Mark Penn: Political Mastermind?
Recently Mark Penn (Hillary's chief political strategist) told reporters: “Winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election. If it were, every nominee would win because every nominee wins Democratic primaries.” This comment has stirred some pretty lively discussion on one of my favorite political blogs, Talking Points Memo. Foolishly, I offered $5.00 to the first person who could correctly identify Penn's logical fallacy, and was quickly overwhelmed with a flurry of well-composed responses arguing fallacies ranging from False Dichotomy to the "Fallacy of the Overpaid and Inept Sophist." The latter is my favorite, so I'll just post it right here:
I think it's called the Fallacy of the Overpaid and Inept Sophist:
He's pointing out that winning primaries is not a sufficient condition for a Democrat to win the presidency. (But as Killjoy points out, it's traditionally been a necessary condition; and if one where looking for the type of primary winner who DOES win general elections, one might suspect look for one who boosts Dem turnout and wins independents).
I think the logical form of the point Penn wants to make -- that winning primaries is a poor measure of GE-worthiness, and the more you win in a row, the less electable you are -- might resemble an arguement like this:
P: Not all humans speak can speak French.
P: Pierre is a human.
C: Therefore, Pierre does not speak French.
(If this suffices, melissa, please donate $5 to Barack Obama in my honor -- if that is legal.)
