The problem with thinking that voters choose general election candidates on the issues is that, mostly, they don't. People pick parties on the basis of salient-to-them social identities and vote for that party's candidate knowing little about their specific stances on issues.
-
-
Replying to @willwilkinson @JamesSurowiecki and
Primaries are partly a contest to define the party's platform. Relatively unpopular positions can become popular if a candidate who supports them becomes the party standard bearer.
2 replies 1 retweet 8 likes -
Replying to @willwilkinson @JamesSurowiecki and
More informed and engaged voters tend to hew the party line on issues, whatever it is, while less informed and engaged voters are all over the map on issues, but mostly just vote for their party, if they vote.
2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @willwilkinson @JamesSurowiecki and
Democrats have a bunch of lower-participation voters for whom some "unpopular" issue positions are salient and popular. If, say, decriminalization of improper entry, boosts turnout of a hard-to-turnout group, that can help more than it hurts. It's hard to say.
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @willwilkinson @JamesSurowiecki and
But it's wrong to pretend that you KNOW that it hurts more than helps just because overall polling says the public as a whole doesn't much like it.
2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @willwilkinson @JamesSurowiecki and
Everybody seems to understand it can be electorally better for Republicans to run on unpopular positions (even among registered Rs!) on gun control, immigration, and social insurance, because those positions turn out motivated issue voters while turning off few reliable Rs.
1 reply 0 retweets 13 likes -
By the way, there may not be any immigration position that's less popular than cutting legal immigration. Yet it's never discussed this way. We only hear that "kids in cages" is a problem for Trump, not that wanting to cut legal immigration is a problem for him (which it is).
2 replies 3 retweets 16 likes -
Yes. This is part of the reliable right-biased double standard of mainstream political journalists and pundits, which ref-working from the right-wing media has succeeded in achieving.
2 replies 0 retweets 13 likes -
Replying to @willwilkinson @ThePlumLineGS and
It's just a monumental rhetorical victory, and many good "wanna-be-objective" Democrat-voting journalists still don't understand they've been worked so thoroughly that their analysis rigs the discourse on the right's terms.
1 reply 2 retweets 12 likes -
Is there really a single Democrat-voting pundit of any weight who hasn't said legal immigration is a good thing for the country?
3 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
T.A. Frank?
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.