Demos Will Need More Than Assembling Another Coalition To Win In November

Hillary accepts the Dem nomination last night. Will the Dem convention help her ride to victory in November with a winning coalition?? Doubtful, because coalitions are inherently too variable,  unstable.


It was JFK who first warned about the fallacy of bringing temporary coalitions together every 4 years in an effort to win general elections. He insisted a political party needed to be based on "a common history and heritage", i.e. historically enduring principles that uniquely identified a Party. In his own words:

"For the Democratic Party is not a collection of diverse interests brought together only to win elections. We are united instead by a common history and heritage--by a respect for the deeds of the past and a recognition of the needs of the future "-

At one time the Dems stood for core principles and they constituted more than a temporary ensemble or "coalition" brought together every four years by dodgy rhetoric to win one election. Now, having sold out to the money changers, bankers and business assholes - not to mention the pseudo-free market hacks and economists -  they are barely discernible from the Republicans. Let me correct that, barely discernible except now the Rs have a loose cannon named Donald J. Trump making it easy for the Dems to seize the mantle of political sanity.

But is political sanity enough in an unconventional election year in which powerful populist uprisings have emerged on the Left and Right? I don't believe so. The reason is that most populist uprisings are driven by passions - raw emotions - not wonkish rhetoric or transparent boilerplate speeches at conventions.

The bottom line is it is extremely dicey to try to assemble a winning coalition from people at the extreme edges of the political spectrum driven by passions. This is especially the case when many of them (4 m in the case of Sanders' supporters) have only recently been brought into the electoral mix. .Hence, these newbies have no ab initio commitment to vote, period. They were only driven into the Sanders (or Trump) fold because of what they saw and heard that echoed with their deepest aspirations. This was especially in the case of Sanders' supporters.

The other problem with temporary coalitions is they are inherently unstable, in time, space and mass. The one that swept Obama into the oval office was exceptional by any standard because it brought so many  energized African -Americans into the political process at once.. Let's be frank that for the most part they were not energized so much by Obama's words but via identity: they saw and heard a person of color like them, and they were going to support him to the hilt.

I have heard several arguments so far that if Hillary is to win in November, she will have to muster at least the same mass of turnout - including black voters- that Obama did in 2008. But I simply can't see this happening. If Obama's 2008  success was mainly driven by identity politics, why would the same passion be shown for Hillary Clinton who is not black? It wouldn't. Indeed, Hillary will be lucky to grab half the African-American novel turnout that Obama did. Add in all the barriers erected in red states, especially via new voter ID laws, and the barrier becomes even more formidable.

Now, it is true that Hillary can also profit from an identity component of females, among whom many are black. The take right now is older (age 50 plus) women are going for her by at least 85% to 15%.. However, she's having a much more difficult time among millennial women. (Age 18-34 especially).

That leaves only the members of the disaffected Left (mainly those dismissed - as by hardcore feminist Amanda Marcotte as "dead enders") . Dead enders they may well be, but without a sufficient turnout among them I see no way for Clinton and the Dems to grab a third consecutive 4-year term in the White House. It just isn't going to happen.

Estimates of the number of disaffected Sanders' supporters who will join Hillary's crusade have ranged from 80 percent to 90 percent. These are large proportions to be sure, but in what is likely to be a nail biter election they still may not be enough. She will more likely need 98 to 99 percent. A ten percent deficit, for example, translates to around 1.3 million who in the best case scenario simply don't show up. (In the worst case, obviously, they vote Trump).  If these 1.3 million are sprinkled in "swing" states like Colorado, Virginia, or Florida, where vote margins for victory can be as small as 100,000, Hillary would be in serious trouble.

All of this is meant to show the inherent risk in depending on a temporary coalition brought together only for winning an election. What about a spectacular convention, like the just finished DNC ?(Which truth be told looked and felt more like the one that marked Reagan's ascension in 1980, what with all the flags, faith, and military props)

History shows that conventions by themselves don't produce electoral winners. I don't care how terrific the speeches are or the patriotic props. Look at Obama's sensational 2004 speech. Despite its quality,  Kerry still couldn't prevail over George W. Bush. (Part of the reason was the election being stolen by Diebold electronic voting machines in Ohio, which secretly transferred votes from the D to the R column. See the documentary: "As Ohio Goes So Goes The Nation")

Much more critical are the debates. Hence, Hillary's chances - despite giving a "boilerplate speech"  last night - in the words of Financial Times columnist Edward Luce) will improve if she can deliver a sterling performance in the fall debates. If not, and bear in mind she's going against a character who doesn't adhere to strict rules, that will be it.

