The Median Voter Model and Was Hillary Clinton The Wrong Candidate?

This will be a very brief post (for a change).

As our politics has seemingly become more polarized, the insight that Anthony Downs gave us in An Economic Theory of Democracy, which cast into the strategic positioning of candidates when voting is by majority rule, what Harold Hotelling had previously modeled for spatial competition, seemed to make sense in a bygone era but was obsolete now.  Suppose that is not true and the Median Voter Model is still applicable.

The conjecture here is that median voters are suburban women in Republican households.  A surprise to me, and I think to many others who have looked at the results from the 2016 election, is that as grotesque as Donald Trump's behavior was to women, in a way that should have been evident to all, Republican suburban women largely voted for Trump anyway.  Hillary Clinton had been so demonized by the Republican attack machine that they wouldn't vote for her, even as bad as Trump was.  It is in that sense that I mean Hillary Clinton was the wrong candidate.  It's not about her politics and positions.  It's that she couldn't win these critical voters. (Incidentally, if you notice now that Nancy Pelosi is supposedly the most hated politician in the country, this is pretty much for the same reason.)

The situation with Kavanaugh, I believe and I'm sure many others believe as well, will be determined by how suburban Republican women see his nomination at this point.  My guess are that such voters are repulsed by Kavanaugh, even if many won't articulate that because they don't want to be overtly critical of the Republican party.  If that's right, at a minimum the confirmation vote for Kavanaugh will be delayed till after the election in November, and quite possibly it will be withdrawn.

Of course, this all could be wishful thinking.  But it is clear that the Republican attach machine can't go after Christine Blasey Ford now, and Chuck Grassley's decision not to grant her request to delay the testimony before his committee till after an investigation has taken place will almost surely blow up.

Of the Senate Republicans - they are hoist on their own petard.