Since this started as a replacement to email threads, I’m resisting the urge to mail this and just making it a post:
What are we to make of HRC’s outreach to 1) Republican voters; and 2) Republican donors?
I think they’re separate questions, because I think Trump has proven that Republican voters can be mobilized around jobs and New Deal democratic issues. But then I wonder, does the freeing up of moderate Republicans who can’t stand Trump mean the Clintons (since Big Bill is making what HRC termed a “comeback”) are going back to the old DLC playback? (This gets doubly interesting when you layer in Schultz’s backtracking on how she plans to fill committee seats at the convention.) Where does she need to tack to pull them in? Can she pull in the Republican voters while keeping the Sanders voters?
The question about funding is the most worrisome. All I’ve read so far is that HRC’s campaign “intends to reach out to Republican megadonors disillusioned by their party’s presumptive nominee.” That could cover everyone from . . . well, a lot of disagreeable people. Imagine what Trump will make of that . . . he’ll probably drop the word “whore” and not even bother to back away from it.
Happy to be pointed to links to do my own thinking, but I’m hesitant to express my fairly predictable misgivings yet.
In at The End of The World 
First off, yes, when will Trump first use the word “whore? ” That’s an excellent question, and I agree that it’s inevitable.
I think it was gauche to publicize the outreach to Republican fund raisers this early, particularly since she’s still campaigning against Bernie. But, I can see why the campaign wants to pile on to the stories about the civil war in the Republican Party. I don’t think seeking GOP donors signals a shift to the right. It will likely be a small amount of her overall fund raising. It helps feed a bi-partisan appeal story.
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A certain slice of Sanders supporters will see going after GOP money as worse than gauche. And they’ll have a point, if not so much about HRC herself as about the overall corrupting effect of money in the system. But like the miners, was she ever going to get that slice anyway? I don’t know what’s going on — but if a new coalition is forming, to be funded by wealthy donors across familiar political divisions, are we really talking about the development of a single dominant party representing managerial competence, foreign-policy toughness [UPDATE: yet seeking some dealmaking from a position of strength], limited economic regulation, grudging maintenance of existing safety nets, and social liberalism? And does that funding, and does that ideology (if that’s an ideology), filter “down ticket”? Or: WTF is happening here?
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