… While it’s certainly better to be talking about popular agenda items than about those that are unpopular or talking about nothing at all, popularity is just one criterion — an important one, but only one.
Two other related criteria are impact and interest. Do voters feel the policies will actually help them, hurt them, or are the proposals simply irrelevant to them personally? Amplifying messages requires voters to be interested enough in the policies to talk about them with friends and neighbors.
I don’t have data on interest, but the Federal Reserve Bank of New York provided us with some frightening data on impact. It boils down to this: relatively few voters think Democratic policy prescriptions will benefit them. They’re popular — people like them — but voters don’t think the policies will be of much help to their families. CONTINUED
Mark Mellman (Mellman Group), The Hill
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