Hillary was terrific in skewering Trump as "a little man" before the assembled chorus last night, but she won't be able to do that in formal debates. She will also have to face the fact that "the Donald" may enter those debates with much lower expectations than imposed on her.

The other main aspect of winning an electoral contest,  even if you haven't based your campaign on firm principles (other than "Not him!") is absolutely not to make unforced errors that can affect your critical turnout. So far, over the primary campaign and into the convention, I count at least two major ones made by Hillary: 1) her March speech pandering to AIPAC (America-Israel Political Action Committee, e.g.  http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/03/as-predicted-hillary-panders-to-aipac.html

And 2) Her selection of Wall Street pal Tim Kaine as running mate.

The first confirms her warhawk status which will likely depress turnout by hardcore, anti-war Left folks, and the second is going to depress turnout among the Bernie Left supporters. The latter were looking for someone to excite and energize them, but Tim Kaine is like giving them a strong dose of valium when Red Bull was needed.

Once again, if firm principles were guiding the Clinton campaign as opposed to trying to guess a likely coalition component to match an action (say white repub males to buy into Tim Kaine) then such unforced errors wouldn't be made. The Clintonites would have grasped that picking Kaine wouldn't have snatched as many Rs - of whatever color- than picking Warren instead to energize the whole left base.  This pick then, may net Clinton 100,000 to 150,000 disaffected white, blue collar Reagan Dems, but at the expense of  2 m Sanders' voters.

The good news is that amidst all the red, white and blue 'rah rah' from last night (including keeping Sanders' diehards under control) coupled with Hillary's ok speech, there were no unforced errors. The bad news is that conventions don't matter in the long run and she's already committed two big unforced errors.

In any case, by the end of this election the cautionary tale should once more be sounded: "Don't depend on iffy coalitions to get you through to the end. Establish firm principles for your campaign and allow them to be your guide".

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/david-swanson/68319/the-problem-with-chanting-usa

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gareth-porter/68314/hillary-clinton-and-her-hawks

Newsflash For Hillary: Sanders' Supporters Aren't Ready To Make Nice Yet

Okay, so Hillary scored a huge win in New York with 57.3% for her to 42.7% for Bernie with 94 percent of precincts reporting. So, she felt it quite justified to chirp "the road to victory is in sight" which it may well be. But that doesn't mean Bernie's ardent supporters are ready to throw their lot behind her yet. Nor are they totally willing to bite on her line that "there's more that unites us than divides us".

In fact, to many, there is as much division or more in the Democratic Party as there is in the Republican, there just isn't the same level of rancor. But don't let the reduced rancor be interpreted as absence of serious divisions. Some of them named below:

- Her stance on the banks, keeping a weakened Dodd-Frank in place which stands to be further emasculated as banking lobbyists continue to chip away at its regulatory provisions.'

- Her warhawk posture, including siding with Netanyahu and Israel, and kowtowing to Zionists at the AIPAC side show. (Not to mention getting side kick Victoria Nuland to orchestrate the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine 3 years ago.)

- Her Wall Street money and especially what those transcripts of her Goldman-Sachs speeches reveal.

- Her pro-fracking environmental stance, with global fracking largely erupting during her time as Secretary of State. This conforms to her view that natural gas fracking is a "bridge energy source" to alternatives.

- Her refusal to clearly assert she will protect Social Security from future cuts.

The bottom line is that there is no good reason for Bernie Sanders to make life easier for Clinton just yet, no matter what her surrogates (like Jennifer Granholm) say. The math is neither here nor there, since it is true that the odds are long for Bernie to become the D-nominee. The issue now is twofold: 1) giving millions more supporters the chance to participate and cast their votes with a sense of aspirational hope -which they wouldn't have if Bernie bows out, and 2) Having leverage going into the Convention in July.

The last is critically important, because the sooner Bernie leaves the sooner Hillary will pivot to the center which is what his supporters don't want. We don't want to see her at the Convention in Philadelphia suddenly changing her tune on the issues (like TPP, Keystone) she already seemingly moved left on.

So no, his remaining in to the bitter end - despite the "math", and even getting interviews and more debates -  is essential to holding her feet to the fire on those core issues. (Which is in her interest to do to get Sanders's' supporter in her column anyway.)

We know the corporate media and Hillary are literally salivating for her to focus her fire entirely on Donald Trump (aka Drumpf), but that will have to wait a bit longer. Hillary has a task, an unenviable one, to pull her party together and get the Left on board first.

