You win elections by winning votes. You can equally improve your chances by increasing your margin by 5% or by reducing your opponents margin by 5%. So even if Biden doesn’t have a majority of over 65s, he still needs to appeal to them.
The only people he doesn’t need to worry about are those who don’t vote.
Yes, ultimately we will see if Biden’s strategy works.
That said, Clinton and Obama are hardly the only politicians who preferred the “appeal to independents strategy” over “get the lefties to vote strategy”. Democrats won many difficult statewide elections using the former strategy, most recently the Kentucky governor, the Georgia Senate, and the Arizona Senate races.
Meanwhile, the most prominent statewide/national politicians using the latter strategy were Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Warren won, but Massachusetts should not be a difficult election for Democrats to win. Whereas Sanders has shown that relying on lefty support won’t even win a national primary (and I consider “the 2016/2020 DNC primaries were rigged” as unpersuasive as “the 2020 presidential election was rigged”).
I was talking about presidential races too. Then you said Obama and Clinton don’t count for some reason.
Does the 2020 election count? Or the fact that Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the last 30 years, relying more on winning the EC without actually having the most votes?
Because all of those things are evidence that the national Dem strategy is a good one. Time and again, liberals + independents > 50% of the vote.
And I have also volunteered for the DNC in multiple elections. Starting with Dukakis, in fact (even though I supported Paul Simon in the primary). But I still don’t expect them to “give” me a primary win. Wins have to be earned.
Finally, the DNC doesn’t hate you. They agree with many of your goals and want you to be part of their coalition. But being in a coalition means you don’t get everything you want, or even most of what you want. You get some of what you want, like everyone else. That’s not being “forgiving”, that’s being a realistic team player.
Biden has delivered on most of his main campaign promises: control COVID, restore the economy, invest in green infrastructure, and lower drug prices. His main broken promise was to reform immigration.
He has forgiven over $100 billion in student debt, as well as spent over $3 billion on HBCU debt relief / tuition breaks. I also credit him with the recent upswing in union membership, due to aggressive lawsuits by the NLRB against Starbucks, Tesla, etc (and yes those actions more than outweigh his handling of the BNSF strike).
He didn’t raise the minimum wage, but raising the minimum wage has been part of the DNC platform since at least 1988 (when Dukakis ran). I don’t fault him for not having the necessary Senate supermajority, same as every other president.
The current strategy is not “shut up and vote for us while we start WWIII” (for one thing, very few people are worried about WW3). If anything, the current strategy is “We delivered a lot of things that Democrats wanted”. Which is true, even if the message isn’t getting out.
Finally, of course I hold the DNC accountable for winning elections. They have exceeded my expectations on that part, I would not expect >50% of vote in nearly all national elections. They got a majority even when running less charismatic candidates like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore.
And if Biden provided a few things I wanted (he has) and Democrats are still capable of winning a majority of the vote (they are) then I don’t care at all about the inner workings of the party.
deleted by creator
You win elections by winning votes. You can equally improve your chances by increasing your margin by 5% or by reducing your opponents margin by 5%. So even if Biden doesn’t have a majority of over 65s, he still needs to appeal to them.
The only people he doesn’t need to worry about are those who don’t vote.
deleted by creator
Yes, ultimately we will see if Biden’s strategy works.
That said, Clinton and Obama are hardly the only politicians who preferred the “appeal to independents strategy” over “get the lefties to vote strategy”. Democrats won many difficult statewide elections using the former strategy, most recently the Kentucky governor, the Georgia Senate, and the Arizona Senate races.
Meanwhile, the most prominent statewide/national politicians using the latter strategy were Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Warren won, but Massachusetts should not be a difficult election for Democrats to win. Whereas Sanders has shown that relying on lefty support won’t even win a national primary (and I consider “the 2016/2020 DNC primaries were rigged” as unpersuasive as “the 2020 presidential election was rigged”).
deleted by creator
I was talking about presidential races too. Then you said Obama and Clinton don’t count for some reason.
Does the 2020 election count? Or the fact that Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the last 30 years, relying more on winning the EC without actually having the most votes?
Because all of those things are evidence that the national Dem strategy is a good one. Time and again, liberals + independents > 50% of the vote.
And I have also volunteered for the DNC in multiple elections. Starting with Dukakis, in fact (even though I supported Paul Simon in the primary). But I still don’t expect them to “give” me a primary win. Wins have to be earned.
Finally, the DNC doesn’t hate you. They agree with many of your goals and want you to be part of their coalition. But being in a coalition means you don’t get everything you want, or even most of what you want. You get some of what you want, like everyone else. That’s not being “forgiving”, that’s being a realistic team player.
deleted by creator
Biden has delivered on most of his main campaign promises: control COVID, restore the economy, invest in green infrastructure, and lower drug prices. His main broken promise was to reform immigration.
He has forgiven over $100 billion in student debt, as well as spent over $3 billion on HBCU debt relief / tuition breaks. I also credit him with the recent upswing in union membership, due to aggressive lawsuits by the NLRB against Starbucks, Tesla, etc (and yes those actions more than outweigh his handling of the BNSF strike).
He didn’t raise the minimum wage, but raising the minimum wage has been part of the DNC platform since at least 1988 (when Dukakis ran). I don’t fault him for not having the necessary Senate supermajority, same as every other president.
The current strategy is not “shut up and vote for us while we start WWIII” (for one thing, very few people are worried about WW3). If anything, the current strategy is “We delivered a lot of things that Democrats wanted”. Which is true, even if the message isn’t getting out.
Finally, of course I hold the DNC accountable for winning elections. They have exceeded my expectations on that part, I would not expect >50% of vote in nearly all national elections. They got a majority even when running less charismatic candidates like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore.
And if Biden provided a few things I wanted (he has) and Democrats are still capable of winning a majority of the vote (they are) then I don’t care at all about the inner workings of the party.
deleted by creator