2024 Presidential Election | ELECTION DAY 2024

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Duke Mu said:
That is incorrect. It was a huge swing. Chris Matthews noticed the loss of surburban voters to Trump real time on Election Night 2013. Hillary's campaign was arrogant. They thought they had the Blue Wall sealed. They went for the mandate and blew it by campaigning in the Southwest instead of the Blue Wall.

The object is to WIN.
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I know the object is to win. I’m not sure why you keep suggesting I’m about ideological purity when nothing I’ve said has indicated that. I’m worried because I’m worried she won’t win without engaging a segment of voters that she seems to be missing right now.
 
Paine said:
I largely agree with this. I will still worry about it until/if she wins. I think a message to appeal to both suburban voters and working class voters could be better communicated. Again, I think part of this is definitely the truncated timeline.
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And the backup quarterback could probably do a better job than the starter.

It's so easy to say "the messaging could be better." Actually doing it is harder. Much harder. And sometimes Kamala isn't the best person to do the messaging. That's why the campaign has been bringing in so many celebrity surrogates -- ones that people actually care about and who aren't washed up. As Plouffe said, they have researched who effectively delivers which messages to which audiences.

But the game is so, so difficult now. You have 5 seconds or 15 seconds to make a pitch on the internet before your ad becomes skippable. You have to make sure you don't create a sound bite or a Dukakis-in-the-tank image for the other side. You have to make sure the message to one group doesn't offend the others. That's another asymmetry. Trump can be out there promising giveaways to minorities to attract minority votes, because the white people know he's on their side. Kamala can't do that. She promises modest efforts at helping black people and it's "identity politics, woke, she wants to screw white people" blah blah blah.

Bottom line: The Dems have access to the smartest people in the country. You probably weren't alive in 92 when Clinton did "A Man From Hope" at the DNC, but at the time, it was incredibly buzzy. It was made by two TV producers (I don't remember their names) who had a string of hit shows under their belt, and they gave Clinton a Hollywood treatment. It hadn't been done before.

Ever since, the Dems have leaned on the creative community. It didn't hurt that so many people in advertising and media were gay and thus naturally aligned with the Dem program. Dems also have access to the smartest data scientists, smart researchers, etc.

And yet, with all this talent, the messaging proves difficult. Some people say, "the Dems suck at messaging." My response is that the messaging is really hard. There's no way they have all this talent and are also as inept as people think.
 
Duke Mu said:
That is incorrect. It was a huge swing. Chris Matthews noticed the loss of surburban voters to Trump real time on Election Night 2013. Hillary's campaign was arrogant. They thought they had the Blue Wall sealed. They went for the mandate and blew it by campaigning in the Southwest instead of the Blue Wall.

The object is to WIN.
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You’re missing my point. Comparing Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012 with Clinton’s loss in 2016 is what I’m doing here.

Clinton lost in the suburbs, yes. She also lost in the exurbs and among working class white voters in the Midwest. A lot of these voters were x2 Obama voters.

Biden won increased numbers in the suburbs over Clinton and regained a portion of white working class support.

Kamala also has to do both of those to win. Will she be able to? That’s what I’m worrying about.
 
Paine said:
You’re missing my point. Comparing Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012 with Clinton’s loss in 2016 is what I’m doing here.

Clinton lost in the suburbs, yes. She also lost in the exurbs and among working class white voters in the Midwest. A lot of these voters were x2 Obama voters.

Biden won increased numbers in the suburbs over Clinton and regained a portion of white working class support.

Kamala also has to do both of those to win. Will she be able to? That’s what I’m worrying about.
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Yeah, but there are a few other things to consider here.

1. Gender. I'm absolutely convinced that HRC had at least a two-point disadvantage from being a woman, especially with those WWC voters you are mentioning.

2. In 08 Obama was running against the people who brought us the Great Recession.

3. In 12, Obama was running against someone who had literally screwed tens of thousands of workers out of jobs and pensions. He was private equity. Private equity had devastated those communities. Romney was the best candidate to run against in the Blue Wall states. That he didn't lean too hard into the culture wars meant that he had no way of creating common cause with the people who hated him.
 
superrific said:
Yeah, but there are a few other things to consider here.

1. Gender. I'm absolutely convinced that HRC had at least a two-point disadvantage from being a woman, especially with those WWC voters you are mentioning.

2. In 08 Obama was running against the people who brought us the Great Recession.

3. In 12, Obama was running against someone who had literally screwed tens of thousands of workers out of jobs and pensions. He was private equity. Private equity had devastated those communities. Romney was the best candidate to run against in the Blue Wall states. That he didn't lean too hard into the culture wars meant that he had no way of creating common cause with the people who hated him.
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I hope y’all are right. I tend to agree that the strategy will work, if barely.
 
Paine said:
I know Obama was successful with working class voters, that’s my point. He didn’t have that success by appealing to suburban Republicans, he did it by running an economically populist campaign in the midst of a recession.

Harris has put forward some great policies that would be good for working people, but I worry that the messaging isn’t breaking through. Part of that is through no fault of her own, of course. Part of that, in my opinion, is that the progressive economic message is muddied by appeals to the very people who have been the enemy of the working class forever.

