By the way, as a sidebar, I want to speak on this for a moment:

Voters can be swayed.

That's not really how it works. We've been using that swayed, influenced type frame for a while now, and it's a big reason why turnout is down, and why elections are often very close.

Politicians, in the classic sense, garner votes. We almost never even use the word "garner" anymore.

That means they attract voters.

The other frame we've been using for too long:

A vote for a third party, no vote, protest vote equals a vote for the dominant party.

A variation on that is spoiler politics. Run someone to compete in a given party, votes get split, the other party has an easy win.

All of that makes some solid sense when we are in the "lesser evil", or "less bad" type frame, which the last election very clearly was for a very large number of voters. That is not to say there were not excited Clinton and Trump voters. There were, no doubt. But the majority really were faced with, "what sucks less" and they were faced with that due to the VOTE AGAINST type framing so often seen.

VOTING AGAINST, or VOTING TO PREVENT HARM, doesn't mean good. It could mean that, but there are no real links, just an implied sense of "less bad" being elevated to "net good" or conflated with "incremental change", itself elevated to "net good."

A VOTE FOR frame, which Sanders actually used, is a strong issue based frame. It's focused on explicit, common, public good.

Here are the implications of that, when we work from a different, garner votes, type frame:

It's irresponsible to run for office, unless one is confident they can garner the votes, or help another to garner those votes.

Why?

Because people can, will and do choose from all of the following choices, not just one party or the other:

Party A
Party B
No vote
Other party vote
Write in / protest vote.

That's going to happen. Understanding WHY it happens is critical. Many people want to vote for, not against, and will just do that. Anyone wanting to win an election needs to understand it's not a lock. It's not just one party or the other.

Clinton made this mistake. Lost. Lost despite a very bad opponent.

Failed to do the work to garner the votes to win. It's just not enough to trust the other guy, Trump is so terrible as to insure a win. All those choices being available are why.

People wanting to vote for is why.

Think of it in simple terms.

Say we are selling cars, and the other guys are too.

Compare and contrast:

Buy our cars, because those other guys suck, their cars suck, and they are out to rip you off.

vs

Buy our car, because you will love driving it, the power is sublime, cost reasonable, and it's got all the nice features you want, complete with solid service and support.

The first one assumes you have to have a car. A sale is a given, or at the very least, due to cars leaving the ecosystem, population growth, and other factors, insure a given number of cars will be sold.

Selling by implied good, "the other guys are regrettable and so are their cars" can work. The people, kind of forced to get a car, will probably respond to that.

Now, in the second frame, we are attracting people. They want to buy a car, and we aren't making assumptions about there being forced car sales. We are making an assumption that people who find the value proposition compelling will figure out a way to buy a car.

The more the better! Everyone might want a car!

You get the idea.

Translated to politics, garnering votes means doing that same kind of thing.

It does not mean, "I'm not Trump" is a primary message at all. Maybe that gets said, obviously. But, it really doesn't have to be. No real value there.

Now, here I must say most elections feature a ton of people not voting. We struggle with turnout, and what's the number one and two things people say about that?

Mandatory voting, and or voting on holiday.

That's forcing the first frame into more value than it actually does carry, and nobody can demonstrate forced voting would equal better voting. The more likely outcome may well be more protest or nonsense voting.

Brazil sees a lot of that with it's mandatory voting scheme, as a simple example.

Back to garnering votes.

In this frame, it's selling on value, like the cool car guys selling really compelling cars.

The more aligned the platform is with actual need, actual benefit, put simply, an explicit public good, the higher the number of voters will be.

Garnering votes is actually doing that. Selling the idea of alignment, value, representation as some positive thing in such a way as to motivate people to vote.

They should. We expect them to. We try and shame and blame those who don't, or who don't vote the way we think they should have voted, and more.

But the reality is people have agency, and they vote when they feel making that vote makes sense for them to do, and they vote the way they do, when they feel it makes sense, has value, and such to vote that way.

Agency.

A politican who runs on "I will fight to make Medicare for All happen", for example, running against one who says, "I support the idea of Medicare For All" or who says, "I'm not Trump" has an advantage over their competition.

That advantage is people get invested, they are working for, supporting, donating, phone banking, canvassing, and volunteering for MEDICARE FOR ALL. It's a pretty direct link, and the major impact of doing that goes beyond just garnering serious support from the majority of regular, active voters.

Doing that will bring out jaded, burned out, voters who don't believe, who have given up, don't see the value, and so forth.

Rather than just win a share of a known pie, expand the pie, and win a big share of that expansion too.

Give people a reason to fight for it, not just struggle to limit their decline in living, or some other fairly ugly thing, and they will. Network effects dominate after that.

Obama did this in his first term. Didn't end up governing that way, but his rhetoric packed one hell of a punch.

Sanders did that in his primary run too. Same outcome. Punched well above his expected weight class.

We have a lot of basic problems in the nation. It's getting time to speak directly to them.

That will win elections. A majority of Americans are in real economic trouble today. That's why doing that will win elections.