Is Hillary's campaign focusing too much on relatively niche 'social' issues?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I.e. Gun control, women's health, abortion etc.

The former is basically classic activist fodder - it's not really a populist move or anything or a way to broaden your coalition because most people are either set in their ways or don't really care. Normally such stuff is added as an addendum to your bulk issues to reassure the single-issue people, but Hillary's campaign has used the issue as a central plank (for perhaps the first time in presidential history). Same with the women's issues stuff. The motivation is pretty blatant there - to try and goad Trump into saying something dumb and win by default, but I think it's a very dangerous game. The Democrats seem to be looking at Akin and Mourdock's falls as the default, when 2014 provided us with two candidates who seemed to try and bait their opponents with women's health-focused campaigns but utterly flopped.

What are your thoughts?

[Gustaf]

Is it clear that she will run as strongly on this stuff in the general though? Because it kind of makes sense to have this as her primary campaign against Sanders - it seems to me to be the way she won over enough of the white liberal vote to beat him out.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If you took that away, there wouldn't be any campaign left.

[Landslide Lyndon]

If you took that away, there wouldn't be any campaign left.

And what exactly remains for Sanders if you take away Wall Street and Citizens United?

[SillyAmerican]

Forget about jobs and the economy. Forget about our crumbling infrastructure. Forget about concerns over terrorism. Forget about problems caused by open borders. Forget about Russian fighters buzzing navy ships or Iranians humiliating our servicemen. That stuff is insignificant; what we desperately need right now, obviously, is a woman president named Clinton.

[Ebsy]

No?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Yes, particularly with regards to Trump. If the Clinton campaign isn't careful, we'll end up in September and they will have "successfully" defined Donald Trump as "Generic Republican", based on his positions on guns, abortion, etc. Clinton loses to "Generic Republican".

[Ljube]

Yes. Hillary's campaign is the mirror image of Mark Uterus's campaign.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

The Democrats seem to be looking at Akin and Mourdock's falls as the default, when 2014 provided us with two candidates who seemed to try and bait their opponents with women's health-focused campaigns but utterly flopped.

What are your thoughts?

The problem with comparing Udall's campaign in Colorado and (I'm assuming) Wendy Davis' gubernatorial campaign in Texas in 2014 to what Hillary is currently doing, is that Hillary is replicating Obama's campaign strategy of using social issues to paint the GOP as angry and backwards while also talking about the economy and foreign policy. The "War on Women" narrative in 2012 was effective in making many women feel they had a personal stake in the election, even if they generally favored Democrats on other issues. It blew up Obama's margins with unmarried women and kept married womens', and married and unmarried mens' margins down.

In 2012, the Democrats were talking quite a bit about restrictions on abortion rights and cuts to healthcare after the 2010 midterms, even before Akin and Mourdock launched it to top headlines.

Wendy Davis was totally unheard of before her filibuster against Texas' abortion laws. It was here cause celebre. Udall talked almost exclusively about abortion, which was negated by some clever triangulation on Cory Gardner's part, at the expense of all the other issues, which allowed Gardner to dominate the conversation about things like energy, the environment (he also had some clever triangulation with regards to renewables), ISIS, foreign policy, healthcare, etc. Udall's strategy worked with unmarried women, but he lost married women and married & unmarried men by landslides.

Hillary has been hitting Trump on his statements about foreign policy and his business dealings quite forcefully. I don't really consider women's health, gun control, and abortion to be niche issues, especially when women are 53% of the electorate. Women's healthcare and abortion are strongly correlated to economics and income, especially with teen and single parents. I do think Hillary needs to start talking more about her plans for education (higher & primary), healthcare & senior care, and infrastructure, but I don't see the current focus on painting Trump as unstable and sh*tty towards women becoming a Udall/Wendy Davis-esque single-track problem.

So: no.

[LLR]

Women's health is such a niche issue, since it doesn't pertain to men and everyone knows only their votes count.

/s

[Blair]

Forget about jobs and the economy (1). Forget about our crumbling infrastructure (2). Forget about concerns over terrorism (3). Forget about problems caused by open borders (4). Forget about Russian fighters buzzing navy ships or Iranians humiliating our servicemen (5). That stuff is insignificant; what we desperately need right now, obviously, is a woman president named Clinton.

1.) You mean the economy that has grown since 2008? See Bill Clinton 2012's speech if you think the democrats aren't going to play that card.

2) Well Clinton has outlined a plan to deal with it-namely spending 250 billion on it over 5 years. It's widely seen as the one remaining bi-partisan issue she could do in the first 100 days

3.) Forgetting about terrorism? Hillary is the most experienced candidate for POTUS on the democrat side from a national security standpoint since LBJ

4.) The US has open borders? Didn't Hillary vote yes on a bill in 06 to improve border security?

5.) Again, accusing Hillary of not being hawkish enough is strange.

It's almost as if I work for correct the record

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Women's health is such a niche issue, since it doesn't pertain to men and everyone knows only their votes count.

/s

That came out wrong fwiw. The thing is such a thing is very important,but if done in a hamfisted way it looks like Labour's pink buses episode.

The Democrats seem to be looking at Akin and Mourdock's falls as the default, when 2014 provided us with two candidates who seemed to try and bait their opponents with women's health-focused campaigns but utterly flopped.

What are your thoughts?

