Rep. Ellison Predicts Trump's Success; Beltway Insiders on "This Week" Panel Laugh in His Face

[Scootaloo]

72. By shoring up his base

Grimes did the same in her 2011 run for SoS of Kentucky, by pushing progressive ideals. She won by the largest margin in Kentucky history by doing this.

She then mounted a 2014 senatorial bid against Mitch McConnell. Here was her keynote campaign ad:

This was her style for the senate campaign. She tried to play towards Kentucky Republicans, distancing herself from Obama, the Affordable Care Act, and - as you can see - yuckin' it up over guns and football.

She lost, by 15.6%.

Now that's a pretty big change in three years. As far as I can tell, she did just fine as Kentucky SoS, so it's not like she blew her own foot off between 2011 and 2014. It looks to me as if the difference is due to the divergence between her Secretary of State campaign and her Senatorial campaign. She ran as a progressive for the first and won overwhelmingly, she ran as a conservative on the latter and lost easily.

What's important to remember is that this country is NOT split 50/50. People with Democratic / Liberal-leaning views outnumber peopel with Republican / Conservative-leaning views. The trick is to motivate them to vote. And the best way to motivate liberal-leaning people to vote, is to give them something they want to vote for - Liberal candidates, with liberal positions. Not just "more liberal than a right-wing asshole" but genuinely liberal in positions and ideology.

It's fine to appeal to Republicans, but the way to do it is to be like "this is why my liberal ideas are good for everyone, including you" and NOT "I will adopt your conservative ideas if only you'll please pretty pelase vote for me please"