Ed Kilgore to Dems: Please don't nominate someone older than Trump

[Mr. Morden]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/democrats-shouldnt-run-anyone-in-20-whos-older-than-trump.html

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[Mr. Morden]

Either way, if their age is truly an issue then people will simply decline to vote for them. Over dramatic op-eds will not be a deterrent if the people truly want them.

He's suggesting that it might end up sinking them in the general election even if it doesn't sink them in the primary.  (I'm not saying he's right.  But that's the case he's making.)

"If their age is truly an issue then people will simply decline to vote for them."  Well yes, but if you, as a primary voter, think that something might end up being enough of an issue in the general election that other voters will simply "decline to vote for" the candidate in question, then that could be a legit reason not to support them in the primary, no?

[Mr. Morden]

No one has the progressive qualifications and name recognition of Bernie.

Name recognition doesn't matter in the general election, since the very process of winning the nomination gives you ~100% name recognition among voters.  I mean, heck, Sanders himself was not well known among regular voters outside Vermont four years ago, but his run for president itself gave him high name recognition, and if he'd been the nominee, he would have gone into the general election with ~100% name recognition.  Same for anyone who wins the presidential nomination of one of the two major parties.  No one goes into the voting booth in November not knowing who the Democratic nominee for president is.

[Mr. Morden]

No one has the progressive qualifications and name recognition of Bernie.

Name recognition doesn't matter in the general election, since the very process of winning the nomination gives you ~100% name recognition among voters.  I mean, heck, Sanders himself was not well known among regular voters outside Vermont four years ago, but his run for president itself gave him high name recognition, and if he'd been the nominee, he would have gone into the general election with ~100% name recognition.  Same for anyone who wins the presidential nomination of one of the two major parties.  No one goes into the voting booth in November not knowing who the Democratic nominee for president is.

I'm talking about the primary. If you're a progressive with low name recognition and the DNC doesn't want to help you, and the media is ignoring you, you have a problem.

If you win one of the early primary states (or possibly even if you just start polling well in one of them), then you get high name recognition.  We don't yet know who's going to catch on and end up with high name ID by the time we get to primary voting because the campaign hasn't started yet.

[Mr. Morden]

The youngest potential candidates; Zuckerberg, Booker, Castro, are all god-awful.

Garcetti and Murphy are younger than Booker, as are the House crew (Gabbard, Moulton, Ryan).  In any case, I think the point here wasn't that you should go as young as possible, just that you should think carefully about picking someone who's way at the other end of the age spectrum.

[Mr. Morden]

No one has the progressive qualifications and name recognition of Bernie.

Name recognition doesn't matter in the general election, since the very process of winning the nomination gives you ~100% name recognition among voters.  I mean, heck, Sanders himself was not well known among regular voters outside Vermont four years ago, but his run for president itself gave him high name recognition, and if he'd been the nominee, he would have gone into the general election with ~100% name recognition.  Same for anyone who wins the presidential nomination of one of the two major parties.  No one goes into the voting booth in November not knowing who the Democratic nominee for president is.

I'm talking about the primary. If you're a progressive with low name recognition and the DNC doesn't want to help you, and the media is ignoring you, you have a problem.

If you win one of the early primary states (or possibly even if you just start polling well in one of them), then you get high name recognition.  We don't yet know who's going to catch on and end up with high name ID by the time we get to primary voting because the campaign hasn't started yet.

The problem is that it quickly turns into a national campaign, where you probably didn't have the resources for infrastructure until after your good showing in Iowa. Remember, Super Tuesday includes California now. This is a problem for a real insurgent candidate, not someone who starts off at 25% nationwide like Obama did.

I don't think that's how it works.  Polling leads in the rest of the country before Iowa don't matter.  Look at Giuliani in '08 or Dean in '04.  They were leading nationally, and their position crumbled as other candidates caught up to them.  It doesn't really matter how much infrastructure you have in the Super Tuesday states, because the battlefield is so large that you can't spend your way to victory.  Whoever is winning in "free media" going into Super Tuesday will probably win the day, and that'll probably be whoever it is who does best in the 4 pre-Super Tuesday states.

California moving up makes IA and NH *more* important IMHO, because it makes it that much more impossible for any candidate to be able to spend themselves to victory on Super Tuesday with $.  There are too many markets to compete in at once.