Trump won without much of a ground game didn't he? I seem to remember that being a thing people pointed out. He was disorganized and relied on online presence. It's too dangerous for traditional politics right now and I think Biden's campaign should be thinking future strategy and not past strategy and try and innovate and make the best of online campaigning and organizing and point out every day how Trump's rallies are selfish and dangerous and hurting Americans.
Trump had facebook literally connected at the hip to his campaign.
It’s bringing up things Trump is doing as if Biden should emulate them. Like, it goes into Trump holding rallies yet fails to mention how COVID cases in those areas rise a couple weeks after. Or fails to mention how Trump campaign offices have been having outbreaks as well.
Trump is running a campaign that is actively spreading COVID and the articles minimizes it.
I mean, look at this (emphasis mine):
Biden's team feels this approach aligns with the former vice president's view on the virus and commitment to following federal guidelines on virus safety, helping distinguish him from the president, who has taken an uneven, dismissive and sometimes flippant approach.
Some Democratic strategists say Biden's move is risky, given the power and longevity of Trump's ground game, but others say he has a number of options available, including phone calls and enlisting networks of voters to do the work for him, that could make the difference.
The Trump approach couldn't be more different. Last weekend alone, as part of the Trump campaign's "100 Days Out Weekend," the Trump team held at least 70 events ranging from veteran outreach to voter registration drives from Mohave County, Arizona, to Madison, Maine, according to the Republican Party's public schedule.
Events have featured varying levels of safety precautions. Many do not implement social distancing while some do, and no Trump campaign events nationwide require masks to attend, according to multiple sources.
Oh, by all means, let’s just do what Trump is doing and risk lives because not doing that is “risky”.
Reminder that Herman Cain got COVID-19 and died for attending the Trump Tulsa rally.
Warren has no executive branch experience and 8 years in the Senate. I think there isn't a lot of support to claim she is more immediately ready than Harris (or Rice) if Biden were to pull a William Henry Harrison.
She literally was at the head of creating a new government agency (CFPB) from scratch. She may have the most pertinent knowledge of how to fix all the damage Trump has done to the Executive out of anyone currently serving in politics.
You don't think that the woman that has the most detailed, researched, and reality-oriented policies of literally every ill facing society you can imagine (complete with the math to do it), already developed and ready to be implemented, wouldn't be more ready to step in as the president?
Even if one concedes that, white papers and governing are not at all the same. That is a big part of why we elect people and not platforms. Warren was a long term play not a jump in and immediately run like a well oiled machine one
Trump won without much of a ground game didn't he? I seem to remember that being a thing people pointed out. He was disorganized and relied on online presence. It's too dangerous for traditional politics right now and I think Biden's campaign should be thinking future strategy and not past strategy and try and innovate and make the best of online campaigning and organizing and point out every day how Trump's rallies are selfish and dangerous and hurting Americans.
Trump had facebook literally connected at the hip to his campaign.
Both campaigns did, but his team made way better use of it because *redacted*. And honestly there are issues with a company like that having such deep access to both major candidates. I am looking forward to next year, god willing, that we get real congressional oversight into all of the bad shit that has happened in the past five years.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Trump won without much of a ground game didn't he? I seem to remember that being a thing people pointed out. He was disorganized and relied on online presence. It's too dangerous for traditional politics right now and I think Biden's campaign should be thinking future strategy and not past strategy and try and innovate and make the best of online campaigning and organizing and point out every day how Trump's rallies are selfish and dangerous and hurting Americans.
Yep, effectively zero ground game, beyond maybe one or two halfhearted attempts to open a local campaign office (at least that's what my memory says). He also famously refused to the do the boring parts of campaigning including making phone calls, glad handing donors, and supporting downticket or state GOP races. I still remember a story of Reince Preibus begging him to show up and do phone calls to rich donors and Trump leaving him high and dry. His "campaign" and was a national joke and obvious grift right up until he won.
Strangely I never saw the swell of "Trump evolves the political game" stories from the press, everyone still treats his campaign and win (even his own party) as an aberration, or perhaps the GOP is so disorganized, fractured, and filled with grifters that they can no longer properly campaign anyway.
I to don't put too much stock in the good Biden polls, though they're a nice piece of hope right now. Luckily Biden doesn't really have to do much, he doesn't have the deep seated likability problems Hillary did and he's going up a against a deeply unpopular and corrupt President who is only too happy to continue to publicly fuck up on the daily.
Trump won without much of a ground game didn't he? I seem to remember that being a thing people pointed out. He was disorganized and relied on online presence. It's too dangerous for traditional politics right now and I think Biden's campaign should be thinking future strategy and not past strategy and try and innovate and make the best of online campaigning and organizing and point out every day how Trump's rallies are selfish and dangerous and hurting Americans.
Yep, effectively zero ground game, beyond maybe one or two halfhearted attempts to open a local campaign office (at least that's what my memory says). He also famously refused to the do the boring parts of campaigning including making phone calls, glad handing donors, and supporting downticket or state GOP races. I still remember a story of Reince Preibus begging him to show up and do phone calls to rich donors and Trump leaving him high and dry. His "campaign" and was a national joke and obvious grift right up until he won.
Strangely I never saw the swell of "Trump evolves the political game" stories from the press, everyone still treats his campaign and win (even his own party) as an aberration, or perhaps the GOP is so disorganized, fractured, and filled with grifters that they can no longer properly campaign anyway.
