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I appreciate the thoughtful approach Doug Berdie utilized in his examination of how liberals might connect with Middle America (Seven ways liberals must realign with Middle America, April 9), but I believe he has overanalyzed the operating dynamic.

For an ever-growing segment of the electorate, a presidential election (and many other political office elections) is nothing more than a pageant in which the candidate who can most convincingly advocate for a given pie-in-the-sky agenda will have the upper hand. The agenda must embrace only the most tried and true clichs and pandering. Once the candidate has established his or her superiority in transferring the excellence of his or her agenda to the public conscience, said candidate becomes the shiny object, and is barring a catastrophic revelation of bestiality or mass murder or some equivalent disqualifying heinous behavior a shoo-in.

Narrowing the discussion to recent presidential elections: 1984 and 1988 shiny object: Ronald Reagan; 1992 and 1996 shiny object: Bill Clinton; 2000 and 2004 no shiny object (elections with no shiny object are often, if not always, close, and the Republican candidate will always win); 2008 and 2012 shiny object: Barack Obama; 2016 special case: Donald Trump was seen both as shiny object to some and viable alternative to a very unshiny object to others, but a net nonshiny object see 2000 and 2004.

Read the original here:
Readers Write (April 16): Responses to 'Seven ways liberals must realign with Middle America' - Minneapolis Star Tribune