She is hands down the most broadly qualified and experienced among the candidates. But there remains an intangible quality that eludes her: connectivity. Even many people who admire her simply don’t trust her.
This is the same problem that, to varying degrees, Mitt Romney, Al Gore and Bob Dole had. It’s not fixable. Indeed, attempts to fix it feel even more forced and phony.
Another part of this problem stems from something far more tangible: the taint of scandal that has trailed her and her husband much of their lives.
Millennials are notoriously distrusting of institutions. Sanders is anti-institution. The Clintons are an institution... Do they want to put forth a survivor in chief, of whom many are suspicious and about whom few are truly excited, or a dreamer in chief (in the candidacy of Sanders) who says all the things they want to hear but that they quietly know he’ll never be able to deliver?
Why Are Asian-Americans Such Loyal Democrats?
There is one issue, race or ethnicity-based affirmative action, on which Asian-American loyalty to the liberal agenda is more conflicted.
More than 60 Asian-American groups have filed complaints with the Department of Justice and the Department of Education charging that preferences for African-Americans and Hispanics at Harvard and other selective colleges have reduced the number of Asian- Americans accepted. The complaints are based on the fact that Asian-Americans as a group have substantially higher standardized test scores and grades than competing demographic groups, including whites.
.. “Asian applicants are the biggest winners if race is no longer considered in admissions” at “three highly selective private research universities” which the authors declined to identify. The Asian share of those accepted at such institutions would grow from 23.7 percent to 31.5 percent, they wrote.
.. Asian-Americans, according to the Pew Research Center, “are the best-educated, highest-income, fastest-growing race group in the country.”
.. The percent of out-of-wedlock births among Asian-Americas in 2013 was 17 percent, just over half the 29.3 percent rate for whites and far below the 53.2 rate for Hispanics and the 71.5 percent rate for African-Americans.
.. In this respect, Asian-Americans are similar to another minority voting group with strong Democratic ties, American Jews.
.. Asian-Americans share with blacks, Hispanics and Jews an experience of previously marginalized status and social exclusion. These four constituencies also share a belief that a commitment to hard work and self-reliance does not conflict with a belief in a strong government and a reliable safety net.
Such views stand in direct contrast to those of the Tea Party and Wall Street wings of the Republican Party, both of which see self-reliance and big government as antithetical to each other.
How Did the Democrats Become Favorites of the Rich?
Democrats now depend as much on affluent voters as on low-income voters. Democrats represent a majority of the richest congressional districts, and the party’s elected officials are more responsive to the policy agenda of the well-to-do than to average voters. The party and its candidates have come to rely on the elite 0.01 percent of the voting age population for a quarter of their financial backing and on large donors for another quarter.
The gulf between the two parties on socially fraught issues like abortion, immigration, same-sex marriage and voting rights remains vast. On economic issues, however, the Democratic Party has inched closer to the policy positions of conservatives, stepping back from championing the needs of working men and women, of the unemployed and of the so-called underclass.
.. contributions to Democrats from the top 0.01 percent of adults — a much larger share of the population than the Forbes 400 list — has grown from about 7 percent of total campaign contributions in 1980 to more than 25 percent of contributions in 2012.
.. Gilens notes that policies popular with the middle class but not with the affluent rarely win enactment
.. Conversely, policies opposed by the middle-class but backed by the affluent include “tax cuts for upper-income individuals, spending cuts in Medicare, and roll-backs of federal retirement programs” – policies that have been adopted.
.. The problem is that the core of Sanders’s support, according to an October 2 Pew Research Center survey, is more concentrated among the college-educated than among those without degrees, and stronger among middle-class and affluent Democrats than among low-income Democrats.
.. Most important, in recent years, the Democratic Party has become the political home for those whose most passionate cause is cultural, as opposed to economic, liberalism
.. College graduates were 22.9 percentage points more liberal on homosexuality than those without high school degrees, and 24.8 percentage points more liberal in their views on gay marriage.
Martin O’Malley Rails at Democrats for Debate Schedule ‘Rigged’ to Aid Hillary Clinton
Mr. O’Malley, the former Maryland governor and mayor of Baltimore, questioned the decision to hold “four debates and four debates only” before the first four states finish voting.
“This is totally unprecedented in our party’s history,” Mr. O’Malley said. “This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before. Whose decree is it exactly? Where did it come from? To what end? For what purpose? What national or party interest does this decree serve? How does this help us tell the story of the last eight years of Democratic progress?”
.. While Mr. O’Malley has been deeply critical of the party for weeks over the debate schedule, this was a frontal attack on the party’s leadership from its own stage. Without endorsements or many major donors, Mr. O’Malley has little to lose.