Today my wife got a letter from Hillary.

[Ron Green]

She was asking for money, of course, but I took a good look at the appeal to see just HOW she was doing this.

1. She was using Bernie Sanders' points about working families and their struggles against a deck stacked against them by Republicans.

2. She talked about the upcoming Democratic primaries, and how the Republicans are trying to tear down her record.

3. She never mentioned any opponent in these "key states," or why my wife ought to support her rather than someone else on the ballot.

4. If she's talking about her party primary, why does she refer only to Republicans?

Is this the state of the art for a political mail piece now? It seems dishonest to me.

[Thinkingabout]

1. Hillary and team are working hard to make contact everywhere.

[firebrand80]

3. Every candidate is using some variation of

The "stacked deck" line, even Republicans. It's in no way exclusive to Bernie.

As far as not mentioning Dem opponents, when you're by far the front runner, there's no upside to giving your opponents more attention by mentioning them.

[Agschmid]

4. +1

[bigtree]

2. yeah, why would she fundraise off of attacking republicans

...instead of targeting fellow Democrats?

[Agschmid]

5. Hey wait a minute...

Oh.

[emulatorloo]

6. Because she criticizes Republicans and the GOP candidates.

I don't have a problem with that.

[anigbrowl]

7. That seems entirely reasonable

As described, this mailer presents Hillary as a Democratic champion gearing up to fight against Republicans, presumably because they hope/expect that to resonate with likely voters. What is wrong with focusing on a particular reason to vote?

Cast your mind forward to the general campaign, when the nominee (whoever it is) sends out a mailer saying something like 'Dear voter, starting in 2017 I'll grow the economy, and improve the USA with policies X, Y, and Z.' You wouldn't care if Republicans were annoyed about the candidate's failure to mention the Republican opponent or make more than passing reference to the election itself, would you?

Certainly, people like media analysts should look at the big picture, draw comparisons between different candidates and so forth. But it's not reasonable tell candidates that they must present themselves to the voters in a particular way. One candidate might wish to emphasize a particular set of policy ideas, another might want to emphasize a record of personal achievement or character, a third might decide to attack an opponent, a fourth to emphasize how the candidate is similar to the voter, and so on.