I to don't put too much stock in the good Biden polls, though they're a nice piece of hope right now. Luckily Biden doesn't really have to do much, he doesn't have the deep seated likability problems Hillary did and he's going up a against a deeply unpopular and corrupt President who is only too happy to continue to publicly fuck up on the daily.
Basically everywhere but South Carolina there were a bunch of stories that Biden didn't have enough paid staffers on the ground, enough field offices, etc.
I haven no idea if they were true but irrelevant in a modern age, true and it hurt him, or bullshit spread by rivals and/or people looking for a job. But I am not particularly surprised they are now coming out for the general.
Best of the potential picks is Warren -> Harris -> Abrams, tbh.
Big, big concern with a Warren VP slot is her age. The last thing that Biden needs is a VP that is also over the 70 line. I don't think that Warren makes the cut for that, sorry.
I honestly, truly do not get this line, aside from my general desire to have the Boomers pass the goddamn torch already.
Yes, Warren is older than someone like Harris or Abrams. But unless she and Biden die on, like, the same day, it really doesn’t matter. If Biden goes, she’ll become president and get to nominate her VP. If she goes, Biden will get to nominate her replacement. If they both, like, spontaneously combust, the Speaker becomes president and gets to nominate a VP. And I don’t see losing the House as even a remote possibility at this point.
The consideration here is not “will this person survive the term”, it’s “will they be good at their job”. There’s a lot of data that shows Warren is the best choice for exciting younger voters. By default, that makes her a good pick for the job. Obviously I like her in the Senate but if picking her for VP excites the electorate to the point that she gets a liberal replacement, I won’t be too concerned.
We have contingency plans in place for when someone in office dies. Trump got elected despite being as healthy and likely to live through his term as a chain-smoking, habitually road crossing armadillo. It just doesn’t matter to voters that aren’t super plugged in like us.
Wait, Warren is good with young folks?
Although I guess it makes sense since she was a very incredibly popular second choice in the primary...
Edit: I wrote this before getting to the post with the poll
Still weird to me but I understand the data behind the statement now
Some Democrats who recognize the complicated reality of campaigning amid a pandemic still feel Biden remaining on the sidelines while the president's campaign pounds the pavement unchallenged could spell serious trouble in November.
"We're going to lose Election Day," said Wilnelia Rivera, who was Rep. Ayanna Pressley's chief campaign strategist for her successful 2018 race in Massachusetts. "If the Biden campaign continues down this track of running a traditional, candidate-driven, TV-spending campaign, it's not going to be enough."
"By now, I expected it to see a surrogate campaign of many aligned Democrats issuing a coordinated message of what it is that we need right now: to not just win in November, but to put our country back on track," said Rivera, a contributor to the book "Turnout: Mobilizing Voters in an Emergency."
Rivera said she's not suggesting Democrats put volunteers or staff in "harm's way" amid the pandemic, but said they need to start realizing that Republicans "are not going to play this election fair" -- campaigning as if the country was not in the middle of a health crisis.
Other veteran Democratic staffers who worked on campaigns during the 2020 primary, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they didn't want to criticize the presumptive nominee's campaign, told ABC News they have been stunned at how long it's taken the Biden campaign to start to put staffers in key states. "I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day," one source told ABC News.
Legitimate concern.
"I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day"
Yes, and? Maybe the fact that we have a pandemic, unprecedented in modern times, in the middle of unprecedented times in this country, has something to do with that? Maybe you need to take the full context of our situation into account when passing judgements?
Every election sees articles going "[X] has never been [Y] until this election! Panic!" It's as stock as "10 Things You Never Knew About [Insert Popular Franchise]!"
Some Democrats who recognize the complicated reality of campaigning amid a pandemic still feel Biden remaining on the sidelines while the president's campaign pounds the pavement unchallenged could spell serious trouble in November.
"We're going to lose Election Day," said Wilnelia Rivera, who was Rep. Ayanna Pressley's chief campaign strategist for her successful 2018 race in Massachusetts. "If the Biden campaign continues down this track of running a traditional, candidate-driven, TV-spending campaign, it's not going to be enough."
"By now, I expected it to see a surrogate campaign of many aligned Democrats issuing a coordinated message of what it is that we need right now: to not just win in November, but to put our country back on track," said Rivera, a contributor to the book "Turnout: Mobilizing Voters in an Emergency."
Rivera said she's not suggesting Democrats put volunteers or staff in "harm's way" amid the pandemic, but said they need to start realizing that Republicans "are not going to play this election fair" -- campaigning as if the country was not in the middle of a health crisis.
Other veteran Democratic staffers who worked on campaigns during the 2020 primary, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they didn't want to criticize the presumptive nominee's campaign, told ABC News they have been stunned at how long it's taken the Biden campaign to start to put staffers in key states. "I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day," one source told ABC News.
Legitimate concern.
"I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day"
Yes, and? Maybe the fact that we have a pandemic, unprecedented in modern times, in the middle of unprecedented times in this country, has something to do with that? Maybe you need to take the full context of our situation into account when passing judgements?
Have consultants always been this terrible?
