The Democrats’ "10-Point Plan to Lose the 2016 Presidential Election"

 High rollers at the big table. Only Sanders wants to break up the DC insider game (source; click to enlarge).

by Gaius Publius

An essay with a title like "The Democrats' 10-Point Plan to Lose in November" (the actual title is longer) is certainly provocative. Turns out it's an excellent analysis. I referred to it once in an earlier piece — "Media Support May Have Set Clinton Up to Fail" — and focused on just the media-related comments. But I want to give you the bones of the whole below and invite you to read it through.

Are the Democrats setting themselves up for failure? I think so. Why would they do that? That's not explained in the essay, but as I've said many times, they'd rather lose to a Republican than lose to Sanders. The reason is obvious. Sanders is determined to take down the insider game they're all of them, Republicans and Democrats, playing — to their own mutual benefit and your inevitable decline. Protecting the game that enriches them all is job one, or it seems so, based on the behavior of the Democratic Party in this election.

Now to that 10-point plan...

The Democrats' 10-Point Plan to Lose in November

The author is Seth Abramson, writing at Huffington Post. He starts:

The Democrats Are Flawlessly Executing a 10-Point Plan to Lose the 2016 Presidential Election

One needn’t speculate about how the Democrats could end up losing the 2016 presidential election. In fact, a subtly complex, multi-part plan to do just that is exactly what the Democrats have been up to over the last six months.

Here’s a detailed report on the ten steps the Democrats are now taking to ensure they lose the White House to the Republicans in 2016:

Now the points of that "plan" with some brief comments:

1. Assume that Donald Trump will be the Republicans’ 2016 nominee, though it’s now clear he won’t be.

After some discussion, Abramson writes:

Trump has no chance whatsoever to secure the nomination at the Convention itself. Choose your reason: so-called “faithless” delegates; delegates who are free to choose whoever they wish after the first ballot; delegates “for Trump” who in fact were selected and seated by Cruz or Kasich; backroom Establishment machinations that sway delegates hoping to curry Party favor — all will conspire to deny the nomination to the man who Washington Post polling indicates would be, at the start of his campaign, one of the most unpopular political candidates in U.S. history.

His own best guess as to who will be the nominee is here.

2. Nominate the only person who can reunite the Republican Party once Trump failing to get the nomination has fractured it beyond repair.

Hillary Clinton is, in short, the only savior the Republican Party has left.

So the Democrats are working as hard as they can to nominate her, of course.

3. Fracture the Democratic Party by broadly supporting the Clinton camp’s attempts to smear Bernie Sanders and his supporters.

I discussed this point with added notes here.

4. Fatally underestimate the electoral chances of the two men now most likely to be the Republican presidential nominee in November: Ted Cruz and John Kasich.

Please note this if you think early head-to-head polling is inaccurate (my underscored emphasis):

Clinton supporters say that general election polling isn’t accurate in April. Unfortunately, we know from hard data that that’s not correct. In fact, according to studies, we’re right in the middle of a spike in general-election polling accuracy — right now, as in this minute. As Vox notes, “By the time we get to mid-April of an election year, polls explain about half the variance in the eventual vote split. And mid-April polls have correctly ‘called’ the winner in about two-thirds of the cases since 1952.”

5. Fail to nominate their most popular candidate, in particular the one with the best chance of beating Ted Cruz or John Kasich in the fall.

That would be Sanders, of course.

6. Freeze one of the most popular Democrats nationally, Bernie Sanders, out of the picture altogether.

In 2008, when Hillary Clinton lost a hotly contested presidential nominating contest to Barack Obama, she was rewarded with the second-most powerful executive position in the U.S. government: Secretary of State.

In 2016, the Clinton camp, determined to offend Sanders and his supporters, has leaked that if he continues to do well — winning about half the delegates in the primary season post-March 1st — they’ll consider giving him a good speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia....

Yes, you read that right. And there's more on that subject, Sanders' "reward," in the piece.

7. Reject Sanders’ call for a fifty-state general-election campaign.

If John Kasich is the Republican nominee, the entire Midwest — especially Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Indiana — will be up for grabs in the fall. Given Clinton’s weak standing relative to Kasich in national and state head-to-head polling, if Kasich is the GOP nominee the Democrats will need to have a plan to pick up states they would not normally contest.

Polling suggests that Bernie Sanders could expand the Democratic map by bringing either into play for the first time or more firmly into the Democratic camp certain purple or even red states — Kansas, Missouri, Utah, Alaska, New Hampshire, Michigan — that Clinton might well lose in November should she be the Democratic nominee. ...

8. Do nothing whatsoever to address outstanding concerns about the character, integrity, and judgment of the Party’s front-runner.

After a discussion of the various liabilities she carries into the campaign, which she could (and should, to her benefit) work to mitigate, Abramson adds:

... Hillary Clinton appears to blame everyone but herself for the lack of trust the American people have in her. That’s a bad look for any politician, both because it ignores the concerns of voters and, moreover, suggests a candidate incapable of personal and political growth. There are many things the Clinton camp could be doing now to rehabilitate her image for the general election, and they’re doing absolutely none of them.

His list of the liabilities she could offset with not much effort is interesting, by the way.

9. Over-rely on the national media to set the political narrative for the campaign season, further alienating voters who want to vote for a candidate with vision.

I covered this point in detail here. My bottom line on his media point:

Has the media done the Clinton camp no favor in allowing it to act as it has? Abramson would say yes; as would I.

10. Ignore the youth vote.

More Millennials have a favorable opinion of socialism than capitalism, and they’re voting for Sanders over Clinton by approximately a 50-point margin. ...

And let's not forget independents. As I noted recently, they're numerous, necessary, and not "moderate Republicans." 

Abramson closes with this:

In sum, the Democrats are flawlessly executing a complex plan to lose the 2016 presidential election, slowly dismantle their own party apparatus, and become irrelevant in the next ten years. ... God help the rest of us.

To which I can only add — indeed.

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GP