The Changing Face of Centrist Campaigning
By JAMELLE BOUIE
LA Times
June 14
Imagine three presidents. The first sold a moderate message to win a three-way race with 49% of the vote. The second sold a conservative one and won with just under 51% of the vote. And the third ran a liberal campaign and won with just over 51% of the vote.
Of the three presidents, who had the “broad” campaign of wide appeal? And who had the narrow one of partisan mobilization?
If you know your politics, you know these campaigns. The first is Bill Clinton's 1996 run, the second is George W. Bush's in 2004, and the third is Barack Obama's 2012 reelection bid. And of them, Obama's was the most successful: Not only did he win an outright majority, but he won the most votes — as a share of the total — in a presidential election since George H.W. Bush, and became the first Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to win two national majorities.
Looking to 2016, Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to achieve what Obama did, and so she's running a version of his campaign, openly appealing to the groups that supported him. In the last two months, she's endorsed criminal justice reform, pushed expansive immigration reform and called for an overhaul of voting laws to improve access.
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http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0614-bouie-clinton-appeal-20150614-story.html