Yes. Yes they have. Every campaign on both sides since as long as I've been paying attention to politics has had folks talking about how everything is doooooomed because candidate X isn't doing thing Y.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
And like, we by no means have this in the bag or anything, but pretending that a consistent 9 point lead in the polls isn't a pretty decent advantage is just daffy.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Trump won without much of a ground game didn't he? I seem to remember that being a thing people pointed out. He was disorganized and relied on online presence. It's too dangerous for traditional politics right now and I think Biden's campaign should be thinking future strategy and not past strategy and try and innovate and make the best of online campaigning and organizing and point out every day how Trump's rallies are selfish and dangerous and hurting Americans.
It helped that CNN and others would just air his rallies so he got tons of free tv time.
Some Democrats who recognize the complicated reality of campaigning amid a pandemic still feel Biden remaining on the sidelines while the president's campaign pounds the pavement unchallenged could spell serious trouble in November.
"We're going to lose Election Day," said Wilnelia Rivera, who was Rep. Ayanna Pressley's chief campaign strategist for her successful 2018 race in Massachusetts. "If the Biden campaign continues down this track of running a traditional, candidate-driven, TV-spending campaign, it's not going to be enough."
"By now, I expected it to see a surrogate campaign of many aligned Democrats issuing a coordinated message of what it is that we need right now: to not just win in November, but to put our country back on track," said Rivera, a contributor to the book "Turnout: Mobilizing Voters in an Emergency."
Rivera said she's not suggesting Democrats put volunteers or staff in "harm's way" amid the pandemic, but said they need to start realizing that Republicans "are not going to play this election fair" -- campaigning as if the country was not in the middle of a health crisis.
Other veteran Democratic staffers who worked on campaigns during the 2020 primary, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they didn't want to criticize the presumptive nominee's campaign, told ABC News they have been stunned at how long it's taken the Biden campaign to start to put staffers in key states. "I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day," one source told ABC News.
Legitimate concern.
"I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day"
Yes, and? Maybe the fact that we have a pandemic, unprecedented in modern times, in the middle of unprecedented times in this country, has something to do with that? Maybe you need to take the full context of our situation into account when passing judgements?
Have consultants always been this terrible?
Yes. Yes they have. Every campaign on both sides since as long as I've been paying attention to politics has had folks talking about how everything is doooooomed because candidate X isn't doing thing Y.
And the obvious solution is to give me $$$ to solve it.
Im far less concerned about campaigning than I am about get out the vote efforts.
Registering to vote and voting just got more complicated. Every state has different rules for registering to vote AND registering to vote by mail. Some states will make voting by mail basically impossible for Democrats. Some states will make voting in person basically impossible for Democrats. A lot of people who aren't very political will look at the hoops they need to go through and give up. Others will try but fail their Bureaucracy roll and sign up wrong, or fill out the vote by mail form wrong, or send the vote by mail form too late to be counted.
I'm expecting a smooth and pleasant process living in a very Blue state. But people in Georgia can expect a lot of "You didn't tick all the boxes so we didn't sign you up to vote, nor did we tell you there was a problem" or "Your form got lost in the mail" or "Welcome to the voting line. Should only be about 5 hours from here."
Trump won without much of a ground game didn't he? I seem to remember that being a thing people pointed out. He was disorganized and relied on online presence. It's too dangerous for traditional politics right now and I think Biden's campaign should be thinking future strategy and not past strategy and try and innovate and make the best of online campaigning and organizing and point out every day how Trump's rallies are selfish and dangerous and hurting Americans.
Yep, effectively zero ground game, beyond maybe one or two halfhearted attempts to open a local campaign office (at least that's what my memory says). He also famously refused to the do the boring parts of campaigning including making phone calls, glad handing donors, and supporting downticket or state GOP races. I still remember a story of Reince Preibus begging him to show up and do phone calls to rich donors and Trump leaving him high and dry. His "campaign" and was a national joke and obvious grift right up until he won.
Strangely I never saw the swell of "Trump evolves the political game" stories from the press, everyone still treats his campaign and win (even his own party) as an aberration, or perhaps the GOP is so disorganized, fractured, and filled with grifters that they can no longer properly campaign anyway.
I to don't put too much stock in the good Biden polls, though they're a nice piece of hope right now. Luckily Biden doesn't really have to do much, he doesn't have the deep seated likability problems Hillary did and he's going up a against a deeply unpopular and corrupt President who is only too happy to continue to publicly fuck up on the daily.
Basically everywhere but South Carolina there were a bunch of stories that Biden didn't have enough paid staffers on the ground, enough field offices, etc.
I haven no idea if they were true but irrelevant in a modern age, true and it hurt him, or bullshit spread by rivals and/or people looking for a job. But I am not particularly surprised they are now coming out for the general.
As I said the Super Tuesday Capitulation is proof something happened as the former candidates Beto O'Rourke, Yang and others came out saying vote for Biden as Bernie is dangerous or a menace
But what was said or done behind the scenes? This is the problem I have with the rumored picks for VP as you can with the democratic platform committee the hand of the Republicans that defected to "help" the Democrats
The rumored VP picks are odd as you can tell they are trying for someone that will replace Biden if need be and still not be a outlier like Bernie or any of the progressives
it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that democrats are breathtakingly bad at on-the-ground voter organisation stuff. the left has institutionally lost the ability to do that kind of work and completely forgotten that it's actually important
like even bernie, the guy who explicitly ran on organisational skills, mostly fucked it up outside a handful of states. as the left becomes more and more a movement of the educated middle classes i think we become not only ignorant of, but increasingly hostile to, the fact that you have to actually go outside and talk to people where they live and work
it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that democrats are breathtakingly bad at on-the-ground voter organisation stuff. the left has institutionally lost the ability to do that kind of work and completely forgotten that it's actually important
like even bernie, the guy who explicitly ran on organisational skills, mostly fucked it up outside a handful of states. as the left becomes more and more a movement of the educated middle classes i think we become not only ignorant of, but increasingly hostile to, the fact that you have to actually go outside and talk to people where they live and work
This is more of a "pandemic" thing than "Dem" thing though. By all accounts bthr ground game last time was mostly fine
Some Democrats who recognize the complicated reality of campaigning amid a pandemic still feel Biden remaining on the sidelines while the president's campaign pounds the pavement unchallenged could spell serious trouble in November.
