Although it may not be clear to the casual observer who relies on Fox News or MSNBC for information, there’s more to this year’s presidential campaign strategies than simple personal invective.
The Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump campaigns are following very different, but very rational strategies as both candidates try to keep balance during this tumultuous period of voter realignment.
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Voter realignments are major turning points in our political history. They have occurred only five times before and they represent a fundamental shift in how voters respond to issues. The end result of a voter realignment is a reorganization of the political parties.
Voters and politicians have responded to the current realignment in different ways. Voters are angry, frustrated, confused and distrustful as the old issues and political parties no longer seem relevant. Politicians, uncertain of the direction of issues and how voters will respond, tend to rely upon personal attacks rather than taking policy positions.
All of these factors help us understand the strategies Clinton and Trump are using to attract voters.
The Clinton campaign is trying to capture as much middle ground as possible. It portrays Hillary as moderate, rational and experienced. This strategy requires her to backtrack on some issues, such as trade, and modify her position on others, such as health care. She and her campaign managers are hoping the voter realignment has not yet eroded away the traditional middle ground and that such a strategy can still rally voters.
Clinton is following the classic example set by Stephen A. Douglas in the 1860 presidential campaign. Douglas, the Democratic Party nominee for president, was also caught in the middle of a voter realignment.
To his political right were the Southern Democrats led by John C. Breckinridge and the Constitutional Union Party under the leadership of John Bell. On Douglas’ left was Abraham Lincoln and the newly formed Republican Party. The catalyst for the voter realignment was the extension of slavery into the territories, an issue that ultimately broke apart the Whig Party, gave temporary energy to the American or Know-Nothing Party, fractured the Democratic voter coalition built by Andrew Jackson and created the Republican Party.
Amidst the swirling confusion of anti-slavery, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-liquor and states’ rights issues, Stephen Douglas portrayed himself as the reasonable moderate between the extremes of Lincoln on the one side and Breckinridge on the other. He repeatedly declared that he cared not whether slavery was voted up or down, but that the question ought to be left to the people in the territories.
Douglas, however, didn’t fully realize that a voter realignment was taking place and that the middle ground was quickly disappearing. His position of “caring not” about slavery was nearly irrelevant to the voters who were directly responding to slavery issues.
Nevertheless, Douglas’ strategy nearly worked. He drew more than 1.3 million voters, far more than either Breckinridge or Bell. Lincoln, of course, won the election with a majority of electoral votes, even though he attracted only 1.8 million voters -- a plurality, but not a majority.
Hillary Clinton is obviously hoping for better results with her strategy to appear as the reasonable moderate, and unlike Douglas, Clinton may have better timing. We may be early enough in the realignment process that there still is sufficient middle ground that voters find relevant.
Donald Trump is vigorously pursuing a different strategy. He is embracing the voter realignment and trying to capitalize on aspects of voter anger and frustration.
Trump portrays himself as an outsider, anti-elite and anti-political party. His message is that he is a problem solver, a man of action who has no patience for equivocating politicians.
His campaign embraces the frustration, distrust and anger of voters, focusing on carefully selected anti-immigrant, anti-terrorist and America-first issues while dismissing Clinton as dishonest, unprincipled and ineffectual.
Trump’s campaign strategy recalls a number of historical examples. He has the iconoclastic anti-establishment brashness of Teddy Roosevelt and the fiery anger of an outsider like George Wallace, but Trump’s campaign strategy more closely resembles that of Andrew Jackson’s 1828 election.
A celebrity in his time for his military victory at the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson had been frustrated in his attempt to win the presidency in 1824 -- unjustly defeated by corrupt politicians, he claimed.
In his 1828 campaign against President John Quincy Adams, Jackson lashed out at undemocratic politicians, elite bankers and the moneyed aristocracy. With a voter realignment swirling around him, Jackson focused on voter frustration and campaigned against politicians, banks and Wall Street. He was swept to victory on a tide of voter anger and distrust.
It remains too early to tell which strategy will succeed this year.
Just because Clinton is trying to forestall the realignment like Stephen Douglas, it doesn’t mean she will fail. Likewise, Trump’s strategy of embracing the realignment is no guarantee of success as it was for Andrew Jackson.
At this stage in our current realignment, the shifting of voters between political parties remains incomplete. Trump’s strategy may be too early. Clinton’s strategy may be too late. The volatility of the voters makes each campaign a gamble and each strategy as viable as the other.
Stephen Hansen is a retired dean and professor of American History at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where he also served as the Interim Chancellor. shansen@siue.edu.
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