it assumes a large amount of swing voters do sway with the wind.

but swing voters historically just largely sway against the party in power. some of them after 4 years. and a lot more of them after 8 years. which is why its hard for 1 party to win 3 terms.

we talk about obama-trump voters. but a lot of them are really just clinton-bush-obama-trump voters. all 4 of those were inaugurated from the party out of power.

plus we concentrate on those white non college educated voters in areas that swung to trump (presumably captivated by a non-pragmatic candidate) more than those suburban white college educated voters in population growth areas that swung to clinton and dems in general since 2016 (captivated by centrist/pragmatic candidates). which is why clinton still got the most votes.

one of those groups is declining. one of those groups is ascending. its illogical to think dems should abandon basic electoral math to center their approach around the former at the risk of alienating the latter.

and to put a subtle/technical cap on it...trump running moderate on lgbtq identity, courting pence for evangelicals, and appealing to ancestral party loyalists by running on specific reaganisms (make america great again)...were those not cynically pragmatic ploys?

and one last point...we talk about pragmatists/moderates/centrists losing in the general. how come we never talk about why those pragmatists/moderates/centrists more overwhelmingly win the party primary to get to the general (and by safe margins)? the (D)emocratic base is broad in itself. why dont these anti-pragmatic candidates who dems supposedly should rely on to win the general appeal to the majority of the base first?


>I don't necessarily think your last point is true. The wave of
>Obama support started after his speech at the 2004 DNC; which
>was naturally much more about hype and personality than it was
>policy and pragmatism.

well its not gonna be heavy on policy because it was a convention keynote speech from someone who isnt running for president lol.

but from obamas speech:
"Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too: We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States, and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq."

i mean...thats the type of centrist broad platitude pandering/pragmatism that anti-centrists make fun of. lets not forget the speech was in support of dem nominee john kerry lol.

people (not directed at you but you know the type im referring too) cant try to reframe obamas rise as some mantle of unabashed leftism when he clearly staked out ground in the boring platitudinous center (which is where the majority of votes reside).


>And, in PROMO's defense, I don't think he was saying that
>Obama *wasn't* pragmatic. Just saying that he had both and the
>magnetism of a candidate is ultimately what swings the voters
>needed to win in our shitty election system one way or the
>other.

that would just make him a good retail politician then. so are the non-pragmatic candidates just not good politicians in your opinion? (chicken/egg?)