"We're going to lose Election Day," said Wilnelia Rivera, who was Rep. Ayanna Pressley's chief campaign strategist for her successful 2018 race in Massachusetts. "If the Biden campaign continues down this track of running a traditional, candidate-driven, TV-spending campaign, it's not going to be enough."
"By now, I expected it to see a surrogate campaign of many aligned Democrats issuing a coordinated message of what it is that we need right now: to not just win in November, but to put our country back on track," said Rivera, a contributor to the book "Turnout: Mobilizing Voters in an Emergency."
Rivera said she's not suggesting Democrats put volunteers or staff in "harm's way" amid the pandemic, but said they need to start realizing that Republicans "are not going to play this election fair" -- campaigning as if the country was not in the middle of a health crisis.
Other veteran Democratic staffers who worked on campaigns during the 2020 primary, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they didn't want to criticize the presumptive nominee's campaign, told ABC News they have been stunned at how long it's taken the Biden campaign to start to put staffers in key states. "I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day," one source told ABC News.
Legitimate concern.
"I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day"
Yes, and? Maybe the fact that we have a pandemic, unprecedented in modern times, in the middle of unprecedented times in this country, has something to do with that? Maybe you need to take the full context of our situation into account when passing judgements?
Have consultants always been this terrible?
Yes. Yes they have. Every campaign on both sides since as long as I've been paying attention to politics has had folks talking about how everything is doooooomed because candidate X isn't doing thing Y.
And Y thing is usually the thing said consultants are charging money for. There's a lot of incompetence and grift and failing upwards on political campaigns.
Trump won without much of a ground game didn't he? I seem to remember that being a thing people pointed out. He was disorganized and relied on online presence. It's too dangerous for traditional politics right now and I think Biden's campaign should be thinking future strategy and not past strategy and try and innovate and make the best of online campaigning and organizing and point out every day how Trump's rallies are selfish and dangerous and hurting Americans.
Yep, effectively zero ground game, beyond maybe one or two halfhearted attempts to open a local campaign office (at least that's what my memory says). He also famously refused to the do the boring parts of campaigning including making phone calls, glad handing donors, and supporting downticket or state GOP races. I still remember a story of Reince Preibus begging him to show up and do phone calls to rich donors and Trump leaving him high and dry. His "campaign" and was a national joke and obvious grift right up until he won.
Strangely I never saw the swell of "Trump evolves the political game" stories from the press, everyone still treats his campaign and win (even his own party) as an aberration, or perhaps the GOP is so disorganized, fractured, and filled with grifters that they can no longer properly campaign anyway.
I to don't put too much stock in the good Biden polls, though they're a nice piece of hope right now. Luckily Biden doesn't really have to do much, he doesn't have the deep seated likability problems Hillary did and he's going up a against a deeply unpopular and corrupt President who is only too happy to continue to publicly fuck up on the daily.
Basically everywhere but South Carolina there were a bunch of stories that Biden didn't have enough paid staffers on the ground, enough field offices, etc.
I haven no idea if they were true but irrelevant in a modern age, true and it hurt him, or bullshit spread by rivals and/or people looking for a job. But I am not particularly surprised they are now coming out for the general.
As I said the Super Tuesday Capitulation is proof something happened as the former candidates Beto O'Rourke, Yang and others came out saying vote for Biden as Bernie is dangerous or a menace
But what was said or done behind the scenes? This is the problem I have with the rumored picks for VP as you can with the democratic platform committee the hand of the Republicans that defected to "help" the Democrats
The rumored VP picks are odd as you can tell they are trying for someone that will replace Biden if need be and still not be a outlier like Bernie or any of the progressives
Or it's a demonstration that knocking on every door is not in and of itself enough. And that ground game, or at least perceptions of ground game, are not necessarily meaningful.
Trump won without much of a ground game didn't he? I seem to remember that being a thing people pointed out. He was disorganized and relied on online presence. It's too dangerous for traditional politics right now and I think Biden's campaign should be thinking future strategy and not past strategy and try and innovate and make the best of online campaigning and organizing and point out every day how Trump's rallies are selfish and dangerous and hurting Americans.
Yep, effectively zero ground game, beyond maybe one or two halfhearted attempts to open a local campaign office (at least that's what my memory says). He also famously refused to the do the boring parts of campaigning including making phone calls, glad handing donors, and supporting downticket or state GOP races. I still remember a story of Reince Preibus begging him to show up and do phone calls to rich donors and Trump leaving him high and dry. His "campaign" and was a national joke and obvious grift right up until he won.
Strangely I never saw the swell of "Trump evolves the political game" stories from the press, everyone still treats his campaign and win (even his own party) as an aberration, or perhaps the GOP is so disorganized, fractured, and filled with grifters that they can no longer properly campaign anyway.
