More surprising is that there is a literature going back to 2010 urging that the Democratic party move past the linear model of political triangulation as a strategic messaging option.
As I noted yesterday in my tag test of how quickly some mean-grrl/bro trollz flock to sox/rux messaging, there are serious reasons why Hillary’s triangulating her WV coal gaffe was a bad move since she then had to bring her husband forward to counter the criticism which ultimately may prove more costly in the long run. The recent NV delegate fight demonstrates that this contentiousness is not serving the party well.
Similarly Katrina Vandenheuvel’s recent op-ed in WaPo expresses the same progressive concerns and prescribes a strategy based as many pundits, including that noted dope-smoking loser, David Brooks stated recently, that HRC should not move to the center in the General Election.
More importantly the downticket races should not be ignored as they were by the triangulators of 2010 and 2014. Often PBO has been hamstrung by the need to default to those remaining centrist forces in the DNC as they triangulated away from the White House to fight the ‘baggers.
The sox/rux battles, as amusing and sometimes baffling they are in disinformation (if were there thrown chairs in NV, why isn’t there a cellphone video) are symptomatic of the kinds of triangulating, reactionary, and polarizing silliness all too frequently found in DK, some intentional, some quite ignorantly unidimensional. And then there’s the politically naive zealotry of new voters and using social media to troll threats:
RS: So you and your boyfriend were watching this all unfold online from your home in another state?
This is our first primary. Just because of my age, the first thing we've gotten to participate in was a prime presidential primary, and so the emotions [ran high]. I've got a group of friends, we all like to watch the debates together. We've all just graduated recently, so this is our first primary to be a part of. We get emotional about this stuff…. People on Twitter have told me that I hate women, that I'm a white supremacist — have called me all sorts of things. You know, I supported Hillary at the very beginning of this primary season before I found out who Bernie Sanders was. And, like I said, I'm just one person. I don't have any affiliation with anybody.
But we live in an age of perfect storms where libertarians think that they can function without a social contract in a pluralist democracy and “independent” voters are simply indecisive because of a two-party duopoly at the district level. As binary as choices may present themselves, dimensions like race and class are far more nuanced in 2016.
Even HRC’s sobriquet, “...a progressive who gets things done.”, semantically presumes as triangulation that progressives, because of some putative idealism, don’t.
Such triangulation strategies cost the party the 2000 and 2004 elections and at the global level even more people died who didn’t have to as a result of meaningless GOP wars.
History should not have to repeat that error in 2016 by strategically triangulating on the unfavorability margin. Getting things done and being progressive are not mutually exclusive and the result isn’t a third way because there is no “reasonable center” no matter how one triangulates it.
The theory that Clinton would benefit by tacking to the center also misinterprets the lessons of the primaries and misreads what independent voters want. Sanders mounted a strong primary challenge by rejecting the bipartisan consensus on matters such as trade policy, an issue that Trump has effectively exploited as well. These deviations from the centrist orthodoxy do not merely appeal to voters on the left. They are part of why Sanders polls better than Clinton among independents and in hypothetical matchups against Trump.
Accordingly, if Clinton seeks to boost her moderate appeal by further distancing herself from Sanders’s agenda, she risks ceding important ground to Trump in the general election...
At the presidential level, the strategic calculus should be straightforward. Democrats have demographics on their side due largely to their massive advantage with minorities and women, who make up a growing share of the electorate. But as progressive activist and pundit Van Jones has argued, Trump “can’t be beaten by assuming that demographics are going to save us.” Instead, Clinton’s fate will depend on her ability to ensure that large numbers of Democratic voters vote. For that reason, her top priority should be maximizing turnout among the constituencies that are most likely to support her over Trump, which means embracing a more progressive agenda.
Meanwhile, mobilizing the base will be even more critical in down-ballot races, especially in swing states and House districts where demographics are less of a factor.
triangulation
The act of a political candidate presenting his or her views as being above and between the left and right sides of the political spectrum. It’s sometimes called the “third way.”
The term was first used by political consultant Dick Morris while working on the re-election campaign of President Clinton in 1996. Morris urged Clinton to adopt a set of policies that were different from the traditional policies of the Democratic Party in order to co-opt the opposition.
Thursday, May 19, 2016 · 2:34:39 PM +00:00 · annieli
The prospect of a drawn-out Democratic fight is deeply troubling to party leaders who are eager for Mrs. Clinton and House and Senate candidates to turn to attacking Mr. Trump without being diverted by Democratic strife. Mr. Sanders has won nearly 10 million votes, compared to Mrs. Clinton’s 13 million, and Democratic leaders say she needs time to begin courting the young voters, liberals and other Sanders supporters who view her as an ally of corporate and big-money interests...
Mr. Sanders’s street-fighting instincts have been encouraged by his like-minded campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, who has been blistering against the Clinton camp and the party establishment. On Wednesday, he took to CNN to accuse Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the Democratic national chairwoman, of “throwing shade on the Sanders campaign from the very beginning.”
For weeks, some current and former Sanders campaign workers have privately acknowledged feeling disheartened about Mr. Weaver’s determination to go after the Democratic National Committee, fearing a pitched battle with the party they hope to support in the general election. The intraparty fighting has affected morale, they say, and raised concerns that Mr. Weaver, a longtime Sanders aide who more recently ran a comic book store, was not devoted to achieving Democratic unity. Several described the campaign’s message as having devolved into a near-obsession with perceived conspiracies on the part of Mrs. Clinton’s allies.
www.nytimes.com/...