At Bloomberg View Albert Hunt gives some unsolicited advice to Democrats:
Two top Democrats made dangerous blunders over the past few weeks that should serve as a warning for politicians opposing Donald Trump.
Former Vice President Joe Biden told college students that Trump’s comments and actions about women were so offensive that if they were in high school, “I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.”
In India, Hillary Clinton suggested that her voters in 2016 were from “optimistic, diverse and dynamic” venues, while Trump appealed to voters who “didn’t like black people getting rights” and who “don’t like women getting jobs.”
There was a backlash: When you insult voters you may need someday, they probably aren’t going to vote for you; and when you mud-wrestle with pigs, the pigs enjoy it.
Biden, who immediately heard from friends and family, quickly realized the error of his impulsive threat and apologized. “I shouldn’t have said what I said,” he explained. “I don’t want to get down in the mosh pit with this guy.”
Other Democrats will be similarly tempted when insulted by something Trump has done or said, sometimes viciously.
Here’s a wacky idea. Avoid negative advertising entirely and ensure that the outside groups that support you do, too. Its main effect is to discourage voting.
I predict they won’t take the advice. The temptation is just too great and the force of habit is irresistible.
I’ll offer some advice I’m confident will also be ignored. It remains true that the candidate who paints the most optimistic picture of America, present and future, gets elected president. And if you exclude groups of voters from that picture, they won’t vote for you.
I’d also suggest that they run the candidates who are the best fit for the states and local areas in which they are running and leave ideology alone. They won’t take that advice either.
I think Democrats just have to accept that Trump can say any awful, insulting, childish, mean, stupid, etc thing he wants to say and Republicans will usually love it, or justify it. You probably aren’t going to win by trying to be as hyperbolic and lie as much as he does. I can see how it might get under your skin and you might want to fire back, but his fans who support anything he says or does will need the fainting salts if anyone says anything remotely awful back at him.
While the above may be hard to accept, the second part is so obvious you shouldn’t have to say it. You just don’t insult voters, even if they are not voting for you now. If the press asks you questions about the opposition’s voters, you say nice things or you duck the question. Heck, politicians hardly ever answer the question they are asked anyway, so should be easy.
Steve
“….will need the fainting salts if anyone says anything remotely awful back at him.”
That’s funny, he’s had nothing but invective thrown at him since the beginning………….and I’ve seen nary a faint, or a salty remedy.
But speaking of petulant little brats, has Hillary reached excuse number 300 yet? Has NBC, CNN or MSNBC finished raiding the Valium chest? Is Lawrence O’Donnell out of therapy? Maybe she should recycle the VRWC, sure suckered and then humiliated her husbands sycophants, and cabinet, a while back. Where’s Lanny Davis to give her a hug when she needs it?
Do Democrats need any advice? Last I saw, they won a senate seat in Alabama and a Congressional seat that went for Trump by a 20% in 2016.
As it stands, they are favorites to win the House and the Senate, so whatever they are doing or not doing is working.