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Showing Original Post only (View all)Dems can do better than "too big to fail" campaigns [View all]
https://thefloridasqueeze.wordpress.com/?p=11570&preview=trueTwo months ago the New York Times published an article that gave the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign the too big to fail tagline. Titled Democrats See No Choice but Hillary Clinton in 2016, the piece revealed that the national Democratic party takes the attitude shes an incumbent and they have no Plan B to a Hillary nomination. The party is so invested, even 18 months out, that should she run into trouble, theyd have no idea which way to turn.
The problem with this template, which has also been applied to the Patrick Murphy Senate campaign, is it ignores everything we know about how politics works now. As Democrats we like to see ourselves as the smart kids in the class the ones who believe in climate science and evolution, but we could use some remedial sociology.
The common wisdom has changed since the last Clinton administration. First off, the swing voter is a myth. To win we have to mobilize voters who stay home. Thats the base and left-leaning voter. Theyre people whore motivated to vote because they really believe reform is possible. They want real change. Theyre the people who didnt vote in 2014 because the party eschewed Democratic values, putting an embargo on immigration reform, for example. These are people who voted for Nader or simply didnt vote for Gore because they had Clinton-fatigue. They want to believe.
When MSNBCs Steve Kornacki covered the NYTs article they illustrated their segment with polling. This slide should be particularly troubling for anyone in the Clinton or Patrick Murphy campaigns right now. It shows that voters have a much stronger preference for candidates who promise to bring change, than for those who have experience.
This number has ticked up since 2008, so apparently theres some hope and change thats been left on the table. This would help explain how Bernie Sanders got 200,000 volunteers, raised $3 million dollars and was able to hire Obamas entire digital team all in less than a week from announcing. Today he announced a bill to break up too big to fail banks, saying if theyre too big to fail, theyre too big to exist. If only our party understood this.
The next slide drives the point home. Both frontrunners are seen by voters as representing the past. On this, Jeb beats Hillary by 9 points, which might explain why were hearing a lot less about him lately and a lot more about young Koch firebrands like Marco Rubio and Scott Walker. If they put up someone who promises change no matter how radical or shitty that person could win in a race against a candidate perceived as representing the past.
Our donors have funded us into a corner. The party could let the funding and endorsements flow after the primaries. Let the people decide if Hillary represents change or not. But instead theyve hedged all their bets in order to drive other candidates from the field. Its the height of bad faith.
The idea of Democrats pushing too big to fail campaigns triggers the need for new measures of wrong-headedness. The most significant defining political themes of our time are the Great Recession, the bailout, and Occupy. Theres no underestimating the impact this has had our collective psyche. Imagine the zeitgeist is an ocean thats composed of contempt for everything thats too big to fail. Weve only lived through it, we havent recovered from it.
When we say wed like the candidate who brings change, thats not an aesthetic preference. Were not being trendy or hip. We really fucking need change at this point. Look at Baltimore. Hell, look at Orlando, were among the worst in the country for income mobility for poor children. Regular folks face crushing defeat every day in the form of bad policy that neoliberals have pre-negotiated with business interests. We cant afford any bipartisan negotiations on Social Security, for instance, which has been on the table for both Patrick Murphy and Hillary Clinton. We cant afford any of the politics of the past where the middle class gets soaked while the 1% gets bailed out.
more at link --> https://thefloridasqueeze.wordpress.com/?p=11570&preview=true
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I think they prefer as small and conservative an electorate as possible without it going regressive
TheKentuckian
May 2015
#10
“too big to fail” campaign. Wow that says it all. The Hillary Wall Street connection.
L0oniX
May 2015
#15
let's say something improper does emerge from fundraising + state dept duties
nashville_brook
May 2015
#18