And that job won't be easy!

Watch this space!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/66966/the-empire-strikes-back-donny-and-hills-big-night

AND:

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/20/yes_bernie_sanders_is_not_a_democrat_and_hillary_represents_the_very_worst_of_the_party/

WSJ Provides A Reality Check For Trump And His "Paranoid-Style" Groupies

Trump screams at his followers to "punch the hell out of those bums" at a recent rally.

 Let us accept the proposition that Donald Trump (aka Donald Drumpf) is roughly the equivalent of a five year old pitching a fit in order to inflate his self esteem as Bill Maher portrayed him Friday night. As a corollary we can regard his supporters as also five year olds, or perhaps as Peggy Noonan  recently described them in her WSJ 'Declarations' column (March 19, A13):

"Maybe, to be charitable, a lot of Mr. Trump's supporters are 14 year old boys acting out on their mom's computer while she works her second shift"

Which occurs when you behold their over use of f-bombs and the like in their assorted blog screeds and tweets and especially the need to find scapegoats wherever they can, whether in immigrants,, "rag heads", Obummer "apes", "Bernie's  Gestapo", "Killary Feminazis" or sundry others they blame for wrecking Trump's assorted rallies. But funny thing, they never ever blame their Hitlerite hero himself for drawing this negative blowback by the use of violent language and even regarding it as some kind of "entertainment". ("This is fun! A lot better than a boring ol' rally!")

Thus Noonan's subsequent comment (ibid.):

"America is an imperfect country populated by imperfect people, but there would be a reason Mr. Trump draws the particular kind of garbage he draws, what is it?"

Well, it was once accurately described by historian Richard Hofstadter in his book, The Paranoid Style in American Politics as a streak of nasty, angry, scapegoating paranoia that's been seeded almost from the time of the nation's founding.  Many believed it had reached its apotheosis in the McCarthy commie witch hunts of the 1950s. (See the excellent movie 'Trumbo', starring Brian Cranston, to gain an insight.)

At that time the American Right was so paranoid about commies infiltrating the country and hiding under bedroom community beds that it even led to  TOPPS "Know Your Communists" trading cards, e.g..


 The aim was to inculcate ‘Communist Recognition’ in children  from 8- 10 years of age and get them to hate this system even before they knew what it was about. The garish depictions, such as that shown of Mao Tse-Tung with ghoulish green face, helped to reinforce the propaganda.   Hysteria grew as an admixture as grade schoolers - like I was in 1952 - had to duck under desks in regular drills to "escape the fallout from Communist atomic bombs". Oh, and btw, did you know commie H-bombs were much more devastating than the 'Murican variety?

"Commies" then - like Muslims now-  were the "devils" of the 1950s and even the 1960s as the term was unloaded  - usually by John Birchers - on any relatively liberal person and even John F. Kennedy. He came under suspicion first on account of making a hidden deal with Nikita Khrushchev to end the Cuban Missile crisis in October, 1962. (That was to remove all the Jupiter missiles from Turkey six months after the Russians removed theirs from Cuba.)  Then, in August, 1963, Kennedy signed a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, also with Khrushchev. The Right went ape shit because it included bans on anti-missile defense systems. Third, JFK signed NSAM 263 to pull all personnel out of Viet Nam by 1965.  That definitely put him in commie territory as he ignored the "domino theory" circulating at the time.

But Kennedy's biggest faux pas - certainly to the then CIA and security state- was initiating a rapprochement with Fidel Castro. That probably sealed his fate as a "commie'" that had to be killed, by the same CIA that learned of it (the public didn't until decades later).

All this, as Hofstadter noted, served to spur on the "paranoid style". As he wrote then (ca.1964):

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority.


 But unknown to him, that presumed apotheosis was a mirage. In fact, it was postponed until the much later incarnation we're seeing now with the rise of Trumpism. No longer is this breed of paranoia confined to a radical right nut like Barry Goldwater - who had zero chance of winning the WH in 1964 anyway-  but to a brash, loudmouth demagogue who has already compiled so many delegates in primaries he could well nail the Reep nomination and also gain the White House.

Hence, it was gratifying to read a WSJ editorial ('A Trump Reality Check', Mar 18, p. A10) that put Trump's so called successes in perspective, not only for this wannabe Hitler but for his groupies too. Imagine if the Weimar German press, ca Jan. 1932, had delineated such a reality check on Adolf Hitler and his rabble rousing anti-Semitic, anti-Socialist, anti-Communist rants, and how that might have altered the outcome of the German elections that year and the next. Hitler, btw, always boasted he had used Weimar Democracy itself to gain power, after which he destroyed that democracy via the 1933 "Enabling Act" ( Ermächtigungsgesetz ) that dissolved the Reichstag and turned all its powers to the newly formed Reich government.

