"Blowback" from Rand's Time cover....loss of (some) crossover Democrats

Democratic crossover votes aren't worth pursuing for the primary - you'll lose more GOPers than you'll gain Dems.

The general is another matter.
 
If a Time hitpiece scared them off, there'd be no way they'd go anywhere near him once the Democratic smear machine started humming.
 
jmdrake said:
Hi all. As some of you may know last go round I got between 8 and 10 of my family members to promise me they'd vote for Ron in the primary despite the fact that they are Democrats. Well one of them (I won't mention which) asked me if I had read the recent Rand Time article. (Sadly enough I haven't). She said "It seems the Republicans have gotten to him. I figured that had to happen since they are pushing him so much." Well I didn't argue since I hadn't (haven't) read the article. Of course from our perspective it seems Rand's being slammed by the establishment, though not as bad as Ron.

Anyway, I know this doesn't matter in the big picture. We missed an opportunity to get more crossover Democrats to help Ron in 2012. I stand by that as a missed opportunity because Obama was running uncontested. (That was my main pitch.) If everybody had convinced even 2 to 4 of their Democratic friends to crossover Ron might be president today.

2016 will be a contested Democratic primary so the "Why throw away your vote for Obama when he's going to win the primary anyway" pitch will not work. (Note there were some Democrats who wouldn't vote for Ron because they rightly perceived he had the better chance of beating Obama.) And with Rand seeming more appealing to Republicans, he'll be less appealing to crossover Democrats. I don't think that will affect him in the primary, and hopefully in the generally election he can make Hillary look so freakishly hawkish that crossover Democrats that didn't vote for him in the primary will vote for him in the general.
Click to expand...

Those outside the two-party paradigm have known since 2007 that Ron Paul could have been the next "landslide" Republican, who could get two thirds of the GOP behind him, most independents, and one third of the Democrats voters as well. This could have happened especially because of his potential of wooing many socially moderate to conservative democrats, as Reagan had done in the '80s, while delivering social issue reform in a constitutional way (instead of an authoritarian way, as sought by many on the Christian right). Grassroots activists for Paul on '07 saw a large number of Democrats attracted to him not only as voters, but often becoming active meetup attendees as well.

This potential coalition was scuttled by mistakes by the Paul campaign (not actively wooing social conservative votes, alienating his core grassroots support by not pursuing matters ranging from false flags to election fraud), and by the switch to emphasizing the "reform the GOP" strategy, which dropped outreach to reachable Democratic groups altogether. Rand has been making up for Ron's passivity by making progress with appealing to social conservatives, and trying to finesse foreign policy rhetoric better (though still inadequately, as he is still not fundamentally challenging the pro-intervention framework). But by being more basically Republican in his general approach, he is not as likely to pick up as many cross-over votes as Ron was.

It's still possible for Rand to get votes in the primaries from independent sources, if he aggressively and systematically went after youth votes in an organized "early voter" effort, as Ron did not. It's been repeatedly shown we cannot get young voters to the actual polls or caucus centers, but they can be gotten on an absentee basis, tailored for each state. The impact of such a campaign in the January contests would be immense, if undertaken on the scale required.
 
Last edited:
r3volution 3.0 said:
Democratic crossover votes aren't worth pursuing for the primary - you'll lose more GOPers than you'll gain Dems.

The general is another matter.
Click to expand...

The way I did it I didn't lose a single GOPer. The only way to "lose" voters of one group by appealing to another group is if the message is changed to appeal to the other group. Ron's message never changed at all and it didn't need to in order to reach Democrats. Ron lost GOPers anyway due to his message. It was a mistake not to capitalize on the voters that message actually appealed to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top