Talk Elections

For UK general elections the consensus is that it is the latter; in the USA it seems to be, on the surface anyway, the former.

The moderate centre is largely a myth.

Bush and Obama both won by running campaigns that catered to their respective bases.

Most self identified moderates either vote overwhelmingly for a specific party (they just like to identify themselves as moderates) or don't vote at all.

There really isn't a "center" anymore, the Democrats have moved way to the left and the Republicans way to the right and so the centrists of the party were eventually pulled in the direction of their party or just stopped voting.

Lean base, but I think both are important.

For the past few decades, as the electorate has moved is large swaths towards one of the two main parties, we only truly see about five percent of voting Americans (note, not 5% of registered voters) who are neither party members nor independents who lean towards one party or the other (as most independents do).  With that said, appealing to your base is much more important than reaching out to other voters--in any federal or statewide election.

I'd say the centre. Base members hate the over party so much they vote for a moderate over the "extreme" other side.

Both are important. The trick is to rev up your base and get them to turn out for you while simultaneously not motivating the other candidate's base to turn out against you. This is where the Republican Party messes up: the GOP achieves great base turnout (even in 2012 with "RINO" Romney), but alienated enough voters who still would vote R down-ballot to vote for Obama and scared Democrats/Democrat-leaners enough to turnout against them.


As for the center, it's true that most people who identify as moderate and/or independent do still retain a significant ideological/partisan lean; the thing is that you need to convince enough "soft" Democrats/Republicans to support you.

Democrats have mastered this by emphasizing popular policies combined with being liberal enough to turn out the base while not to scaring away on-the-fence voters. Republicans, as we have seen, continue going too far to the right and make the Democrats' ads for them, thus they lose elections.

Republicans got enormous margins in the South and Great Plains states, but by losing that 1 - 4 percentage points in swing states, lost in 2012. It does them no good to get 60% in Alabama, Wyoming, and Oklahoma if they're losing Florida by just 70,000 votes, if the 2% they need in Virginia and 1.5% they need in Ohio evaporates.

Congratulations!

To your point: why is that unfortunate? I mean, isn't the Democrats' base roughly Bernie supporters?

First option if I had to pick, considering the polarization of the electorate.

Option 1 increasingly. Option 2 was the right answer decades ago (think 1964 and 1972), but now the polarization of America has lead to less and less moderates, and more inflexible results. Therefore, turning out the apathetic in both camps is far more important.

That's not to say that blacks, Hispanics, and women are inherently non-Bernie supporters. A lot of them are.

And regardless of which base we're speaking of, it is kind of unfortunate that the goal of politicians these days is to attract the base instead of the moderates, as in this scenario they only really have to pander to ideologues and don't have to concern themselves with the needs of average Americans (100% moderate heroes). :P

The center

Your base will always be apart of your political identity and career. While in a election you'll want to rally your base, but get moderates and centrist voters that could help you win whatever election your competing in.   

Maybe the fact that the party of the president always looses seats in the midterm elections (except 1998 and 2002) is na evidence that there are still many moderates, who want to balance power.