The WSJ editorial notes for example, that despite his claim to be "unstoppable" his actual numbers to date show him to be the "weakest Republican front runner since Gerald Ford in 1976."

For example, the Journal notes that by mid -March of 2012,  Mitt Romney "had carried the popular vote in 21 states and won 57 percent of the delegates."

By comparison, Trump "has 18 states and 47 percent of delegates" - not very unstoppable when one does the comparison. So one has to wonder how it his that the Trumpsters are so worked up  - even dissing on Mitt now - when their own guy is still three states behind and ten percentage point in delegate differential.

Are Trumpies' paranoid delusions messing up their brains? The argument of a divided field sucking up Trump's extra votes also doesn't wash because, as the WSJ notes: Romney "was in a three way race with Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich with Ron Paul also nabbing votes"

Adding:

"John McCain in 2008 was even more of a consensus pick ...by this point the Senator had won 24 states and 59 % of allocated delegates."

The WSJ goes on to point out Trump "has fervent support but equally passionate opposition among Republicans", noting his "net favorable rating in the  GOP is only 22 percent" (That is, the share of people with positive views minus those with negative views).

Going on to single out the Real Clear Politics polling average which shows twice as many adults have negative views (61%) as positive (32.5%).  Meanwhile, "Gallup reports he has a higher unfavorable rating than any other nominated candidate from either major party dating back to 1992".

And that includes that socialist guy Bernie Sanders, who the Trumpites believe is dispatching  guerrillas  to disrupt their stupid rallies. (Note: the main protest organizers, Moveon.org, have no relation to Sanders's campaign.)

Of course, none of this ought to make the Dems feel too smug. The reason is that Hillary has negatives almost as high as Trump's. While TIME's Joe Klein often gets things wrong because of his Neoliberal lens, he was correct that Hillary has to be a much better, more nuanced (and less rote - and screaming) persona if she faces Trump in the election (Mar. 28, p. 41).

Her planned appearance at the Israeli lobby (AIPAC) convention this next week (Mar. 20-22) is also not going to help her with the Dem left base, which is already leaning to either staying home on Nov. 8th, or writing in Bernie's name if he concedes or loses out to Clinton.   I mean, the mere sight of her appearing along side the likes of Trump, Cruz and Kasich is not designed to appeal to Left core supporters that she will need in the fall - assuming she still is the nominee.

Hillary in one forum (Town hall)  response conceded she isn't the political charmer who has the "poetry" of those like hubby Bill or Obama. But as Klein put it, "she's our own quinoa and kale salad, nutritious but bland. The human embodiment of the Establishment Trump is running against." In addition, she harkens back to the politicians of 20 or more years ago with "too many oratorical switchbacks"
"Our very own quinoa and kale salad, nutritious but bland". (Joe Klein, TIME, Mar. 28, p. 41)

Klein concludes that if she and Trump square off she will have to grow into a modern politician - with modern oratorical skills beyond that screechy loud voice ("only used if you're angry"), and in a hurry. That has to start now with  her remaining Town halls with Sanders, and also avoiding the wrong optics - especially to Sanders's supporters. (Hint: Stay away from that AIPAC meet which will be seen as blatant pandering for the Jewish national vote.)

Colorado Springs Gazette columnist, Barry Fagin, has described (Mar. 8)  politics as an "accepted form of violence between tribes of voters" in our society.  Charles Krauthammer in his recent column  says "politics is the civilized substitute for settling things the old-fashioned way- laying your opponent out on a stretcher".   He goes on to write: "What is so disturbing today is that suffusing our politics is not just an air of division but an air of menace"

 Indeed, and that menace may well spill over into more overt violence in this election cycle. This worry is real and so long as Trump incites violent memes with his rhetoric we are at risk. But don't look for his lackeys to support that because as one observer noted, he is channeling their Id - like Hitler did of too many Germans in 1932--33.

The problem is, reality check or not, who in the candidate field has the courage, principles, and ferocity to stop his advance and provide a real choice to the American people? I see no one other than Bernie Sanders, but alas, too many of my countrymen are too cowed to vote for him - as opposed to the much worse candidates (including one under current FBI investigation) they do know.

If we are cowardly (or ignorant) in our choice we shall have to live with the consequences after January 20 next year.