Hay, it worked for LBJ. By taking our Social Security money he was able to have the great successes of the Vietnam War and the War on Poverty that has lead to our currant “Great Society” plus it gave him that much desired second term. Didn't it?
LBJ won the 1964 election on a combination of sympathy votes, and by paying close attention to what Barry Goldwater was saying in terms of political theory.
At that time it was commonly believed that American political thought was laid out on a normal curve with a few over at the Left and a few at the Right, and in between there was a broad middle ground where candidates of the two major parties could contend for the undecided or the independents.
What Goldwater said was there was NO MIDDLE, and it wasn't one curve but two, and two tails of a miniscule number of voters met in the middle, so going after the middle was elementally stupid.
LBJ realized after many years in politics that Goldwater was right, so he went after Democrats by pushing registration and more get out the vote operations, and he went after the residual 30% of the black vote that the Republicans still had ~ went after ALL of them ~ and he got 97%.
BTW, Goldwater provided LBJ the winning edge by giving away his political theory secret.
Next politician up was Nixon. He'd lost to Kennedy, the more Conservative of the two, but he firmly believed in going after that broad middle. After LBJ's victory, he didn't believe that anymore ~ he also became far less Liberal ~ began sounding like JFK to tell you the truth.
He crushed The Humph. Then, he crushed McGovern.
Next guy up, Carter and he went after a whole Republican faction ~ the "born again" crowd, and got 'em (for one time). Next guy up was Ronaldus Magnus and he won two sweeping victories following the LBJ permutation of Goldwater's theory.
And so it goes.
Placing your political faith in the basest sort of greed on the part of the voters just isn't how it's done. They'll sell their souls for far less than anything you can buy with money, and for most folks they'll vote against you for suggesting they'll take money ~ happened to George McGovern ~ lost it all. And, he was crushed by a guy (Nixon) who used "Lawn Order".
Concerning this election,after Mitt had his boyhood home turned into tillage for the new city dump I thought there might be some sort of conflict between himself and his father. More recently he said something that I know means he BELIEVED in his father's implicit correctness in political matters.
What Mitt did was refer to the 5 to 10% of independents and undecideds in the middle. BING BING BING. George Romney actually walked out of the Republican convention back in 1966 rather than support Barry Goldwater ~ and all along I thought that was over Goldwater's patriotism and national defense postures. Now I see it was because George thought Goldwater had a LOSING STRATEGY.
Guess George never gave up his belief in that normal curve and passed it on to his kid ~ who still thinks you can win an election with that belief.
Only saving grace this time is that his opponent, Obama also believes in that normal curve, with Democrats having ownership of half of it.
Of course they are both wrong, and the big boys in the DNC who arrange things don't believe that normal curve nonsense either, so they'll be scheduling events such that Obama talks to the audience in tune with him and he will encourage them to come on out and vote for him. Last thing they let him do is try to talk to the 53% ~ because that way lies failure ~ enormous failure too ~
Yep, another great liberal success!