I agree in principle, but most eligible voters are not what we’d call “high information” ones (assuming they vote at all). American presidential elections are popularity contests where the candidate’s charisma and appeal to base emotion play a significant part.
The GOP is adept at finding and cultivating candidates who have those talents, where the Dems just sort of hope that their rock star candidate will just turn up. Sometimes the Dems succeed (Obama and Bill Clinton) but most of the time they get unexciting and hard-to-like stiffs (Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and Hillary Clinton).
What worries me is that it’s summer of 2018 and the Dems still haven’t trotted out their show pony candidates for 2020. My unease is such that I still think there’s a small chance they might try to run Hillary again.