Let’s not rehash the Bernie Bro argument for the 80th time. But it’s simply not true that Bernie’s supporters sat out or voted for Trump. This is easily available info with a simple Google search. Liberals constantly denigrating Bernie Sanders voters is part of the issue they have with connecting with progressives to begin with.
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The question we have to ask is: Why was Obama successful with working class voters? My take is it was less actual economic policies and more that Obama was a generational political talent combined with an electorate ready for change after 8 years of Dubya. And I think he retained some, but not all, of those folks after 4 years in 2012 and he had largely lost them by 2016.

The appeals to disaffected conservatives is in no way at odds with appeals to progressives around economic issues. The appeals to disaffected conservatives is about saving democracy from Trump. Harris' economic proposals are reasonably progressive. Of course, it's hard to make the case that you're the "change" candidate when you represent the party in office and Harris has had to deal with the reality of that situation.

As far as 2016, I wholly disagree that it is "obvious" that progressives didn't cost Hillary the election. They certainly didn't do it single-handedly, but I find it pretty clear that movement to Stein by progressives cost Hillary both Michigan and Wisconsin and made things worse in Pennsylvania (although not necessarily enough to have flipped it to Trump alone). If we're going to talk about liberals connecting with progressives, a very important part of the discussion is that liberals feel betrayed by progressives just as much as progressives feel ignored by liberals. You can't handwave that away by pretending that 2016 didn't happen.
 
heelinhell said:
You are not clogging up the thread and you raise a good point.

I disagree with the Cheney clan on 99.99% of the issues. That said, this election is about more than issues; this election is about the survival of our democratic republic.

If Liz and her dad can deliver the one vote that decides the win for Kamala then god bless them.

After that I will oppose 99.99% of every domestic and foreign relations policy they promote.
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This is no different than the US/Britian aligning with Soviets during WW2 against the common enemy of Fascism. We and Soviets disagreed on EVERYTHING except the most important thing- Defeating Hilter and fascism
 
superrific said:
Bottom line: The Dems have access to the smartest people in the country. You probably weren't alive in 92 when Clinton did "A Man From Hope" at the DNC, but at the time, it was incredibly buzzy. It was made by two TV producers (I don't remember their names) who had a string of hit shows under their belt, and they gave Clinton a Hollywood treatment. It hadn't been done before.
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Linda Bloodworth-Thomason & Harry Thomason.

Not only did they have a number of successful TV shows, but they were shows like Designing Women and Evening Shade that appealed to suburban and rural white folks.

The interesting thing is that I believe they worked with Hillary during her Senate campaign, but not on her presidential run.
 
Willy said:
As a moderate independent, I just did my part and voted a straight Democratic ticket in NC, as I will continue to do until the Republican Party completely distances itself from Trump and any other fascist.
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What county are you voting in? I'm in Wilson, I just went down to vote and they were closed. Checked the website and yep, all three locations in Wilson are closed today. Open last Saturday and all last week, and open tomorrow and all next week, but closed today? Odd...
 
SnoopRob said:
Linda Bloodworth-Thomason & Harry Thomason.

Not only did they have a number of successful TV shows, but they were shows like Designing Women and Evening Shade that appealed to suburban and rural white folks.

The interesting thing is that I believe they worked with Hillary during her Senate campaign, but not on her presidential run.
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Well, they were old in 2016. Probably retired, and even if not, not active. It's hard for senior citizens to make buzzy media. Plus, again, HRC didn't lack for creatives.
 
Duke Mu said:
That's not completely true. Obama also appealed to suburban Philly and Cleveland voters - moderates and even some Republicans. HRC lost the suburban women's vote as well as the working class.

The difference today is the gender gap. Kamala is counting on the Coalition and suburban women in Milwaukee, Detroit, That includes Nikki voters. When the margin is razor thin, you open that umbrella and add to the Coalition.

Trump's strategy is to suppress coalition voters who could beat him, while playing Pied Piper to white voters who don't normally vote.
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One thing that happened in 2008 was the emergence of what I will call pre-Trumpism that turned off a number of Republicans. There were quite a few pubs who were very turned off by Sarah Palin, due to both her lack of qualification and to her rhetoric (trying to define who the real Americans are). I know a number of people— longtime loyal republicans— who fled the party at the point.
 
superrific said:
Well, they were old in 2016. Probably retired, and even if not, not active. It's hard for senior citizens to make buzzy media. Plus, again, HRC didn't lack for creatives.
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They were 69 (LBT) and 75 (HT) in 2016.

HRC didn't need them as creatives, she needed them to help craft a message that would appeal to white working class voters. I'm guessing many of HRC's creatives didn't have that skill in their toolkit.
 
hedge said:
What county are you voting in? I'm in Wilson, I just went down to vote and they were closed. Checked the website and yep, all three locations in Wilson are closed today. Open last Saturday and all last week, and open tomorrow and all next week, but closed today? Odd...
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Forsyth.
 
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