Her campaign has an unusually large number of winning strategies available. The one I fear it will take is to rely on demographics. They can play a prevent defense and just maintain their current advantages among women and people of color and win because Trump isn't going to get 70% of the white male vote. The problem with that strategy, in my view, is twofold. First, it undermines her agenda...she'd be running overwhelmingly as notTrump, so any win would limit her mandate. That's what happened to Reagan in 1984 and Clinton in 1996; they won big victories but there really weren't any policies that the electorate had ratified. The second problem is that such a strategy limits her coattails...what good will it be for her to be POTUS if the GOPs still control the Senate and the House, if the Dems can't even chop into their House advantage (outside the Supreme Court, obviously.) I don't think running a totally pro-Hillary campaign, running on her issues like Bernie focused on his (until the last 6 weeks or so) is smart either, because Trumpism is a total wild card in the first place, and in the second place, I believe that for the good of the nation (see my sig) Trumpism needs to be treated like Bambi in this movie. So, to the extent that she attacks Trump, should it be on character grounds, or policy grounds? I know the goo goo answer is to say policy grounds, but his policies today won't be his policies tomorrow. If I were Hillary, I'd spend a fair amount of time on her own agenda, on her own policies for changing the status quo and moving it in a more progressive direction. But when she and her campaign talk about Trump, I think they need to flatly disqualify him. Hang him with his own words. Given the free pass he gets on so many media outlets, that strategy is essentially a media strategy. They need to shame journos who let Trump babble word salad incoherencies. Furthermore, such a strategy would be based around the debates. She needs to completely demolish, destroy, and disqualify him in those debates. But I could be wrong about all this. Thoughts?
They say elections are usually about change vs. stay the course. The Democratic party tried to run from Obama's record in '14 and it backfired. Sure Obama is toxic for millions of Americans, but his approval rating has been inching above 50% in recent months. Low unemployment, low gas prices, no new wars etc. I think her strategy should be a combination of running out the clock and wearing the cloak of Obama's popularity. When it comes to Hillary, sometimes less is more. I usually like her better when I haven't seen or heard her in awhile. One thing she should do is bait Trump into full force attacks. Trump can't help himself and the optics of a dignified lady being harassed by a misogynist bully will gradually keep running up the score with women voters. The stuff he pulled with Megyn Kelly's "bleeding" and Fiorina's "face" is just basically the tip of the iceberg of how out of touch he is with women
i think this is a very important point. Obama ran on a reformist platform at a time of economic upheaval Normally with a good economy maybe the risk is voters go with the candidate they like e.g. Bush vs Gore But there is also still a real reformist appetite out there on both left and right So I guess its about shoring up at least some of that energy
I think its more interesting as to what will be trump's strategy? The GoP itself already discredited the "fire up the base" strategy in 2012 when it became obvious the base is simply too small to win. And anyway, Trump can't really fire up the base as he isn't a "real conservative" or religious. So what coalition is he looking for? Something less fundy and centrist? But what voters?
The only way in which Hillary Clinton can ******** this up is if she morphs into the worst candidate ever between now and November. If she even just manages to look vaguely normal, responsible and sane next to Trump, she should walk this.
Maybe this sounds too simplistic - and I don't intend it as an overall policy strategy - but when dealing with a person who may well be the world's most accomplished bullshitter, Clinton and her staff will need to be disciplined and masterful in the way they use information, and a lot of that comes down to how Clinton can stay on message and deliver concise, surgical, factual statements. For example, look to her performance in the last Benghazi hearings. She owned the Republicans on that committee. Not just in the way she answered questions, but in her body language and stamina. Say what you will about Clinton, but she's a strong individual and intellectually brilliant. The arguments against Trump are so numerous and diverse that it would be tempting to just take random pot-shots at him. But as he moved to the center, I think the Clinton campaign should start by identifying some of his most egregious and well-documented flip-flops and go after Trump with a focused, multi-front offensive. I can already see the commercials. Clinton needs to make Trump his own worst enemy. It's a target rich environment. This man is a serial liar and unfit to be president. It'll be child's play to get him to debate himself in commercial spots, and the Clinton campaign has the luxury of quoting influential people within Trump's own party that share that opinion. The above approach might free her up somewhat to present herself as embracing a more optimistic, stay-the-course approach. I think, too, that as Obama becomes active as a campaigner for her, the two of them together will make a pretty formidable obstacle for Trump to chip away at. Finally, I'm extremely curious to see who Clinton chooses as her running mate. I know that conventional wisdom implies that VP picks don't much matter. And maybe historically that's true. But a truly horrific pick (see Palin, Sarah) can be a drag on a campaign. God knows who Trump will choose. I hope he ********s it up, but he's such a wildcard that it's possible that he'll name someone that no one anticipated. I just hope Clinton is mature enough to admit that there are weak spots in her personality that leech out into her campaign, affect her approval ratings, but that might be blunted to an extent by a terrific VP choice.
One important element of a good strategy for Hillary will be for her to talk about how our economy is running so strong among our peers, the developed nations. We're probably #1 among large developed nations in growth since the Great Recession. She needs to make that common knowledge. Make sure voters know that electing Trump isn't risking blowing up a bad system. It's risking blowing up a good system.
