Althouse: "The stoke-the-base approach is a hallmark of Mrs. Clinton’s young campaign manager, Mr. Mook."

June 7, 2015

"The stoke-the-base approach is a hallmark of Mrs. Clinton’s young campaign manager, Mr. Mook."

"By emphatically staking out liberal positions on gay rights, immigration, criminal justice, voting rights and pay equity for women, Mrs. Clinton is showing core Democratic constituencies that she intends to give them a reason to support her. It is a starkly different style from that of Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 campaign, when she was often concerned about being seen as too liberal to appeal to centrists... 'The highest-premium voter in ’92 was a voter who would vote for one party some and for another party some,' said James Carville, Mr. Clinton’s chief strategist in 1992. 'Now the highest-premium voter is somebody with a high probability to vote for you and low probability to turn out. That’s the golden list. And that’s a humongous change in basic strategic doctrine.'"

From a NYT article — with (annoyingly) no comments section — titled "Hillary Clinton Traces Friendly Path, Troubling Party."

18 comments:

Humperdink said...: Her base is all she's got. I doubt this message will resonate with many beyond that group.; 6/7/15, 6:55 AM
Jaq said...: She was right the first time, then Obama stole the nomination from her.; 6/7/15, 6:58 AM
Hagar said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/7/15, 7:20 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: (1) I guess in the past it was those "core Democratic constituencies" that were taken for granted.

But now Hillary can take for granted the demographic that comprises bitter old ladies who feel like they've been put upon because they were subservient housewives while their husbands were out busting their humps in the corporate world making sure their wives and children would have financial security.

Just ask my mother-in-law.

(2) TODAY'S WORD OF THE DAY: Vicarious (adj) "[E]xperienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person."

(3) Oy!; 6/7/15, 7:21 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: The highest premium voters are those whom will vote numerous times for one candidate. The position of the GOP ought be "wink wink no voter fraud guys, you're right. Let's scrape all ID laws, allow same day registration and 60 days before the Election Day early voting can begin. Also, billy clubs and scowls standard at each location." This parallels (see I know math too everyone!) the idea that all athletes should be able to use whatever drugs they can to compete at the highest levels they can with no restrictions.

Either the Dems would freak out over the GOP cheating, or, knowing how superior they are to the GOP at killing innocents and murdering all sorts of Truth from God to Justice Thomas' character, we can finally accept what I just read Twain wrote (paraphrased): if voting mattered the filthy c%%*s wouldn't let us pissants do it.; 6/7/15, 7:22 AM
Hagar said...: Frank Bruni, NYT; 6/7/15, 7:23 AM
David Begley said...: Mook is a mook.; 6/7/15, 8:03 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: The second part of the equation is to get the base to develop a white-hot hatred towards the party that, since 2000, nominated the centrist G.W. Bush (x2), McCain, and Romney.; 6/7/15, 8:11 AM
traditionalguy said...: Basic political wisdom is that you do not attack your friends to get an appeal to the fence sitters. The converse is the tsunami of negative ads run aimed to cause the other candidates friends to dislike him.

Hillary has zero skills. So if she wins Mook gets the credit.; 6/7/15, 8:14 AM
Ron said...: What would be hilarious is if both strategies failed! Zigging when Zagging is needed and vice versa!; 6/7/15, 8:45 AM
Some Seppo said...: Post title is Laslo bait.

I am not Laslo.; 6/7/15, 9:13 AM
Some Seppo said...: Stoke not stroke.

Never mind.

I am not Rosanne Rosannadanna.; 6/7/15, 9:14 AM
Wince said...: The stoke-the-base approach is a hallmark of Mrs. Clinton’s young campaign manager, Mr. Mook.

Likewise Emma Sulkowicz @ 1:15 in her sex tape,; 6/7/15, 9:17 AM
Brando said...: Bit of a risk, though--she's assuming the moderates will stick with her. If she aims too far left, and the GOP nominates someone non-scary they may abandon her. And her populism sounds so inauthentic she may not be able to motivate many leftist a. She will have Romneys problem.; 6/7/15, 10:17 AM
YoungHegelian said...: Recognizing that Democrats had to be galvanized to show up at the polls, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers used surveys and focus groups to assess the risks of running a strongly liberal campaign.

Isn't this just a nice way of saying that your voters A) need to be "bribed" to show up to vote or B) are just too stupid to know who to vote for unless you get 'em all good & riled up?

In other words, in spite of Democratic pretensions to being the party of the "rational" voter, this is an admission by the Clinton campaign that the core of the Democratic coalition are now low-information voters.; 6/7/15, 10:45 AM
Anonymous said...: The trouble with Mook's idea is that Obama didn't get the base to turn out by running a hard-left campaign; he got the base to turn out just by being Barack Obama. The last candidate to try something like Mook's strategy was Al Gore, and it didn't work. Admittedly, that wasn't a conscious effort to turn out the base, but rather a product of Bob Shrum's delusion that there's a huge hidden reservoir of hard-left populism out there-- but still, if Mook's right, it should have had the same effect.; 6/7/15, 11:35 AM
Fen said...: Disabling comments is always a tell that the writer knows his article isn't capable of withstanding direct feedback. Its propaganda by the usual Democrat Operatives With Bylines.; 6/7/15, 8:48 PM
cf said...: I have met the Base.

They abandoned a respect of fairness and high principles back when it became inconvenient for their personal gain. THE INCONVENIENT suitcases of Chinese cash in Gore's fundraisers, everyone looks away. The pension our old friend, leftist union city bus driver, proud to share his long term plan of working part time for every year but the very last couple, so that he gets the maximum payout from all us schleps in private enterprise. Pretty obvious that .tHAT is how you do it, don't be a dummy. A good and caring teacher late to the profession, who close to retirement age had only put in eleven years, but needed twelve to qualify for a lifetime of benefits, and somehow, her fellow teachers and school administration can decide those funds will be paid out, again by all of us who get bunk. fairness? Sustainability?

They look the other way if it is in their personal interest. Yikes, they are scary.

The smirk on the coifed Seattle Democrat lady as the mention of how the Washington Dem governor "found" a few extra shoeboxes of votes.

On one hand, they are drunk on their own notion of their sanctimony, and on the other, they rutt in the lowest two-bit corruption.

Hillary Clinton is their perfect muse.; 6/8/15, 1:36 AM