I to don't put too much stock in the good Biden polls, though they're a nice piece of hope right now. Luckily Biden doesn't really have to do much, he doesn't have the deep seated likability problems Hillary did and he's going up a against a deeply unpopular and corrupt President who is only too happy to continue to publicly fuck up on the daily.
Basically everywhere but South Carolina there were a bunch of stories that Biden didn't have enough paid staffers on the ground, enough field offices, etc.
I haven no idea if they were true but irrelevant in a modern age, true and it hurt him, or bullshit spread by rivals and/or people looking for a job. But I am not particularly surprised they are now coming out for the general.
As I said the Super Tuesday Capitulation is proof something happened as the former candidates Beto O'Rourke, Yang and others came out saying vote for Biden as Bernie is dangerous or a menace
But what was said or done behind the scenes? This is the problem I have with the rumored picks for VP as you can with the democratic platform committee the hand of the Republicans that defected to "help" the Democrats
The rumored VP picks are odd as you can tell they are trying for someone that will replace Biden if need be and still not be a outlier like Bernie or any of the progressives
Or it's a demonstration that knocking on every door is not in and of itself enough. And that ground game, or at least perceptions of ground game, are not necessarily meaningful.
Why should we believe the doomsaying this time?
Our collective idea of a good ground game is very inaccurate, as shown by the 2016
*flash of lightning, crack of thunder*
...election. Combine that with a genuinely unique situation of having a plague during an election year and every discussion about ground game is speculation without evidence. Even this one! Not saying we shouldn't discuss it or that anyone is wrong, just something we should keep in mind.
The leaked campaign staff doomsaying can be dismissed out of hand because it's stupid.
Some Democrats who recognize the complicated reality of campaigning amid a pandemic still feel Biden remaining on the sidelines while the president's campaign pounds the pavement unchallenged could spell serious trouble in November.
"We're going to lose Election Day," said Wilnelia Rivera, who was Rep. Ayanna Pressley's chief campaign strategist for her successful 2018 race in Massachusetts. "If the Biden campaign continues down this track of running a traditional, candidate-driven, TV-spending campaign, it's not going to be enough."
"By now, I expected it to see a surrogate campaign of many aligned Democrats issuing a coordinated message of what it is that we need right now: to not just win in November, but to put our country back on track," said Rivera, a contributor to the book "Turnout: Mobilizing Voters in an Emergency."
Rivera said she's not suggesting Democrats put volunteers or staff in "harm's way" amid the pandemic, but said they need to start realizing that Republicans "are not going to play this election fair" -- campaigning as if the country was not in the middle of a health crisis.
Other veteran Democratic staffers who worked on campaigns during the 2020 primary, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they didn't want to criticize the presumptive nominee's campaign, told ABC News they have been stunned at how long it's taken the Biden campaign to start to put staffers in key states. "I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day," one source told ABC News.
Legitimate concern.
"I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day"
Yes, and? Maybe the fact that we have a pandemic, unprecedented in modern times, in the middle of unprecedented times in this country, has something to do with that? Maybe you need to take the full context of our situation into account when passing judgements?
Have consultants always been this terrible?
Yes. Yes they have. Every campaign on both sides since as long as I've been paying attention to politics has had folks talking about how everything is doooooomed because candidate X isn't doing thing Y.
And Y thing is usually the thing said consultants are charging money for. There's a lot of incompetence and grift and failing upwards on political campaigns.
Shit, if political doomsaying is a moneymaker, we all need to charter a bus to DC. We'd make out like bandits.
I don't feel what I said was doomsaying . I just feel the centerlist part of the Democrats is scared of the progressives and is doing everything they can to undermine them and hold onto power
Frankly I don’t think ground game is that important anymore. Social media is so pervasive its like sitting with someone in their living room every day.
Trump won without much of a ground game didn't he? I seem to remember that being a thing people pointed out. He was disorganized and relied on online presence. It's too dangerous for traditional politics right now and I think Biden's campaign should be thinking future strategy and not past strategy and try and innovate and make the best of online campaigning and organizing and point out every day how Trump's rallies are selfish and dangerous and hurting Americans.
It helped that CNN and others would just air his rallies so he got tons of free tv time.
I still remember one of the non-FOX cable channels running a full screen shot of an empty fucking podium, while Hilary was making a speech.
They prioritized the anticipation of Trump, over an actual candidate speaking.
So yeah, when he talks about being unfairly treated by the media, he can go fuck off. He's still a dancing baboon, but the media clap along regardless.
I believe traditionally, the dems have a better door knocking operation than republicans. Something about an advantage in number of volunteers.
This year though, fucking everything is out the window.
My hunch early in the primary was that we'd need a candidate that does not need media time. Because there would be essentially no way that the media would give them air over whatever bullshit Trump threw. That was pre-pandemic, of course. Which is it's own smothering layer of media, now.
I don't feel what I said was doomsaying . I just feel the centerlist part of the Democrats is scared of the progressives and is doing everything they can to undermine them and hold onto power
What is this even in response to?
Spoit on
+2
Options
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Trump wants a backroom-only, untelevised GOP National Convention with absolutely no press allowed . . . and isn’t sure he’ll even show up.
An RNC official says the President is not likely to accept the nomination in Charlotte in a big public speech. If Trump goes to Charlotte, the expectation is that it will just be to thank the delegates in a private, closed press event.
