I’ve been a political junkie for a while.

By this point in any of multiple past Presidential election cycles I’d have heard twenty or more references to a big difference between “Primary” elections and the early part of the race and the later part of the race and general election…

Which is… that historically each party’s candidate has to play to the party’s base early on and during primaries to win their party’s nomination, but then “pivot to the center” for the general election to pick up enough independents and swing voters who are not committed to either party, but vote anyway.

(Swing voters are now a higher percentage of all voters than ever before, by the way. Fact.)

This has historically been addressed multiple times from multiple angles throughout the Presidential election cycle… my guess is that news anchors have historically tried to “keep it real” for both the public who’s trying to figure out why candidates pivot, and to also keep it real for “wing” party activists who always want to choose their party’s nominee using a long rigid ideological purity checklist.

But this time, not so much about swinging.

In fact I haven’t really heard much AT ALL about all that this year.

But I’ve heard about twenty times Democrats say their theory to win the general election is to choose a candidate that is as “progressive” as possible to excite and turn out their liberal base to win the general election.

For past Presidential general elections this has been bad strategy, which is why nobody’s ever heard of President McGovern.

And I assert that the dynamics behind that is even more true in 2019 than it was in 1979. There are even more disaffected people in the middle who have written off both parties now than there were then. The need to appeal to the middle is larger now than ever.

So…

  • Given that Democrats are screwing up one of the major strategy points of past Presidential elections
  • Given that the economy is good, which helps the incumbent President get re-elected
  • Given Trump’s favorability rating is remarkably stable and higher than when he got elected
  • Given that the incumbent President just has a big advantage, period
  • And given that Democrats are taking Trump’s bait time after time

I predict, that if things keep going the same way they’re going, that Trump will be re-elected in 2020.

And, given the standard response of Democrats lately has been to double down on being Democrats… gee, what could go wrong?

And so… for the news anchors and pundits who this cycle are failing to mention what they’ve always mentioned in the past (because we forget these things)…

Shame on you. Poor news reporting. Fake news.

But for THIS blurb, here and now:

Democrats – swing less to the left, swing more to the center.

Appeal to the center. Do good things in the center. Make things work in the center. Kick some butt in the center.

Please?