QOTD: Brendan Nyhan
by digby
This is regarding the Village handwringing over Clinton campaign heresy in admitting that they are going to follow a base turnout strategy instead of trying to make Ron Fournier love them:
No presidential candidate — including Mrs. Clinton’s husband, whose strategy was compared to hers — competes in every state. The reason is the Electoral College, a winner-take-all system that rewards candidates who focus almost exclusively on closely contested states.
The difference is in which states she will target. The electoral map has changed since 1992, when the legacy of the old one-party South helped her husband win a number of Southern states that are now out of reach for Democrats. As a result, the targeting strategy that worked for her husband would not succeed today despite wishful thinking that she could, for instance, win Kentucky.
Most troubling to some observers, though, was the way that Mrs. Clinton’s strategy dispensed with the pretense that she would create unity and consensus by running to the center. The uncomfortable reality is that presidents don’t magically unite us, especially in our highly polarized era. With the public closely divided between the two parties, successful politicians have to mobilize their base to win.
Consider recent history. The last three presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — were all elected after promising to transcend partisanship. All failed in that aim after learning some hard lessons about how Washington actually works. Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama then ran re-election campaigns focused on turning out their core supporters — the same model Mrs. Clinton plans to adopt.
Presidential candidates should still try to speak to all Americans. But we shouldn’t pretend that pleasing words from Mrs. Clinton are going to bring back the politics of 1952 or even 1992 — that era is gone and it’s not coming back.
No it’s not.
I know she’s anything but honest and trustworthy since I’ve heard every Villager and young Villager in training tell me so in the past couple of weeks, but in this case, her campaign is apparently being more honest that these Villagers want her to be. Thanks to Nyhan for schooling them on the issue.
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