The proceedings on the Monday of the convention -- including the vote to formally nominate Trump -- will be live-streamed, according to a Republican official familiar with the plans.
Due to space restrictions, not all delegates will attend either. Instead, 336 delegates will vote at the convention proceedings -- one for every six delegates.
So.
I think this is a huge mistake on Trump’s part. Yes, the media coverage will be lousy and the press will pan him for it, and I’m sure somehow he thinks this is a big Fuck You to the mean ol’ media that’s won’t throw a parade for him every morning, but let’s consider the other effects.
- If Trump doesn’t show, then he doesn’t get to go on his trademark hateful hour-long ramble, which is kinda his favorite thing to do. I can’t see him missing out on a huge singular opportunity to be the center of national attention during primetime.
- The conventions are generally the last big event for the campaigns before going into the homestretch grind. It gets tons of press, it’s usually multiple nights of surrogates jerking the candidates off, and all the important talking heads are there to shape public opinion. Blowing this off seems to be the exact wrong move for a flagging, unpopular candidate
It's too much to ask that if press are banned, then the media won't cover it.
They'll still air his hour plus long grievance rant.
They shouldn't. But they know it'll draw eyeballs, and they don’t want to miss out on it. Also, Trump will call them names if they don't*, and they don't want that.
* He'll call them names if they do. But their Stockholm Syndrome means they keep coming back for more.
+6
Options
AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
edited August 2020
Trump isn't getting an opportunity to get constantly appluaded and foment mindless chanting of every talking point he coughs up, so he probably doesn't want to do it at all.
Trump isn't getting an opportunity to get constantly appluaded and foment mindless chanting of every talking point he coughs up, so he probably doesn't want to do it at all.
The mocking after the dumpster fire in Tulsa might have shook him enough that he and his campaign are spooked about repeating it. That was pretty much a historically unprecedented disaster across the board and set a narrative he couldn't control.
If we are lucky, his rallies which seem to be one of the few things he actually enjoys, have been poisoned.
Trump won without much of a ground game didn't he? I seem to remember that being a thing people pointed out. He was disorganized and relied on online presence. It's too dangerous for traditional politics right now and I think Biden's campaign should be thinking future strategy and not past strategy and try and innovate and make the best of online campaigning and organizing and point out every day how Trump's rallies are selfish and dangerous and hurting Americans.
Yep, effectively zero ground game, beyond maybe one or two halfhearted attempts to open a local campaign office (at least that's what my memory says). He also famously refused to the do the boring parts of campaigning including making phone calls, glad handing donors, and supporting downticket or state GOP races. I still remember a story of Reince Preibus begging him to show up and do phone calls to rich donors and Trump leaving him high and dry. His "campaign" and was a national joke and obvious grift right up until he won.
Strangely I never saw the swell of "Trump evolves the political game" stories from the press, everyone still treats his campaign and win (even his own party) as an aberration, or perhaps the GOP is so disorganized, fractured, and filled with grifters that they can no longer properly campaign anyway.
I to don't put too much stock in the good Biden polls, though they're a nice piece of hope right now. Luckily Biden doesn't really have to do much, he doesn't have the deep seated likability problems Hillary did and he's going up a against a deeply unpopular and corrupt President who is only too happy to continue to publicly fuck up on the daily.
Basically everywhere but South Carolina there were a bunch of stories that Biden didn't have enough paid staffers on the ground, enough field offices, etc.
I haven no idea if they were true but irrelevant in a modern age, true and it hurt him, or bullshit spread by rivals and/or people looking for a job. But I am not particularly surprised they are now coming out for the general.
As I said the Super Tuesday Capitulation is proof something happened as the former candidates Beto O'Rourke, Yang and others came out saying vote for Biden as Bernie is dangerous or a menace
But what was said or done behind the scenes? This is the problem I have with the rumored picks for VP as you can with the democratic platform committee the hand of the Republicans that defected to "help" the Democrats
The rumored VP picks are odd as you can tell they are trying for someone that will replace Biden if need be and still not be a outlier like Bernie or any of the progressives
Or it's a demonstration that knocking on every door is not in and of itself enough. And that ground game, or at least perceptions of ground game, are not necessarily meaningful.
Why should we believe the doomsaying this time?
I don't feel what I said was doomsaying . I just feel the centerlist part of the Democrats is scared of the progressives and is doing everything they can to undermine them and hold onto power
What is this even in response to?
Full quote tree added.
I feel there's 2 things going on here.
First, traditionally the VP pick tries to fill in some of the demographic holes in the Pres candidate appeal - Trump and Obama were both seen as insurgent newcomers, so Pence and Biden were "traditionalists" to broaden appeal (and similarly McCain's pick of Palin to appeal to the Tea Party crowd). That's still going on with the current VP search, since Black/Female (which from all accounts are two of the primary characteristics they've used for the shortlist) is a counterbalance for Biden's VERY strong slightly-out-of-touch old white guy mojo. While that seems to have dropped the Warrens et al. further down the list, it definitely seems to be less with progressive vs. centrist and more with overt cultural zeitgeist for what is happening in 2020 (Bernie, Warren, and even The Squad feels like a lifetime ago now).
Second, I'm not sure that any progressive vs. centrist democratic divide has had an impact on any decisions regarding ground games. Centrists definitely just want to win, and I'll go out on a limb and say possibly even than progressives who sometimes can be less willing to make compromises. As others have pointed out, not only has the last 4 years been an outlier for politics (although some may say just the logical extension of pre-existing trends), but 2020 has its own unique challenges that gives traditional "ground games" a major question mark.