The problem with comparing Udall's campaign in Colorado and (I'm assuming) Wendy Davis' gubernatorial campaign in Texas in 2014 to what Hillary is currently doing, is that Hillary is replicating Obama's campaign strategy of using social issues to paint the GOP as angry and backwards while also talking about the economy and foreign policy. The "War on Women" narrative in 2012 was effective in making many women feel they had a personal stake in the election, even if they generally favored Democrats on other issues. It blew up Obama's margins with unmarried women and kept married womens', and married and unmarried mens' margins down.

In 2012, the Democrats were talking quite a bit about restrictions on abortion rights and cuts to healthcare after the 2010 midterms, even before Akin and Mourdock launched it to top headlines.

Wendy Davis was totally unheard of before her filibuster against Texas' abortion laws. It was here cause celebre. Udall talked almost exclusively about abortion, which was negated by some clever triangulation on Cory Gardner's part, at the expense of all the other issues, which allowed Gardner to dominate the conversation about things like energy, the environment (he also had some clever triangulation with regards to renewables), ISIS, foreign policy, healthcare, etc. Udall's strategy worked with unmarried women, but he lost married women and married & unmarried men by landslides.

Hillary has been hitting Trump on his statements about foreign policy and his business dealings quite forcefully. I don't really consider women's health, gun control, and abortion to be niche issues, especially when women are 53% of the electorate. Women's healthcare and abortion are strongly correlated to economics and income, especially with teen and single parents. I do think Hillary needs to start talking more about her plans for education (higher & primary), healthcare & senior care, and infrastructure, but I don't see the current focus on painting Trump as unstable and sh*tty towards women becoming a Udall/Wendy Davis-esque single-track problem.

So: no.

Point taken. My main point is that I worry Hillary is overplaying her hand with complicated feints on social issues when my reading of most election campaigns is that it comes down to the economy stupid.

This might be the world's most atlas comparison but it kind of reminds me of the iNC running elections on being secular and nonsectarian. I think it's important (and if course preferable to their opponents coming and shooting the beef eaters) but it leads to a weirdly artificial hollow campaign if done wrong.

[pho]

What's the alternative? Tax hikes and the TPP?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm reasonably confident that Hillary will win, but she'll win in spite of her campaigning style, just as she'll win in spite of a number of other things about her. I say this as somebody who's with her on the gun stuff and glad she's talking about it.

[tallguy23]

She's making it a battle between "New America" and "Old America". Luckily for her, "New America" is what's growing in numbers.

[RaphaelDLG]

Probably strategically (though she might win anyway), and definitely normatively.

[VPH]

Yes. Democrats as a whole get sucked into these social battles that time tends to resolve anyway. We therefore gave up our message of being fighters for the working class and alienated the blue collar.

[Torie]

The niche stuff will disappear. That was to round up Dem votes in the primary - as noted above. Trump is such a target rich environment, that talking about the limits of gun control, and equal pay for women (a largely contentless bullet point really, we already have laws against gender discrimination), transgender issues, and the like, is mere rounding error. In fact, given Trump's explosive temperament, and recklessness, and lack of respect for the rule of law, and given how unpleasant Hillary is, perhaps given the twin "givens," Hillary's best strategy would be to repair to one of her mansions, and appear on the porch from time to time, just to day "hi." That is what Warren Harding did, and he won in a landslide. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, at least in my fantasy world as to this election cycle, which this election cycle certainly is as if a fantasy - a Stephen King fantasy novel writ large.

[Landslide Lyndon]

In fact, given Trump's explosive temperament, and recklessness, and lack of respect for the rule of law, and given how unpleasant Hillary is, perhaps given the twin "givens," Hillary's best strategy would be to repair to one of her mansions, and appear on the porch from time to time, just to day "hi." That is what Warren Harding did, and he won in a landslide. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, at least in my fantasy world as to this election cycle, which this election cycle certainly is as if a fantasy - a Stephen King fantasy novel writ large.

I assume you have met and socialized with her and you aren't basing your characterizations on what Fox News and right-wing talk radio has said about here the last 25 years.

[Torie]

Ah, just watching her on the tube, and her conduct, I think is sufficient, for me to form my own personal opinion. And yes, it is entirely subjective on my part. Who knew?

Of course, I will be voting for Hillary, but I digress. But to suggest to me that she is an estimable person, leaves me stone cold.

[Hermit For Peace]

Ah, just watching her on the tube, and her conduct, I think is sufficient, for me to form my own personal opinion. And yes, it is entirely subjective on my part. Who knew?

Of course, I will be voting for Hillary, but I digress. But to suggest to me that she is an estimable person, leaves me stone cold.

Yes but....do you think she is qualified to run the country? See, that's the most important thing I would say.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I worry that she won't incorporate Sanders's focus on economic inequality to nearly the extent that she (or any Democratic candidate in 2016, for that matter) should.

Though tbh, I'm also worried that the Sanders movement will die once Clinton sows up the nomination and Sanders endorses her.

[Pandaguineapig]

The problem is that many of the biggest democratic donors are obsessed with these niche issues and it is necessary to focus on these issues to keep the gravy train rolling, that's why  Wendy Davis and Mark Uterus were living high on the hog while their campaigns crashed and burned

[Kingpoleon]

If I were her, I would think forcing Trump to take a position on SSM is the best thing she could do.

[Hermit For Peace]

I worry that she won't incorporate Sanders's focus on economic inequality to nearly the extent that she (or any Democratic candidate in 2016, for that matter) should.

Though tbh, I'm also worried that the Sanders movement will die once Clinton sows up the nomination and Sanders endorses her.

The Sander's movement is not going to die. It's the wave of the future. It's the way the younger generation thinks and it's not going away until they change the system.