At this point, Hillary’s lead over Sanders is so immense, and Trump so crazy, that she could sit at home and rest and drink tea for months and still win. Much campaigning is online or televised anyway. Voters have mostly made up their minds already. She’d still have to debate Trump, but that’s it.
She wouldn’t have to debate Trump, but I supposed she would want to.
I think voters have come to expect some effort by candidates (unlike the old days) and would probably punish one that decided to sit out.
Yes, but as part of the general election campaign. She’s already in that mode, taking the opportunity to frame herself and Trump, in stark contrast.
This would be an excellent strategy for her: she can craft out her appointees in advance, and say things like “I’ve got a job of work to do.” and “I want to govern, not talk.”; establish a synergy with the GOP and Wall Street to avoid mutual obstructionism; and make it clear that choosing her should be a formality for the voters.
After all, they owe her.
Media, too. What are all those political reporters supposed to do if the candidate refuses to join the circus?
Is she so far ahead of Bernie? I’m genuinely asking I don’t know how the whole delegate thing works. She has like 1700 something to his 1000 something. If there are 2000 or so delegates left but you only need 2300 or so if you reach that number first does it stop even if there are still free delegates out there that could change the math?
No, it doesn’t stop; primaries will still be held. And candidates will continue to campaign, although one who is an overwhelmingly presumptive nominee is then free to pivot to campaigning for the general election instead of for the primary. However, those who can’t win may also drop out of the race.
Of course she needs to campaign.
The reason why Sanders can’t win at this point is that he’d need something like 65% of all remaining voters, and that’d require some crazy action on Clinton’s part for him to get. Her discontinuation of her campaign would likely qualify.
Moreover, Clinton has a lot of people that she needs to persuade. A lot of people are like me, unhappy with a lot of Clinton’s politics but no more so than we were with Kerry’s or Gore’s or Bill Clinton’s; we’ll vote for her because she’s the least worst. But there are also a lot of people who think she’s worse than I think she is (I think, whatever else, she’s extremely competent and wil nudge our country in a good direction on some issues), and she needs to win them over. If she stopped campaigning, it would be a disaster.
Finally, we all recognize this is a fantasy scenario, right? Clinton is likelier to grow a unicorn horn and cast Rainbow Magic on congress than she is to stop campaigning.
Also a lot of Hillary’s edge is the superdelegates, who aren’t actually pledged to vote for her. Of course they will vote for her, that’s the reason the superdelegates exist. But if Hillary really slacks off some of them might decide to vote for Bernie.
Anyway, not going to happen. Hillary is going to keep campaigning even if it kills her.
Hillary should keep campaigning because she usually comes off really well in the televised speeches and debates (when she’s not whinging about Bernie, I mean). She’s sharp, prepared, and, yes, I’ll say it, presidential. The talk afterwards is always about how well she carried herself.
If she decided to take a seat, there’d be nothing to say about her other than the email thing. Sitting out would be a disaster.
Every time she makes a campaign appearance, it’s her chance to take her “scandals” out of the spotlight and look like a champ. She should campaign every chance she gets.
Hillary still very much needs to campaign. She will need the support of Sanders’ voters. Some of them will probably sit this one out to spite her if she wins, but she needs to at least get those who have some sense of what is at stake. And she needs them to accept the legitimacy of her victory, which means that she needs to compete and beat Bernie Sanders in terms of primary and caucus-bound delegates, not just relying on her big party connections to earn superdelegates. She needs legitimacy, not just delegates. Sanders will challenge her hard in the final few months of the race.
More important than anything is part of campaigning is fundraising. If she cuts out fundraising she’ll be hamstringing herself and the entire Democratic party for no good reason.
she should be able to, but since the DNC won’t let her throw the kitchen sink at Bernie, she has to campaign to win the nomination.
The current status quo is very favorable for her, both in the primary and in the general election. If she could, it would be a good idea for her to freeze the status quo in place until the election.
But she can’t do that. The way she got to the current situation is by campaigning hard, and so if she wants to continue the current situation, she needs to continue campaigning hard. If she were to stop campaigning right now, voters would start asking what else she’d give up and coast on.