DR would not anyone to think, based on yesterday's post, that he considers Kerry to be some paragon of electability: the Democrats' dream candidate. He's got a list of Senate votes and public statements as long as your arm (longer!) that the Republicans will use to typecast him as a stale, out-of-step Massachusetts liberal. And his campaigning style is, shall we say, not exactly electrifying.

But DR does believe he's an improvement over Howard Dean in the electability department. And, despite the problems mentioned above, he could also have an electability advantage over Edwards or Clark (though this is less clear).

To radically simplify, a presidential candidate needs to impress voters in three ways: as commander-in-chief and defender of national security; as steward of the economy and custodian of the domestic agenda; and through his campaigning and ability to connect with voters. In each of these areas, Kerry, in DR's view, achieves threshhold credibility--that is, he's good enough to make most voters give him a closer look without saying: "no way can I vote for that guy".

Instead voters (at least our typical primary voter) might say: Kerry as commander-in-chief? He seems plausible. Kerry on domestic issues? Well, pretty good, he seems to know what he's talking about. Kerry as campaiger? Not exciting, sure, but at least he's disciplined and doesn't say a lot of goofy stuff.

There you have it. Threshhold credibility! Contrast that with Dean, who seems implausible to many as commander-in-chief and, as a campaigner, has shown an inability to keep a lid on it when he really needs to. Or compare with Clark, who seems very plausible indeed as commander-in-chief, but seems painfully thin in the domestic area and has shown himself not-quite-ready-for-prime-time on the campaign trail. Or with Edwards, who is a great campaigner, with a pretty good to excellent domestic agenda, but who falls short in the commander-in-chief department.

Looked at this way, it seems logical that Kerry, with his threshhold credibility in all three areas, would be the guy Democratic primary voters would turn to as they move from protest to who-can-beat-Bush politics.

It seems possible--even likely--that Kerry will be able to parlay this threshhold credibility advantage into enough support to get the Democratic nomination. But will that be enough for him to win the general election? Almost certainly not. Credibility in these departments merely means voters will give him a close look. He'll still have to close the sale and there are reasons to worry that Kerry has not yet found the themes and signature programs that will enable him to do so. Certainly his revival of warmed-over Gore-style populism does not augur well. That populism, despite its many virtues, is unlikely to be adequate to the task of defeating George Bush in a post-9/11 environment. Much, much more will be needed.

But that's a subject for another post.