Post

Avatar
General point: Stancil's criticism of Democratic strategy is broadly correct and like other people who share it, it's always telling that the counter-arguments rarely address the core point about actions and demands driving salience (rather than e.g. messaging or shallow media tactics / stunts).
You don’t have to do anything crazy. Just respond the way politicians respond to every single other politician caught in a severe scandal, from George Santos to Al Franken to Bob Menendez: insist over and over that he leave politics and not seek election. Literally just apply the normal standard
Avatar
Specific point: You can't scientifically A / B test this criticism the same way you can with narrow tactics like ads, mailers or email subject lines. The universe where Durbin is roasting Clarence Thomas and holding repeated anti-corruption hearings demanding he resigns can't be created in a lab.
Avatar
Even more specifically, operatives are drowning in data about how our programs perform, but once people stop responding to our programming they kind of disappear form our data, e.g. all the otherwise engaged people who stop subscribing to political emails and texts because they don't like spam.
Avatar
Avatar
Plus Dems haven't lost a lot of elections since 2016, quite the opposite, yet people won't recognize that and get off our backs
Avatar
I actually find the electoral landscape quite alarming! J6, election denial and Dobbs *only* counting for a few points is very scary and should prompt leaders to revisit fundamental assumptions about the political environment and how voters relate to the parties and candidates.
Avatar
The Presidential landscape IS terrifying, because last time Biden won the electoral college by what, 33K votes in five states? Not sure "messaging" can overcome such tight margins, though. I hold onto the fact that incumbent usually win because people are lazy AF