Unless something stronger than speculation comes out, I'm doubtful of the proposition that any weakness (perceived or actual) of the Democratic 2020 ground game stems from internal party divisions that may weaken results come November. I'd go with some of the other posts that the greater threat is from Trump/GOP suppression activities.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
The thing about a good ground game, is that it is super important for house of reps members, especially before a primary. It is also important at the state and local levels of government as well. The senate it is less important and the president less than that. Because knocking on a million doors is as effective as a single 30 second advertisement.
Trump isn't getting an opportunity to get constantly appluaded and foment mindless chanting of every talking point he coughs up, so he probably doesn't want to do it at all.
The mocking after the dumpster fire in Tulsa might have shook him enough that he and his campaign are spooked about repeating it. That was pretty much a historically unprecedented disaster across the board and set a narrative he couldn't control.
If we are lucky, his rallies which seem to be one of the few things he actually enjoys, have been poisoned.
He cancelled his NH rally because of "weather", totally not anything to do with turnout or the Republican governor cancelling his own appearance.
I just checked the campaign's events site and there are zero scheduled. Compared to last cycle when he was doing several each week.
State Republicans are dealing with the more immediate consequences of ignoring the virus. Trump wanting to gather thousands of people in one spot for free media coverage and an ego boost is not going to be appealing. I wonder if/when Trump starts turning on Republican governors for not easing restrictions for his rallies.
Posts
Trump had facebook literally connected at the hip to his campaign.
Reminder that Herman Cain got COVID-19 and died for attending the Trump Tulsa rally.
No she never was.
Ed
Even if one concedes that, white papers and governing are not at all the same. That is a big part of why we elect people and not platforms. Warren was a long term play not a jump in and immediately run like a well oiled machine one
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Both campaigns did, but his team made way better use of it because *redacted*. And honestly there are issues with a company like that having such deep access to both major candidates. I am looking forward to next year, god willing, that we get real congressional oversight into all of the bad shit that has happened in the past five years.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Yep, effectively zero ground game, beyond maybe one or two halfhearted attempts to open a local campaign office (at least that's what my memory says). He also famously refused to the do the boring parts of campaigning including making phone calls, glad handing donors, and supporting downticket or state GOP races. I still remember a story of Reince Preibus begging him to show up and do phone calls to rich donors and Trump leaving him high and dry. His "campaign" and was a national joke and obvious grift right up until he won.
Strangely I never saw the swell of "Trump evolves the political game" stories from the press, everyone still treats his campaign and win (even his own party) as an aberration, or perhaps the GOP is so disorganized, fractured, and filled with grifters that they can no longer properly campaign anyway.
I to don't put too much stock in the good Biden polls, though they're a nice piece of hope right now. Luckily Biden doesn't really have to do much, he doesn't have the deep seated likability problems Hillary did and he's going up a against a deeply unpopular and corrupt President who is only too happy to continue to publicly fuck up on the daily.
Biden's ground game was also constantly criticized in the primary
Iowa
New Hampshire
Nevada
Super Tuesday, Mississippi specifically, Texas, Massachusetts
Basically everywhere but South Carolina there were a bunch of stories that Biden didn't have enough paid staffers on the ground, enough field offices, etc.
I haven no idea if they were true but irrelevant in a modern age, true and it hurt him, or bullshit spread by rivals and/or people looking for a job. But I am not particularly surprised they are now coming out for the general.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Wait, Warren is good with young folks?
Although I guess it makes sense since she was a very incredibly popular second choice in the primary...
Edit: I wrote this before getting to the post with the poll
Still weird to me but I understand the data behind the statement now
"I've never seen a general election campaign this understaffed in battleground states this close to Election Day"
Yes, and? Maybe the fact that we have a pandemic, unprecedented in modern times, in the middle of unprecedented times in this country, has something to do with that? Maybe you need to take the full context of our situation into account when passing judgements?
Have consultants always been this terrible?
Yes. Yes they have. Every campaign on both sides since as long as I've been paying attention to politics has had folks talking about how everything is doooooomed because candidate X isn't doing thing Y.
It helped that CNN and others would just air his rallies so he got tons of free tv time.
{Twitter, Everybody's doing it. }{Writing and Story Blog}
And the obvious solution is to give me $$$ to solve it.
Registering to vote and voting just got more complicated. Every state has different rules for registering to vote AND registering to vote by mail. Some states will make voting by mail basically impossible for Democrats. Some states will make voting in person basically impossible for Democrats. A lot of people who aren't very political will look at the hoops they need to go through and give up. Others will try but fail their Bureaucracy roll and sign up wrong, or fill out the vote by mail form wrong, or send the vote by mail form too late to be counted.
I'm expecting a smooth and pleasant process living in a very Blue state. But people in Georgia can expect a lot of "You didn't tick all the boxes so we didn't sign you up to vote, nor did we tell you there was a problem" or "Your form got lost in the mail" or "Welcome to the voting line. Should only be about 5 hours from here."
