Fussy Primary Voters

The primary election balloting is the time interested engaged voters make small distinctions.  I participate in a lively email discussion group of classmates from the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1971.   Everyone in this group has some things in common:  

***We are all about age 65 or 66 years old

Liberal feminist, concerned about income inequality

***We were all pretty good at high school back in the 1960s
***We got pretty good--or very good--professional or business jobs
***Most of were imprinted with anti-war liberal orientation which still survives

A number of people in the group like Bernie Sanders for president and many of those people  oppose Hillary.   I don't just mean they prefer Bernie as being a preferable type of liberal; I mean that they see the difference between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton as a giant chasm.  They oppose Hillary.

Liberal feminist, concerned about income inequality

I consider this to be a sign of their privilege, their being so comfortable in their upper middle and upper income situation that the tiny distinctions between "better" and "even better" loom large.   Napa Valley pinot noir grapes get warmer August nights than do West Slope Willamette Valley pinot grapes, making a berry note in the after-taste, justifying the much higher bottle price: the distinctions of the effete and privileged.

I have urged my classmates in that position to get out more.  Watch some Fox News.  Read the Wall Street Journal editorial page.  About half the country is Republican.  (And about half are Democrats; it goes both ways.)   I have sat in on some 25 Republican campaign events so far.   I have witnessed where the applause lines are:

Audiences like it when the candidate says we will easily, quickly, and inexpensively utterly destroy ISIS without using ground troops.   (Wild Applause)

Audiences like it when the candidate says that we will immediately end all abortions, end all funding for Planned Parenthood, end Obamacare, and slash most regulations on banking, small business, and the environment.   (Wild Applause)

Audiences like it when the candidate says he or she will increase the military significantly, cut taxes significantly, while balancing the budget.  (Wild Applause)

Audiences like it when the candidate dismisses Hillary as a crazy liberal feminist dishonest weakling, almost as liberal as socialist Bernie.  (Wild Applause.)

Republican voters are also acutely aware of the tiny distinctions among the candidates.   All of the candidates have essentially echoed the themes set by Donald Trump.  The other candidates hasten to draw distinctions which they present as important.   Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Kasich, Christie all echo Trump's ban on Muslim immigration, but instead of a blanket ban it should be a case by case ban which gets the same result.   But they draw little distinctions among themselves which they use as a reason for picking them over another.   Cruz and Rubio say we should just have a "pause", Bush says to admit refugees from Muslim-majority countries but only the Christians, etc.   

On immigration from Asia and Latin America Cruz is attempting to show that he is very different from Rubio; Cruz says he has always opposed a path to citizenship and accuses Rubio of having briefly attempted a bipartisan bill that would have included a path.   Cruz says: Rubio is a Compromiser:  Deal Breaker, Unacceptable, Untrustworthy!

Some of the Republican candidates would permit abortions in the event of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother (Trump, Kasich, Bush, Graham), and some not even then (Cruz, Rubio, Santorum).   Voters get to pick the features that appeal to them.

My sense from responses in Republican audience is that they perceive Hillary's actual policies to be essentially identical to Bernie's: very liberal and totally objectionable.  

Conservative Christian Hawk

My sense from responses at Democratic events is that they perceive Trump as a buffoon and that all the other candidates have equivalent policies to Trump but have a better working gaff filter.  But Democrats consider them all to be way right of Reagan, Dole, either Bush, and Romney, very conservative and totally objectionable. 

Conservative Christian Hawk

Having observed the full spectrum of candidates and audiences, from Bernie Sanders to Trump and Cruz, I think both sides are essentially correct in viewing the other side--but wrong when they are looking closely at their "own team."   Republicans are correct in seeing Hillary and Bernie as being about the same in policies; Democrats are correct in seeing all the Republicans as being essentially alike in policies. 

But in the primaries voters are urged to focus on the little distinctions, and they do.

Voters have some choices when it comes to personalities and tone and style but come next November there will be two basic flavors regardless of what happens in the primaries--a Republican flavor and a Democratic one.