Talk is cheap; would-be voter actions will determine Election Day outcome

President Barack Obama said Thursday he is endorsing Hillary Clinton’s bid to succeed him as president.

The president can only do so much for Hillary

While would-be Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders says he too will work to ensure that Clinton succeeds in her efforts to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the President of the United States following the November general election.

IT ALL SOUNDS nice. But it could wind up becoming the ultimate evidence proving the truth of that old cliché, “Talk is cheap!”

It’s a whole lot of talk on Hillary’s behalf. But it ultimately will be the actions of the people who choose to cast ballots in the presidential elections who will decide whether Clinton can succeed.

By that, I mean that I fully believe there are a number of younger voters who are now disillusioned because all that cheap talk they have spewed about “feeling the Bern” failed to capture a majority of primary voters.

No matter what they want to believe about Hillary being an old hag whose time has passed and how she’s somehow part of the conservative establishment (even though the real conservative ideologues are spewing rhetoric that is 180 degrees to the opposite – to them, she’s liberalism incarnate!), a majority of Democratic voters have rejected it.

MY POINT BEING we may have some people who wouldn’t have bothered to get involved in the political process if they hadn’t have perceived something in the Bernie Sanders persona that appealed to them.

What exactly that is, I don’t comprehend. Since he’s actually older than she is.

 

Sanders can only help so much

But I could see a whole string of people whom Democrats theoretically would expect to turn out for their candidates deciding that the whole process is nothing but a crock.

Which could depress voter turnout in ways that ultimately benefit the presidential fantasies of Donald Trump. All the people who otherwise would be mortified at the thought of a first lady Melania would think it doesn’t matter much what they do.

THAT IS THE matter that Hillary Clinton will have to address hard and prompt in coming days and weeks. She’s going to have to make the case to people inclined not to care (seriously, developing an interest in electoral politics is something many people do only with the passage of time) to think she is worth their time and effort.

 

Hillary has to win this on her own merits

She’s going to have to answer the question, “Why do you deserve my vote come November? To be honest, she had better have a response more thorough than, “We don’t want Donald Trump in office.”

Personally, I think Trump’s persona and temperament is the absolute last thing anyone needs to have in control of anything. But even I want to hear the specifics of what Clinton can offer our nation, if she is the one trusted with being in charge for a four-year term in the Oval Office.

So Obama can say whatever he wants, such as he did on Thursday when he talks of her “judgment,” her “toughness” and her “commitment to our values.”

JUST AS SANDERS can say he’s now willing to work with Hillary toward an eventual electoral victory. It could wind up that the people who got all worked up about the idea of “the Bern” just won’t warm to Clinton in any form.

 

Or else we get 'President Trump'

Could they become the voters who, in their apathy, wind up giving an electoral victory to the person who theoretically stands for so much they oppose? Which probably is the Donald Trump campaign’s ultimate strategy – depress the voter total to the point where real people just don’t bother to show up.

Clinton, if she wants to win come November, is going to have to reach out to those people. She’s going to have to make a majority want to have her in office.

And if she can’t do that, then she ultimately has no one to blame but herself.

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