NY Times: Hillary Embraces Obama's Strategy Over Bill's

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is using President Barack Obama's campaign strategy rather than the one that got her husband, Bill Clinton, twice elected to the White House, The New York Times reports. 

That's because the electorate has changed, former Clinton strategist James Carville told the Times.

"The highest-premium voter in '92 was a voter who would vote for one party some and for another party some," Carville said. "Now the highest-premium voter is somebody with a high probability to vote for you and low probability to turn out. That’s the golden list. And that’s a humongous change in basic strategic doctrine."

That shift means focusing on certain states where the party's liberal base is strong, but perhaps not motivated to get to the polls, while ignoring more conservative states with a larger number of swing voters.

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That method worked for Obama, but isn't as effective as helping the party down ticket, something the former secretary of state and New York senator says she wants to do.

It also alienates Americans who felt ignored during the campaign, making them feel they are not a part of the White House's vision.

Despite his two victories, that has been exactly what Obama has faced, and the Times said Clinton's campaign staff seems little concerned with trying to avoid it.

"If you run a campaign trying to appeal to 60 to 70 percent of the electorate, you’re not going to run a very compelling campaign for the voters you need," said top Obama strategist David Plouffe, who also has worked informally with Hillary Clinton.

Democrats in Congress aren't too optimistic of retaking control on Capitol Hill even if Clinton wins the White House. Some from conservative districts fear her strategy won't help whatever chances they have and might even make the margin for herself slimmer.

Via: NewsMax

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Drag a Hundred Dollar Bill through a School of Journalism

James Carville once shockingly demonstrated the left's disdain for the morals of the poor, saying, "Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find." In truth, you can buy whatever you want much more easily if you drag that bill through a School of Journalism.

CNS reports that George Soros has seeded such schools at the University of Southern California and the University of Wisconsin to create shock troops for the now shelved FCC plan to monitor (bully) the media into acting as even bigger megaphones for the administration and Democratic Party than they already are:

 Two schools were working with FCC on the project, according to Byron York of The Washington Examiner. The University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Communication and Democracy, were tasked by the FCC with coming up with criteria for what information is "critical" for Americans to have. The FCC study would have covered newspapers, websites, radio and television, according to The Washington Post.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison got a whopping $1,672,397 from Soros between 2000 and 2012. The university also offers OSI-sponsored grants, scholarships and fellowships. Friedland also heads Madison Commons, a liberal journalism group "powered by" the university's School of Journalism. Madison Commons, in turn, is a project of the university but supported in part by American University's J-Lab. AU, including its Cairo campus, has received $588,395 from OSF since 2008.

On top of the 1st Amendment problems with this proposal, the schools involved have strong ties to liberal billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations and have gotten more than $1.8 million from the organization since 2000.

The journalism programs at these schools have even more ties to Soros besides their funding, including faculty members writing for university-based publications allied with Soros-funded outlets.

The schools have collaborated on this project going back at least to 2012. Lewis A. Friedland, who was a "principle investigator" for the FCC on this project, also directs the Center for Communication and Democracy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He gave a presentation at Annenberg in Feb. 2012, on "communication ecology." This was just four months before the schools presented their findings to the FCC.

Via: American Thinker
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Carville: Blame Obama, Not Republicans

Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville said the president is to blame for the blundered Obamacare debut, not Republicans.

 

Interviewed by Fox Business Network today, Carville said, “I think the president has himself to blame as much as anybody. I don't think he was done in, in this instance by the Republicans, or done in by the media, done in by anything.”

He also defended former boss Bill Clinton’s criticism of Obama over the president’s broken promise about Americans keeping their health insurance plans under Obamacare, but said the former president should have used kinder language.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Kristol, Carville spar over Obama approval numbers

On Monday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and Democratic strategist James Carville debated President Barack Obama’s low opinion numbers and if there are any hopes Obama can rebound and do something with his presidency.

Kristol downplayed the historical significance of the sinking numbers and suggested this had more to do with Obama’s failed policies.

“Can I say that you guys are over thinking this?” Kristol said. “Deep, historical, systemic things — Obamacare is a total disaster. If Obamacare were working well and if we were respected around the world and people had the sense that Iranians were in retreat and our allies had confidence in us, don’t you think Obama’s points would be 10 points higher? I don’t think this is due to history. This is due to the fact that his actual policies are failing: Americans are losing health insurance and Iranians are keeping their nuclear program.”

Carville fired back by saying there are a lot of things looking good for Obama and room for improvement, which in his opinion is cause not to give up on the president.

“Can I make a point here?” Carville replied. “The deficit is dropping as a percentage of GDP faster thany anytime since World War II. He saved the auto industry. Health-care costs are flattening any time better in the last 20 years. Teenage pregnancy is at an all-time low. And the health care thing — who’s to say. I do not know. But on Nov. 30 suppose it’s working well. Then that story will fade somewhat in the background. I think we can stop putting the nails in the coffin here. We can admit that there’s some real, deep, fundamental problems with this president. But I think we’re throwing the dirt here too soon, guys, I really do.”

Kristol agreed a lot hinged on the success of Obama’s policies, but that success could be a tall order.

“I agree with James in the sense it all depends on policies. If Obamacare works, if it turns out, hey, they love that new health insurance they’re paying more for and the system works wonderfully, the central planning for 320 million people really works much better than one might think it might, that’ll be — then he’ll be in better shape. Indeed — and, indeed, if Iran starts dismantling its nuclear weapons and we’re stronger around the world and people stop dying in Syria and so forth, then Obama’s numbers will go up. I agree. It’s about substance.”

Carville added that Obama has kept the country out of wars, but said the self-imposed Nov. 30 deadline to see that the Obamacare website functions properly will play in huge for Obama’s public opinion numbers.

Via: Daily Caller

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Mother Jones Shocker: 'New Poll Shows Democratic Incumbents in Big Trouble'

Since the government shutdown, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some media member claiming Republicans are in a lot of trouble heading into next year's midterm elections.

Breaking with the trend rather surprisingly Wednesday was the perilously liberal Mother Jones with a piece titled "New Poll Shows Democratic Incumbents in Big Trouble."

The poll was actually from James Carville and Stan Greenberg's Democracy Corps and was titled "The Revolt Against Washington and the Republican Congress."

Despite Carville and Greenberg's conclusions, author Kevin Drum dug deeper into the specifics to find some contrary nuggets:

In Democratic districts, net incumbent approval has plummeted by 11 points, from +8 approval to +3 disapproval. In Republican districts, incumbent approval has gone down only 4 points. You see the same results when they ask a question about warmth of feeling toward incumbents: It's down 7 points in Republican districts and 9 points in Democratic districts.

This isn't good news for Democrats. It's true that attitudes toward the Republican Party have taken a bigger hit than attitudes toward the Democratic Party, but attitudes toward actual incumbents are exactly the opposite. And in elections, that's what matters.

Wow! A liberal publication taking a Democratic poll and finding bad news for...Democrats?

I don't imagine you'll be hearing THAT on MSNBC any time soon.

Via: Newsbusters

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