A Quote by Mark Penn
Winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election. If it were, every nominee would win because every nominee wins Democratic primaries.
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If I'm not the Democratic nominee, I'm gonna get out there and work for whoever the Democratic nominee is, because I believe they will be better than the alternative.
It's logical and fair to allow only registered or self-identified Democrats to choose their party's nominee (although numerous states do have open primaries). Letting more non-Democrats choose the nominee doesn't guarantee success in a November general election. And it does nothing to encourage people to join and work for the party.
As far as party primaries are concerned, both Republican - and Democratic - Party primaries are dominated by the most zealous voters, whose views may not reflect the views of most members of
their own respective parties, much less the views of those who are going to vote in the November general election.
There was also a sense that if he [Obama] did not win in Iowa, that it was very unlikely that he would be able to come back and win the Democratic nomination and win the general election. It was sort of an all-or-nothing bet. The stakes were that high.
To win in 2020, a Democratic nominee will need to win back voters in key Midwestern states who supported Trump in 2016.
There is a reality to the primary process, and you don't win primaries by being ahead in national polls. You win them by winning Iowa, by winning New Hampshire, by winning South Carolina, winning Florida.
There is no reason why the right Democratic nominee can't win Ohio. President Obama did it twice in 2008 and 2012.
What is absolutely clear is that if Trump is the nominee, Republicans cannot win. Maybe they can't win with Rubio or Cruz or Kasich. We don't know. But what is absolutely certain is that with Hillary Clinton locking up the Democratic base, she is going to win unless she has a strong contender who is going to be able to pull - not only bring the entire Republican Party on the side, but win moderates. Donald Trump cannot do that.
I think a lot of Democrats I know, who will vote in the Democratic primary and vote for the Democratic nominee and later general, they go back and forth between two feelings. One is oh, my God, I`m terrified. Maybe this guy will be formidable in a general.
Successful presidential campaigns follow a two-part strategy. For Republicans, Richard Nixon described it as running to the right in the primaries and running back to the center in the general election. For Democrats, the idea is to go to the left in the primaries, then to the center.
Bill and Hillary Clinton have one central idea in their uncluttered, ambitious minds: Hillary in 2008. Let Bush get re-elected, use the '04 primaries and general election to clean out the underbrush of competing Democratic candidates, and proceed unimpeded to the '08 nomination.
During the protracted tooth-and-nail tussle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, I was one of those fierce partisans desperate for the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House to win the nomination.
You don't feel you have the same voice in a presidential election if you live in a solid blue or a solid red state. I also don't think we've educated voters well on the different ways in which primaries work in different states. It doesn't need to be the case that you end up with one Democrat and one Republican, you have open primaries, you can have jungle primaries. There are various permutations and combinations of how to do this.
Our [Republicans'] object is to avoid having stupid candidates who can't win general elections, who are undisciplined, can't raise money, aren't putting together the support necessary to win a general election campaign, because this money is too difficult to raise to be spending it on behalf of candidates who have little chance of winning in a general election.
I normally don't endorse in Democratic primaries.
When I was a young man, I used to dream maybe someday I could be an alderman. Instead of that I became an attorney general, a senator, a vice president, a Democratic nominee.
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