2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders did NOT ... NOT say ditch identity politics !!! [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)All that would have meant was that she would have said even less and run further to the right...neither of which would have gained us additional votes. Look at 2000 and 2004 to see what THAT kind of nominating process, the reduction of the whole thing to passionless "dead zone" politics, does to our chances.
What would have made a difference for the better was to have made her economic proposals a regular part of the ads...rather than the assumption that we could win just by calling out Trump on his behavior and personality.
We won the popular vote...but we will never improve on the EC performance by re-running the exact same campaign four years from now. To do that, we need to find the language that connects us, whoever we nominate, with the people who won't win under Trump.
This doesn't mean telling anyone to stop fighting for what they fight for...it means finding a way to combine that with things that appeal to people we couldn't connect with...and to turn non-voters into voters.