The Strategic Plan For The Clinton Campaign
Hillary has finally claimed the Democratic presidential nomination. Supporters of senator Bernie Sanders will undoubtedly claim that the process was rigged from the start or that given enough time Bernie can still win. They are wrong on both of these charges.
Hillary won the nomination because it was part of a grand strategy. Expecting anything less of the seasoned politician and indeed her husband, would be naïve.
When Hillary lost the Democratic nomination to Barrack Obama in 2008 she did not just discard or lay down her political armaments. She carefully lobbied herself into a powerful position in government and kept a close relationship with seasoned campaign staff, advisors and donors who she knew would needed for a run in 2016. She had kept a skeletal structure of her campaign machine in place and has been building upon this framework since 2008. She has built a formidable campaign machine within the democratic party and this was always going to overcome her rivals.
Neither is it some grand conspiracy that the so called super delegates where always going to lend the Clinton’s their support over Senator Sanders. The delegates are rational and opportunistic. They are responsive to voter’s opinions and their role in the Democratic party framework is to act as a vetting process, to ruthlessly weed out weaker candidates and pick someone who instead has broad enough appeal to win the presidency. Sanders supporters may not like this process, but it has been in place a long time.
Bill Clinton has played a key role for Hillary’s campaign. Not only has he helped in building and maintaining the machinery of the campaign, but he has also been essential in cultivating the opinion of senior democrats that with his experience and wisdom aiding her, she can win. Bill Clinton can still be credited with overseeing aa period of growth and relative harmony for the USA. He has a reputation for economic competence, with his extramarital affair being the only blemish on his otherwise impeccable time in office.
Whatever your opinions on the Clinton’s, it is hard to deny that they are both long term and superb strategists who are adept at the political game.
So what is the next step in this grand strategy? Well, she might be taking a familiar approach.
Bill Clinton was one of the founders of a new type of politics. Following on from a period of politics that established a new economic consensus in both the US and UK, a new type of leadership and party was needed if the centre left ever wanted to hold office again. Bill Clinton’s “New Democrats” was one of the first of such transformations. The UK saw New Labour emerge under John Smith then Tony Blair. Even Germany embraced Gerhard Schroeder’s “New Middle”. Bill moved the Democratic party to the centre on policy and in doing so captured America’s median voter. This new type of centrist party was less concerned about idealism but was almost wholly engaged in being a catch all and election winning machine. Pragmatism replaced long held ideological standpoints and the Democrats won big.
Donald Trump has sizeable support. There is no point in the Democrats saying otherwise. Many voters in Trumps core vote are disenfranchised and feel abandoned by establishment politicians in a period of globalization. Many are now unskilled and don’t fit with the new times or the new economy. This is why Trumps anger at globalization appeals to them. But this is still a core vote and not even the whole of the distribution of voters who would usually vote Republican.
Hillary would ideally seek to do as her husband did before her. Move ever so slightly more to the right and capture the rational minds of those median voters and republicans who are put off by Trump. Even with Hillary’s poor personal ratings, this strategy would logically see her capture enough of the centre ground and with it the White House.
There is one serious problem for the Clinton campaign though, and it’s not Donald Trump.
Bernie Sanders now has two options open to him. If he keeps on campaigning and eating into Hillary’s vote share from the left, he will be damaging Clinton’s prospects and increasing Donald Trump’s chances. This course of action would also damage him personally. Many in the Democrats will see it as a selfish and reckless manoeuvre that jeopardizes the party as a wholes chance for gaining office and preventing a Trump win.
The second and more strategic action for Bernie would be to use his base of support to lobby the Clinton’s for a position in a future government. Some would argue that from such a position he could actually enact some changes and influence policy. He could do more than sit on the side-lines and continue a more quite but more actionable revolution from within.
The problem with both of these options of course is that he would still be pulling Hillary away from the precious policy centre ground. He may have lost the nomination, but he could still cost Hillary the presidency.
HANSARD 
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