at Daily Kos are quite obviously not your average rank and file Democrats. Indeed, many of us here are quite proud in proclaiming our independence from the party.
No, if we were representative of the party and its rank and file members at large, Edwards would have an insurmountable lead in the fight for the nomination, that is, if Gore had not gotten in the race due to the overwhelming clamor for him to do so. But Gore did not (and will not) get in this race. Why? Because, even though our voices shouting for him to get in are loud in this echo chamber, there is no national longing among your average Democrat for Gore to run, or even for Gore to be President. Look at the polls released as recently as last week that include Gore with the other candidates. One had Gore with only 13% and in fourth place. The other had Gore with more support but still trailing Clinton. If our support for Al Gore was represented equally among the whole party, Al Gore would have an overwhelming lead in all polls. In fact, the nomination contest would already be over, as no other candidate would dare to challenge him. The same is true for Edwards. Here, he has been leading straw poll after straw poll, enjoying double digit leads the entire time he has been an announced candidate. Yet nationally, he trails even in Iowa now, according to some polls.
Why?
Do rank and file Democrats not care about the differences between the candidates, which are obvious to us? Do they not care about the issues? Are they not principled?
Well, in a word, yes. They want to win.
After eight long years of Bush, they want to win. It is the most important goal in their minds. To win the White House in 2008. And going into this race, they knew a Clinton can win. The only question in their minds was whether a Clinton named Hillary could win. And as she has campaigned, she has answered that question.
We here at Daily Kos want to win too. But to many of us, it is more important to have the perfect candidate that closely represents our opinions and principles than it is to have a candidate that can win.
That is what separates us Kossacks from your average Democrat.
In what may be the greatest understatement ever written here....we are not normal.
That is to say we are exceptional. We are the "inside baseball" talkers of politics. We are the activists plugged into the national and local political scenes nearly twenty four hours a day. We are not the normal party member who still gets their political news from the newspaper. To us, the differences between the candidates are huge, and some of us are so principled in our devotion to our chosen candidate and/or in opposition to another that we may not even vote for our party's nominee if our guy doesn't get the nod. Indeed, proof of our isolation, or separation, from your rank and file Democrat is in the fact that a lot of people here have said that they cannot support Hillary Clinton in the general election should she get the nomination. Meanwhile, in the real world, Hillary Clinton is running away with the nomination, convincing people who may have in the past been weary to support her enthusiastically.
In the real world, to the average rank and file Democrat, the differences between our candidates is a lesser consideration than finding a candidate who can take on the Republicans and beat them.
In the end, it is all about winning.
And that is why our struggle remains a long one. The struggle to move this country and its people, and our Party and its members, back to progressive policy and politics is a generational struggle. And that brings us to another difference between the rank and file Democrat and us.
The rank and file Democrat will be satisfied with victory.
We cannot.
A President Hillary Clinton will have to be persuaded, lobbied and pressured. Our only consolation is that she will be much more receptive.
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