2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Who should have been the democratic party nominee for president? [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If that had been used in the ads, rather than banging away endlessly on the "Trump is a bastard" thing, it would have made a difference. Focusing so much on trying to delegitimize Trump(he deserved delegitimization, but that was never going to be enough) created the false impression in a lot of voters' minds(especially younger voters, I think), that we weren't offering anything, that we thought it was enough to call out our opponent's odiousness.
In my recollection, as soon as the convention was over, the implicit message to Sanders supporters was "You lost. Nothing you did mattered. You have no right to expect anything, and you owe us your vote anyway. They were attacked for continuing to fight for their principles. They were attacked for trying to stay together organizationally.
A partnership message has to be repeated over and over to be retained in voter consciousness. And it has to be based on respect.
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