2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Ok then, Let's spell it out for Hillary "Democrats" [View all]Rilgin
(787 posts)If people stop going to a restaurant, the restaurant changes its recipes. If people go in droves it does not change its recipes on the theory that the people want something different. You have changed this relationship on its face. You seem to think that a restaurant who is popular sees that as proof that it is time to change its menu to something else.
If a radio station has a format. If it gets great ratings meaning people listen and tune in, it does not take that as evidence that the people listening want a format change. They take it as evidence that they want more of the same.
If democrats come out in droves for more conservative candidates, the party and political establishment will assume that they are offering the right candidates, not the wrong type candidates. If voters do not vote for a candidate, in real life, not in your imagination or logic, smart people think there is something wrong with their candidate, campaign, approach or party. They do not think its the voter unless they want to excuse their own politics being unpopular.
In our very real case, starting with the DLC, the political establishment decided that the fact that Bill Clinton won a GE presidential race that the path to democratic victories (meaning more voters) was triangulation and adapting republican lite policies and candidates.
At that time, the democrats had lost a series of presidential races so they changed the recipe for the candidate. Bill won his first term in a 3 person race (Ross Perot) without a majority of voters. However, the people behind him pushed through a meme that the Democratic Party had to change and pointed to Bill as proof. It is this change and meme that is being challenged in this election.
As pointed out this theory of selecting candidates has lost us democrats the house, senate and all the states and the white house during the bush years. Obama did not run as a moderate or centrist, he ran as a big change agent and people voted for him with enthusiasm in the first term and squeeked him by in the second. His governance was not from the left but from the center and DWS pushed conservative down ballot candidates and we then lose the house and senate. Obama's first term election where we won the presidency and the senate and house should tell us what recipes our democratic party should use to attract voters which is not corporate light. We should not use the type of candidates we put up in the midterm because we lost. If we had won the midterm, pundits, donors, lobbyists, the media, politicians, and political players would view that as proof that the voters want the Democratic Party to continue putting up moderate to conservative candidates. You are arguing the opposite.
This should be obvious. If people stop voting for a party, there is something wrong with the parties message and selection of candidates.