What this gets wrong:
The problem with this line of thinking is that we don’t really know that the most moderate candidate is most electable. We’ve only had 18 presidential elections in the modern era (post-World War II). That’s not a lot of data to work with. Moreover, some recent political science research suggests that, after controlling for other factors, candidates who were ideologically extreme lost at most one to two points of vote share due to their ideology. If that research is correct (and reasonable people could make a different case), that’s not a huge bonus. If you’re a progressive Democrat who believes Trump is going to lose no matter what, you might not feel any need to compromise on an O’Rourke or a Klobuchar in the primary.
The other problem with this mode of thinking is that ideology isn’t really a one-dimensional left-right scale. The liberal vs. conservative dichotomy is a useful shorthand in some situations, but politicians can position themselves differently on social issues, identity/culture issues and economic issues. Emphasis also matters — Hillary Clinton and Sanders arguably differed more on emphasis and style than on substance. Calling a candidate liberal or moderate arguably oversimplifies ideology.
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