Hillary's limited appeal

[Reaganfan]

The Clintons came into national prominence believing that the voters would never support liberalism.  Their message was a centrist one crafted for the post-Reagan era: pro-business, pro-military and reigning in welfare.  All great things.
Now we are in an era in which everything traditional in America is under assault, and Hillary must pivot left.  We are left to wonder where her true heart is.  I suspect in her heart of hearts, she has nothing but scorn for the hard left but she will pander to it to win their votes.
Her appeal is limited because no one is sure how committed she is to Bernie Sanders-style socialism.  Her 2008 campaign against the Barack Obama, the left's dream candidate,  underscored her limited appeal.  The past Clinton scandals also loom large.

Excellent post.

[Reaganfan]

One thing that I've observed is that in practice Hillary appeals to very few people. Obviously conservatives of all stripes hate her, most progressives and people on the left do as well where she's seen (correctly IMO) as one of the people most responsible for moving Democrats to the right. She doesn't seem to have much appeal to the working class (white or otherwise) and while her strength is purported to be highest among ethnic minorities I can't see there really be much love there either, especially with her cynical hispandering and the fact that she was a big supporter of broken windows policing in the 90s. The only group that really seems to like her are upper middle class liberal feminist types who just identify with her and they aren't really a significant demographic. I also think that the country in general is in an anti-establishment mood and there's no way that she would be doing as well in the Democratic primary as she is if they weren't trying deliberately to rig the process for her and done everything possible to prevent a competitive primary for the sake of some ed up seniority.

The only way that she wins is the toxicity of a Trump or Cruz.

Nonsense, the polling at the moment does NOT show a desire for change, unlike in 2008. Hillary has issues when it comes to cross-over appeal, yes but she is very strong among the broad left and the het-up leftists aren't big enough in raw numbers for it to make THAT much of a difference in the end.

Plus you're granting Hillary far more of a role in the Democratic Party's policy development than she actually had (forgetting how the (Bill) Clinton centrism aligns with the moderation seen among the mainstream centre-left parties in most Western Nations during the 1980s and 1990s) ...

Yet again, this is Hillary derangement syndrome, I get not liking Hillary I get supporting Sanders... but for the life of me, just because you don't get why people do support her doesn't make your conclusions facts.

I have to disagree about the change argument. When 70% of the country says it's on the wrong track, and the current President sits in the low 40s approval (at best, and he gets blind support from almost 100% of African Americans), that hardly is a call for continuing the status quo.

Plus, if a bad candidate like Mitt Romney came as close as he did in a time before ISIS and before Obamacare's penalties kicked in and before Rachel Dolezal and Black Lives Matter and the riots and before going after guns and before Dukes of Hazzard and all the PC stuff that has so many people pissed, I think *if* Hillary wins, it's by the absolute skin of her teeth.

[Reaganfan]

I have to disagree about the change argument. When 70% of the country says it's on the wrong track, and the current President sits in the low 40s approval (at best, and he gets blind support from almost 100% of African Americans), that hardly is a call for continuing the status quo.

It's not enough to just go by national averages, though. For instance, disapproval in the South skews some polls even when that isn't the case in the states that count. In an election where wins are based on state results and not a popular vote, it's important to look at key battleground states:

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/florida-obama-job-approval
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/virginia-obama-job-approval

Obama himself had more disapproval (or close to it) than approval around 2012 election time in Virginia and Florida, yet he still won. The fact is, Democrats have high approval ratings of Obama and in a country where more people are becoming Democratic-leaning, I think that is what counts. I'm not saying 2016 is a sure thing but simply going on standard national average polls is not going to cut it.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval_among_democrats-1046.html

See but this is the question, is the country really going more Democrat? I keep seeing how much people want guns...but they also want gay marriage. They hate taxes and the IRS...but they want weed. It almost seems as if the country is going libertarian. I don't know.

Also, this forum has been a bad barometer. Reading this forum the last two years had me so depressed (as a Republican). I figured Rick Scott, Larry Hogan, Bruce Rauner, Cory Gardner all were going down in flames. I figured the "HERO" act in Houston would pass or be close, I figured the Marijuana thing in Ohio would fail but not 65-35 fail. Reading this forum gives an impression of a much bleaker outlook for Republicans than I think there is. Not to mention these off-year elections have gutted Democrats out of the entire country. Literally in Ohio, there is almost no Democratic Party. We have a GOP Governor. Sec of State. State Treasurer. Attorney General. One U.S. Senator. 6/7 of the Ohio Supreme Court is Republican. We have the state legislature and senate. It's all Republican. We have a GOP Governor presiding over a Republican National Convention at the Q (home of Lebron James) for a week in Cleveland. Yet on this forum, you would think it was all the opposite.

You can't tell me that as a Democrat you don't feel a bit nervous at what turnout and the electorate will look like without Obama on a ticket?

[Reaganfan]

The right-wrong track question only matters if people think the alternative is better. Considering the clear desire the GOP has to push itself into irrelevancy, I wouldn't get too cocky.

It's like the fundamental question about incumbents, it's a two parter, a) are things not going well? b) will this person be better than the person currently there?

It's a similar question in this case, are things going well? And if not, am I confident that any of the other options would be better?

Plus this myopia that a national security debate only helps the GOP isn't really paying attention to what the data is telling us. It's kind of like their assumptions that the 2008 electorate was an anomaly and 2004 was really the baseline... they're walking into the same trap.

See and I feel you guys might not be at a new baseline and that 2008 and 2012 and the Obama phenomenon might be just that.