I just looked up GDP 5-year growth rates since 2015. Here are the key developed countries - U.K. 2.9 Singapore 2.9 Australia 2.5 Hong Kong 2.5 U.S. 2.4 Canada 2.4 Sweden 2.3 Norway 2.2 Switzerland 1.9 Germany 1.6 Belgium 1.3 Denmark 1.1 France 0.2 Japan -0.1 Spain -1.7 Interesting ... the first 6 countries are all ex-British Empire, or Britain itself.
So the US is 5th, but 3rd if we eliminate city-states. I'm guessing we're better than Italy and Russia too. ad: "America is leading the world's economy forward, and will continue to lead the world forward...."
eh? The UK has had very poor GDP growth - certainly lower than the US? ETA - or at least that is what I believed!
The bolded part is something I have trouble grasping. I've met a lot of people who assume Drumpf has the religious voting bloc locked up because of his Liberty University wooing*. I have been around the USA to know that the evangelicals and socially conservative go hand in hand but, anecdotally, I also know quite a few Christians who won't vote for Drumpf. Last Sunday, my pastor hinted heavily at Drumpf (stopped short of saying his name) and how in the New Testament, Jesus was a uniter and we should beware of people who divide us and people who use "we" and "they" a lot. I'm going to butcher the sermon, but Christians can't look at leaders who hold the Bible in one hand while holding down other groups of people in need and claiming some kind of cultural superiority in the world. I was a bit puzzled by the political commentary until I saw this during lunch. http://time.com/4323009/donald-trump-southern-baptist-russell-moore-evangelicals-christianity/ EDIT: Sorry, I deleted the heart of the argument. If anything, Drumpf should be making overtures to the conservative Christians instead of getting into Twitter spats with a leader of the evangelical arm. Drumpf has a net favorability rating of -38 percent with evangelists who go more than once a week to church. More evangelicals showed up to vote for Mitt Romney than John McCain. Drumpf can't win by turning them away with Twitter spats. Especially if the evangelical community is lurching away from the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency. http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/may/trump-clinton-neither-how-evangelical-expected-to-vote.html *If any Christian didn't see right through the "Two Cornthians" speech and how uncomfortable Drumpf was with the Bible, they serious need to rethink their priorities.
If I were Clinton, one of the major themes of my case against Trump is hitting over and over again on the fact that Trump is a fraud. He's a fraud Republican; Clinton touched on this theme when she released the ad of Republican leaders denouncing him. He's a fraud on immigration; hiring illegals. He's a fraud 'made-in-America' businessman; all his crap is made in China. He's a fraud businessman; Trump University. Even, yes, he's a fraud opponent; he supported Clinton and donated craptons of money. Attacking him on policy should be secondary, since he's Teflon on policy and can change and cut on a dime. Attacking him on his credibility should be the primary attack; its the soft underbelly that a coordinated and well-funded campaign should exploit. Also, if there's an area that Trump gets touchy on and it gets under his skin, attack it ferociously. As far as a positive side of it goes, Barack Obama is Clinton's BFF for life. People, at a time when things are slowly improving, should be reminded that it is ultimately improving. Obama has a 50% approval rating, and has shown he can mobilize a winning Democratic coalition against two candidates, both of whom are much stronger than Mr, Trump. Clinton should embrace the "I'm another four years of Obama" mantle; in fact I'd probably cut an ad of Republicans calling her "another four years of Obama" and then juxtaposing it with some improving stats compared to 8 years ago, stuff like the uninsured, the deficit, the economy, etc. And then it'd say something "why would we go back now?" I'd also probably focus on preserving the existing Democratic coalition of states and demographics and its path to victory as opposed to risking an overreach into red states and spreading the Clinton campaign too thin trying to pick up disaffected Republicans.
I'll throw this out to Bernie supporters. I think Hillary should make a speech when it's over* and say to the Bernie supporters, in essence, I respect you, and I'll need you in November. But more importantly than that, I'll need you in January and February and March. I'll need your energy and your passion to move Congress. And I'll need you in November 2018. *Bernie is really pissing me off in his insistence that he's running to win. It's ********ing insulting to anyone who can do math. He should say he's running to push his issues and to expand the conversation within the Democratic party. That would dovetail nicely with however Hillary talks to and about his supporters after California. That's a pretty good strategy, I think. Trump is a media candidate. He could give a shit about substantive policies. So Hillary's strategy probably needs to be primarily a media strategy. She needs to directly attack the "both sides do it" bias.
Hillary should say to Bernie, "Look, you've run a good race, you've inspired a lot of people, and your base is critical to the long-range success for Progressive causes. I need your support and the support of your followers. We need them to turn out now, but more importantly in the down-ticket races now and in the midterms. "You've got a lot of campaign debt. If you drop out and support the Democratic ticket, I will pay off your debts. Take a couple of weeks to wind things down, but if you don't do this within the next 14 days, that's it, you won't get a ********ing dime, and you are dead to me."
I would run more ads that show Trump switching his position on, well pretty much everything, with the punchline (caption): Which Trump is telling the truth? a. Trump 1 b. Trump 2 c. None of the above