One unfortunate feature of national political campaigns over the last quarter-century has been the “base turnout” model. Rather than try to modulate the message and agenda to appeal to the center, both of the major parties have focused instead on energizing their base. Barack Obama may have been the exception in this century, about which I wrote in my book Going Red, but even that was only in his first presidential election. By 2012, Obama had to rely on his base and his considerable personal approval to skate by in a close re-election effort.
Donald Trump also relied on a base-turnout model in both of his presidential elections, as did Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. But that may be changing, prompted in part by the opening provided by Biden’s exposure as a senile figurehead in the debate. Axios reports that Trump has put in hard work to remove or rewrite controversial planks in…