As I said the Super Tuesday Capitulation is proof something happened as the former candidates Beto O'Rourke, Yang and others came out saying vote for Biden as Bernie is dangerous or a menace
But what was said or done behind the scenes? This is the problem I have with the rumored picks for VP as you can with the democratic platform committee the hand of the Republicans that defected to "help" the Democrats
The rumored VP picks are odd as you can tell they are trying for someone that will replace Biden if need be and still not be a outlier like Bernie or any of the progressives
like even bernie, the guy who explicitly ran on organisational skills, mostly fucked it up outside a handful of states. as the left becomes more and more a movement of the educated middle classes i think we become not only ignorant of, but increasingly hostile to, the fact that you have to actually go outside and talk to people where they live and work
This is more of a "pandemic" thing than "Dem" thing though. By all accounts bthr ground game last time was mostly fine
but the new left started freezing them out in the seventies because they were all racist and run by the mob and shit like that
And Y thing is usually the thing said consultants are charging money for. There's a lot of incompetence and grift and failing upwards on political campaigns.
Or it's a demonstration that knocking on every door is not in and of itself enough. And that ground game, or at least perceptions of ground game, are not necessarily meaningful.
Why should we believe the doomsaying this time?
Our collective idea of a good ground game is very inaccurate, as shown by the 2016
*flash of lightning, crack of thunder*
...election. Combine that with a genuinely unique situation of having a plague during an election year and every discussion about ground game is speculation without evidence. Even this one! Not saying we shouldn't discuss it or that anyone is wrong, just something we should keep in mind.
The leaked campaign staff doomsaying can be dismissed out of hand because it's stupid.
Shit, if political doomsaying is a moneymaker, we all need to charter a bus to DC. We'd make out like bandits.
I still remember one of the non-FOX cable channels running a full screen shot of an empty fucking podium, while Hilary was making a speech.
They prioritized the anticipation of Trump, over an actual candidate speaking.
So yeah, when he talks about being unfairly treated by the media, he can go fuck off. He's still a dancing baboon, but the media clap along regardless.
This year though, fucking everything is out the window.
My hunch early in the primary was that we'd need a candidate that does not need media time. Because there would be essentially no way that the media would give them air over whatever bullshit Trump threw. That was pre-pandemic, of course. Which is it's own smothering layer of media, now.
What is this even in response to?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/01/politics/rnc-charlotte-press/index.html
So.
I think this is a huge mistake on Trump’s part. Yes, the media coverage will be lousy and the press will pan him for it, and I’m sure somehow he thinks this is a big Fuck You to the mean ol’ media that’s won’t throw a parade for him every morning, but let’s consider the other effects.
- If Trump doesn’t show, then he doesn’t get to go on his trademark hateful hour-long ramble, which is kinda his favorite thing to do. I can’t see him missing out on a huge singular opportunity to be the center of national attention during primetime.
- The conventions are generally the last big event for the campaigns before going into the homestretch grind. It gets tons of press, it’s usually multiple nights of surrogates jerking the candidates off, and all the important talking heads are there to shape public opinion. Blowing this off seems to be the exact wrong move for a flagging, unpopular candidate
They'll still air his hour plus long grievance rant.
They shouldn't. But they know it'll draw eyeballs, and they don’t want to miss out on it. Also, Trump will call them names if they don't*, and they don't want that.
* He'll call them names if they do. But their Stockholm Syndrome means they keep coming back for more.
The mocking after the dumpster fire in Tulsa might have shook him enough that he and his campaign are spooked about repeating it. That was pretty much a historically unprecedented disaster across the board and set a narrative he couldn't control.
If we are lucky, his rallies which seem to be one of the few things he actually enjoys, have been poisoned.
I feel there's 2 things going on here.
First, traditionally the VP pick tries to fill in some of the demographic holes in the Pres candidate appeal - Trump and Obama were both seen as insurgent newcomers, so Pence and Biden were "traditionalists" to broaden appeal (and similarly McCain's pick of Palin to appeal to the Tea Party crowd). That's still going on with the current VP search, since Black/Female (which from all accounts are two of the primary characteristics they've used for the shortlist) is a counterbalance for Biden's VERY strong slightly-out-of-touch old white guy mojo. While that seems to have dropped the Warrens et al. further down the list, it definitely seems to be less with progressive vs. centrist and more with overt cultural zeitgeist for what is happening in 2020 (Bernie, Warren, and even The Squad feels like a lifetime ago now).
Second, I'm not sure that any progressive vs. centrist democratic divide has had an impact on any decisions regarding ground games. Centrists definitely just want to win, and I'll go out on a limb and say possibly even than progressives who sometimes can be less willing to make compromises. As others have pointed out, not only has the last 4 years been an outlier for politics (although some may say just the logical extension of pre-existing trends), but 2020 has its own unique challenges that gives traditional "ground games" a major question mark.
Unless something stronger than speculation comes out, I'm doubtful of the proposition that any weakness (perceived or actual) of the Democratic 2020 ground game stems from internal party divisions that may weaken results come November. I'd go with some of the other posts that the greater threat is from Trump/GOP suppression activities.
He cancelled his NH rally because of "weather", totally not anything to do with turnout or the Republican governor cancelling his own appearance.
I just checked the campaign's events site and there are zero scheduled. Compared to last cycle when he was doing several each week.
State Republicans are dealing with the more immediate consequences of ignoring the virus. Trump wanting to gather thousands of people in one spot for free media coverage and an ego boost is not going to be appealing. I wonder if/when Trump starts turning on Republican governors for not easing restrictions for his rallies.
Is he trying to sound like Immortan Joe now?