A policy carte blanche provides fertile ground for Democrats, but bigger might not be better

Democrats may want to hit reset on the country’s direction, but a balanced approach with land them the White House.

One of the great benefits an incumbent has when they face re-election is that they get to steer much of the agenda. The are, after all, the President, so the media and voters alike will inevitably focus much of their time on the person currently in office regardless of their feeling towards them. Moreover, as the Democrats clamour to whittle down their very long-list to a hopefully much shorter list, the GOP, with Trump at the helm, are at least speaking with one voice (baring notable dissenters). A single voice combined with the prestige of the office means the Republicans should be owning election 2020 already. They are, of course, not.

Just as Bush was able to fight his reelection broadly on his terms, so too were Clinton and Obama for the Democrats. They did this, at least in part, because they had a vision — again, I stress, whether you agreed with the vision or not, they offered something coherent. To be quite cynical and simplistic, it is essentially a message of:

“The last four years weren’t so bad. I did [x,y,z policy]. I am not the worst…