Campaigning Like It's 1999

According to The Hill, "Clinton allies" are now blaming Bernie Sanders for Hillary Clinton's poor performance in recent opinion polls.  Specifically, they complain that Sanders' continued attacks on Clinton and his failure "to begin bringing everyone together” hurts Hillary Clinton because it "... holds her back from controlling the narrative.”   Maybe that's the voice of her chief campaign strategist, Joel Benenson.  His company's website emphasizes the use of language, words, and "messaging framework" for competitive advantage.  The Hill adds that these latest polls "have cemented a belief in Clinton World that the candidate needs to devote all her time now to the general election."  I think that means the Clinton campaign is approaching the 2016 Presidential Election with a strategy from the 1990's: talk one way -- liberal -- during the primary, and then moderate your language for the general election.

That's certainly the kind of campaign strategy which "Third Way" would endorse.  "Third Way" glorifies political moderates and insists that "America is best led from the center."  One of their beliefs is that moderates are "the deciders" in national elections: "the outcome is decided by those in the middle." Naturally, they would like for campaigns to court "moderates."  In 2014 they commissioned a survey of 1,500 registered U.S. voters by the Benenson Strategy Group and determined that the voters who called themselves "moderate" amounted to 37% of the sample population.  One third of the moderates (12% of the total sample) said that they voted equally for Democrats and Republicans.  And 65% of the moderates rejected the statement that "Politics do not really affect my life and I tune out most discussions about politics."  Third Way called that proof that moderates are politically engaged, even though 62% of the moderates also said they actively avoided political discussions.  According to Molly Ball at The Atlantic, Third Way's survey results showed that Democrats should not "stray too far to the left" in their election campaigns.

I'm guessing that Hillary Clinton listens to Third Way campaign strategists.  Her current campaign strategist runs the company which conducted the aforementioned survey for Third Way.  One of Third Way's founders, Matt Bennett, worked in Bill Clinton's presidential election campaigns.  And Hillary herself is said to have led a U.S. delegation to a 1997 conference on how to ensure the continuity of Third Way ideas.  So I think she would certainly be inclined to listen to them.

Now, I have no experience or training as a campaign manager, but there is evidence which suggests that a Third Way campaign strategy might be less appropriate in 2016:

• The PBS show "Frontline"observed that George W. Bush's campaign in 2004 differed from his campaign in 2000.  To find out why, "Frontline" interviewed a number of people who participated in the Bush-Cheney campaign of 2004, including Matthew Dowd, the campaign's chief strategist.  Dowd's explanation for the difference included the following remarks: 

"One of the first things I looked at after 2000 was what was the real Republican vote and what was the real Democratic vote, not just who said they were Republicans and Democrats, but independents, how they really voted, whether or not they voted straight ticket or not. And I took a look at that in 2000, and then I took a look at what it was over the last five elections or six elections." 

"And what came from that analysis was a graph that I obviously gave Karl, which showed that independents or persuadable voters in the last 20 years had gone from 22 percent of the electorate to 7 percent of the electorate in 2000....you could lose the 6 or 7 percent and win the election, which was fairly revolutionary, because everybody up until that time had said, 'Swing voters, swing voters, swing voters, swing voters, swing voters.'"

"We didn't say, 'Base motivation is what we're going to do, and that's all we're doing.' We said, 'Both are important, but we shouldn't be putting 80 percent of our resources into persuasion and 20 percent into base motivation,' which is basically what had been happening up until that point...."

•  In 2014, Pew Research Center conducted a national survey of 10,013 adults and found that, over   the past 20 years, the percentage of Americans with mixed liberal and conservative opinions -- the "center" -- had declined by 10%.  Moreover, many of those in the "center" indicated that they "... remain on the edges of the political playing field, relatively distant and disengaged...."  At the same time, the percentage of Americans who are consistently liberal or consistently conservative had risen from 10% to 21%, meaning that Democrats had moved to the left and Republicans had moved to the right, with less and less overlap between the parties.  (PRC's report includes some nice graphics which reflect this.)

• NPR analyzed exit polls from the 2016 primaries held thus far and found that "...voters are far less moderate than they were in their last primaries."  More Republicans described themselves as "somewhat" or "very" conservative, and fewer called themselves "moderate" or "liberal."  At the same time, more Democratic voters identified themselves as "somewhat" or "very liberal." NPR concluded that "Democrats this year have more decidedly moved toward the "very liberal" end of the spectrum."

• Political scientists David Broockman and Doug Ahler noted that U.S. citizens may appear to be ideologically "moderate" because they often "support policies on both sides of the ideological spectrum."  However, Broockman and Ahler's research disclosed that "...most citizens support idiosyncratic bundles of policies, many of which are not moderate."  Moreover, "...citizens’ demand for politicians who represent these immoderate issue views appears greater than their desire for politicians with centrist positions." 

So, following a campaign strategy which worked in the 1990's might not work anymore.   There are fewer "moderates" in the electorate, they often have radical views on issues that matter to them, and they are generally less engaged anyway.  Meanwhile, the bases of both parties are more engaged, have increased in size, and have become more "extreme."  Perhaps a candidate in 2016 needs to ensure first that her party base is sufficiently motivated to support her, before attempting to persuade citizens outside of her party that she is worthy of their vote also.