I really should stay out of this...I've promised myself I would stay out these threads because they become useless tit for tat, that ends up insults intended or otherwise between dug-in lines.
What we are seeing is a movement election. We are either ironing in permanently the Obama movement or we are rejecting it and turning the direction of the entire nation onto a dramatically different course. An election such as this is not going to be determined solely by the normal, mundane discussion of positions on various issues. It will be determined by the mass movement of people on very simple, basic themes. And it will be highly emotionally-charged. Whether people like it or not, emotion will determine this election. No position on any issue or set of issues will determine this election, no methodology for "bringing people together" will determine this election. One side will win and one side will lose and the side that loses will be incensed beyond any ability to come together with the winning side. It will be the ability to move people with emotion onto one side or the other that will determine this election.
Good sense - as Bigun posted - will not determine this election. There is not enough "good sense" to do that, and very few people respond to calm "good sense" because no one agrees on what "good sense" is. Bernie Sander's supporters and many other people think good sense is making large corporations pay 90 percent tax rates. That is "good sense" to millions and millions of people. Others think that "good sense" is making abortion illegal and defunding Planned Parenthood. Many, many people supporting the same exact candidate will not agree on what "good sense" is in the particulars. That is one reason why emotion will rule the day in this election - people will follow a movement, and to have a movement you must have emotional energy that connects with masses of people, they need to be driven to care about something other than their daily lives.
We've had many elections that were not movement elections...Bush v. Dukakis, Bush v. Kerry, Nixon v. Humphrey, Carter v. Ford, Nixon v. Kennedy. I call those wonk on wonk elections. This will not be one of those. The Obama years have made that determination for us. And yes, Hitler and Mussolini operated on emotional appeal. So did Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan. Emotions are necessary to create a movement. If things are going well and you wish to continue along the same trajectory just tweaking things at the margins or creating a novelty, you won't have a movement election. If you want to entirely change the direction of a nation, you need to engage the emotion of the population - and if you can't you will not win that election nor will you be successful as a leader.
This is also a large part of Hillary's problem. You will not win this election, or create a movement of "change" without engaging emotion on a massive scale. If a candidate cannot do that, they will not be successful this year. Obama set this in motion and the population is now divided, you will not make them see "good sense" because it is your "good sense" not theirs. You need to win and to do that you need to engage the imagination of the people into a mass movement. This isn't the stuff for people like McCain or Romney, or Bush or Dole. This is for someone who can light a huge fire under a mass movement.
