Pundits Who Toasted Bush's "Base" Campaign Strategy Now Attack Democrats For Doing Same Thing

Is there a "right way" and a "wrong way" to win elections? Is it "too easy" for presidential candidates to simply win more electoral votes than their opponents? Or are they responsible, for the sake of our democracy, to try to win big?

That odd debate was sparked this week by the New York Times in a widely, widely ridiculed article that seemed to chastise Hillary Clinton's campaign for not trying to win over swing voters and voters in deeply red, Republican states. Despite the ridicule, the "narrow path" critique was quickly embraced by columnists David Brooks at the Times and Ron Fournier at National Journal, who attached ethical implications to the campaign strategy.

Fournier complained that simply winning more votes than your opponent in 2016 is definitely the "wrong way" to get elected. "It's not the right path." Brooks agreed, insisting that by not spending an inordinate amount of time, money and resources chasing swing voters, Clinton would be making a "mistake." Worse, it's "bad" for "the country."

Sure, she might be elected. Sure she might be able to lead the country in a direction she wants and beat back Republican initiatives she thinks are bad for the country. But it would all still be a terrible "mistake," according to Brooks.

Why? The optics wouldn't be right. It's too "easy." Because entire presidencies are now determined by how elections are won. If races are won the "wrong" way, the four-year term is a waste. Because national elections in a deeply divided nation are supposed to be unifying events. Or something. (Did I mention this "narrow path" critique has been widely, widely ridiculed?)

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/06/12/pundits-who-toasted-bushs-base-campaign-strateg/203981

Widely, widely is bolded -- this is one of the articles ridiculing the article.

No, Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Strategy Isn’t Bad for America

The newest meme in the 2016 campaign is the idea that Hillary Clinton is running a “narrower,” more partisan campaign than her husband did, thereby endangering her ability to govern if she wins, and possibly endangering her campaign itself. To call an idea a meme has certain insulting connotations — it implies that it spreads from person to person on the basis of its cosmetic appeal, without having any analytic heft to support it. In this case, the insulting connotation is fair.

The main basis for the meme is a mostly good front-page news analysis from Sunday’s New York Times, by Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman, which contrasts Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategy with her husband’s 1992 version. Centrist pundits like Ron Fournier and David Brooks have loaded Martin and Haberman’s analysis with moral connotations, producing columns that excoriate Clinton as divisive, partisan, liberal, and bad for America. The meme is powerful because it appeals to deep-seated emotions that animate centrists like Fournier and Brooks. But it is based on a series of misapprehensions about American politics piled atop each other, producing a conclusion that is bizarre and incoherent.

1. Martin and Haberman identify an important ideological difference between the current Clinton campaign and the previous version. Bill Clinton ran in 1992, during a conservative era, when most social issues favored the Republican Party. Bill Clinton adopted heterodox positions on criminal justice and welfare in order to rebuild his party’s trust with white voters, who had fled in the mid-1960s.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has the luxury of social issues that unite her basis with the center. The Times story correctly identifies her “liberal positions on gay rights, immigration, criminal justice, voting rights and pay equity for women.” The article does not mention that those positions, in addition to appealing to liberals, also appeal to the center, though Martin and Haberman have made this point in previous stories. Those liberal positions place Republicans in a bind between their base and the political center. All this is to say that Hillary Clinton, like her husband, is attempting to occupy the political center on social issues but has the benefit of more favorable terrain. One reason for this is that the electorate looks dramatically different than it did 24 years ago. In 1992, nonwhite voters constituted just 13 percent of the electorate. In 2016, they will probably cast 30 percent of the votes.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/06/clintons-strategy-isnt-bad-for-america.html

This is the "widely, widely" ridiculed article

Hillary Clinton Traces Friendly Path, Troubling Party

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to be dispensing with the nationwide electoral strategy that won her husband two terms in the White House and brought white working-class voters and great stretches of what is now red-state America back to Democrats.

Instead, she is poised to retrace Barack Obama’s far narrower path to the presidency: a campaign focused more on mobilizing supporters in the Great Lakes states and in parts of the West and South than on persuading undecided voters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/us/politics/hillary-clinton-traces-friendly-path-troubling-party.html?_r=1

I can see the problem. Obama's "far-narrower path" including electoral college blowouts and according to polls the political center are progressive policies so Hillary Clinton has the right ideas when it comes to votes. I think the trouble is during policy decision time who has their ear.