It has been said that for Republican voters, electability is the biggest criteria upon which they are deciding who to pull the lever for. But you know what? That is a meaningless criteria upon which to evaluate a candidate. A lot of it depends upon what electability one is talking about, and the other depends upon the person deciding whether a particular candidate fits in that category.

For sure, in the context of this election, electability is shorthand for whether it is perceived a certain candidate can beat President Obama in the general election or not. But this is a lot like editors at a publishing house trying to pick the next best seller. They know 90+% of the time, they are going to be wrong. When you're publishing hundreds of books a year, you can take those odds and make it work. When we're talking a presidential candidate, it means most of the people are going to be wrong most of the time. It means, that is a very stupid way to decide on who the nominee of the party is going to be.

Now, sometimes due to certain circumstances, it is obvious that someone won't be electable. If there are things they have done that will be near indefensible, the opposition will tear them apart on those issues. For example, among the current list of candidates in the group, the only one I would come close to putting in the unelectable category is Ron Paul. Why? Two reasons. One, he will get chewed up on the newsletter deals. They are ready-made fodder for Obama's campaign to take full advantage of. Whether Ron ever wrote them or knew what they said, or how often he says he disavows what was in the newsletters, the opposition will quote statements out of those and paint him as a radical-right racist and most people will believe it. And for an administration who's favorite tactic is to play the race card, that would be like a cakewalk into reelection. Add to that Ron's unpopular foreign policy among republicans, and this would make for easy target practice for the Obama reelection campaign. I don't think Ron Paul is electable. But maybe time will prove me wrong on that. We'll see.

But out of all the remaining candidates, I think they all have about as good a chance of beating Obama as the next one. First, while the general election will not be easy, Obama is greatly damaged goods. If any one of those candidates can compare the mess Obama has made with what the Republican candidate will do to get our economy back on track, they win. I don't care whether it is Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, or Rick Perry, any of them can win against Obama, and I don't think one is stronger than the others by much, if any. Actually, what will make one fail to get elected is a poorly managed campaign. More rides on the skills of the campaign staff than whether one of them has business background or debating skills. Case in point, McCain's loss to Obama in 2008. Here's a decorated war veteran, with loads of government experience, and a long list of accomplishments, and he is defeated by a new senator who's accomplished nothing, and the only experience on his resume is community organizer? Obama won in part because McCain's campaign didn't campaign like it should have.

But if anyone thinks they can pick which one of these candidates will beat Obama in the general election needs to check themselves into a psychiatric ward for a narcissistic condition. Let's just say for the sake of argument that there is only one of them out of the current contenders who will beat Obama. How will you determine which one is the electable candidate? This isn't a math formula because you are suggesting that you know what voters in general will do. And each voter is an individual who has their own criteria and measuring sticks about whether they will vote for one or the other. It is like picking the next best seller. As we in the writing world say, if you can pick a best seller constantly, if you know what people will buy, then stop writing and go into publishing, because you'll make a killing if near 100% of the books on your list are best sellers.

But it doesn't work in the publishing business, and it won't work in the pundit business either. You may decide that you think a particular candidate is more electable, but you are taking a gut stab in the dark is all. You can no more predict who is electable than I can predict what football team will win the 2013 Superbowl next year. Get real.

If voters were picking their candidates based on electability back in 1980, Reagan would never have become president. Certainly if someone has identifiable dead weight that makes them highly unlikely to be electable, that is one thing. But since you can no more predict what voters are going to do this coming November than you can predict who will win next year's Super Bowl, that would make this the most inaccurate and dangerous qualification upon which to base one's pick of the party's nominee.You might as well have a monkey throw darts at a board with the candidates' pictures on it and see who gets the most hits to decide the party's nominee. It is likely to be more accurate.

Maybe we should try finding the candidate that most clearly represents our values and policies, and work to get them elected. Maybe we should try that. It worked in 1980 against Jimmy Carter the first. It is my hunch that is a surer method to victory now that we face Jimmy Carter the second, on steroids.