As an exercise, I present my "General Theory of American Elections in the 21st Century", a series of hypotheses about how national elections in America of the 2010's are actually won or lost . . . .
1. In the superheated polarized political atmosphere of the 2010's, there is no such thing as "independent voters". There is NO large group of people out there who say to themselves every election "gee, I just have no clue which party I support---I can't decide at all between socialist marxist leftism and fundamentalist bigoted anti-science". It is a complete myth. Every "independent" is already a partisan of one party or the other who is just too embarrassed to say so out loud.
2. any attempt by either party to "sway the voter" (whether it's by picking this issue or avoiding that one) is wasted effort. The "independents" made up their minds before the candidate was even announced--they will already vote for their party, period. There is simply no way either party can talk people of the other party into voting for them because of any "issue"--in a very real sense, the "issues" simply don't matter, and virtually nobody anywhere actually votes based on "issues" (most people don't even KNOW their own candidate's "stand" on any issue). Both parties run solely on the few emotionally-based hot buttons they have picked that actually separate them (since in areas like "national security" and "economic power", both parties share the same brain). Elections are fought on emotion-based banner-waving, most simply attacking the other side's emotional banners, that each side picks solely to motivate and inspire their base (usually through raw emotional fear), whether it's "socialism !!!", "blah people !!!", "fascism !!", or "Supreme Court nominees !!!". Elections are NOT fought on real issues of social power and social domination, since both parties support that structure, are funded by it, and have no desire at all to change it (which is why any emotional "issues" based on populism always turn out to be just lip service that is routinely ignored right after the election). So any electoral strategies based on "winning the middle" (see above--there IS NO "middle") or on "winning votes from the other side" (which is simply impossible) are inherently doomed to failure. There simply IS NO large movable middle that can be swayed from one side to the other. It doesn't exist. The sole use of "issues" is to emotionally motivate and fire up your own base. Period.
3. Republican voters will vote for a horse as long as it has an R after its name. They will kill each other happily in the primary, but in the general election, no Repug will vote for a Dem. Ever. They'd rather die first.
4. Democratic voters will vote for the very SAME horse, as long as it has a D after its name. We will kill each other happily in the primary, but in the general election, no Dem will vote for a Repug. Ever. We'd rather die first.
5. Repug voters vote fanatically in absolutely every election. Dem voters don't. That is, I think, largely because the Repug electorate is far to the right of its own party and, being ideologically pure and motivated, can fanatically and relentlessly push their own party rightward in every election, while the Dem electorate is far to the left of its own party but has mostly given up on trying to push it leftwards because it is a Sisyphean task, given that the Dem party depends on its corporate donors to get elected, not on its voter base's ideology. (I.e., it doesn't matter a rat's ass to the Party what the Dem voters think, as long as they keep voting for the horse.) The Repug party fears its voters--the Dem party doesn't. So Dem voters typically have less reason to vote than the Goppers do.
6. National elections are all about turnout. Period. Dems outnumber Repugs nationwide. When turnout is high (most often in Presidential years) we win. When turnout is low (most non-Presidential years), we lose. That's all there is to it.
7. If we want to win national elections, we have to effectively inspire our own Dem voters to actually vote for our horse. Do that, and we win. Do it not, and we lose. All the campaigns, all the debates, all the speechifying and TV ads, all the "issues", all the huge amounts of electoral money spent (most of which both parties get from the same corporate donors), have only one sole purpose--motivate our own voters to go to the polls and vote for their horse. Anything else (whether it's "trying to win the middle" or "appealing to moderates on the other side") is just wasted effort, either preaching to the choir or trying to convert the unconvertable. The actual candidates matter only insofar as they are either charismatic figures who inspire their own side to get out and vote (Obama, Bill Clinton), or are insipid oatmeal who do not inspire anyone to do anything except fall asleep (Mondale, Dukakis, Gore).
8. In such contests, the Repugs always have the initial advantage. The default position for every GOP voter is to vote in every single election, religiously (pardon my pun). They will ALWAYS trudge through the snow and high water over broken glass to vote for the horse with the R after its name. In every election. Without fail. The default position for every Dem voter, by contrast, is to NOT bother to vote, because the horse with the D after its name generally does not represent Dem voters or their views anyway. The only times the Dem voters turn out in large numbers are when they become convinced for at least a brief moment that THIS time things will be different, THIS time the Dems will actually be Dems, and THIS time their vote can actually produce the result we want. (That is why Obama's electoral campaign was less an electoral campaign than it was a social movement--something no other Dem candidate has done since JFK--and why, not coincidentally, the turnout in 2008 was at its highest since 1960.) It is ironic that both parties face the same problem--they have to convince voters to vote for candidates who do not really represent the voters or their views. The difference is that the Repug voters know from past experience that they CAN successfully push the party and its candidates relentlessly in the direction they want--while the Dem voters on the other hand know from past experience that they can NOT. Gopper voters can get what they want--Dem voters cannot. That is why Repug voters are highly motivated to vote and keep voting, and Dem voters are not. And that is why, in every election, the Goppers start out with the advantage, and why the Goppers are able to win national elections despite their minority status in actual voter registrations.
Your thoughts?
PS-- I have lately given up completely on writing political diaries, mostly because DKos has become just a collection of pack dogs who hunt relentlessly for other packs so they can howl, snarl, and bite at each other--some to criticize the horse, and some to tell us to shut up and vote for the horse. None of it matters anyway, since absolutely nobody here is gonna vote for the OTHER horse anyway. The pack dogs simply waste their time, and everyone else's.
So this likely will be my last political diary for quite some time.