I don't think policy is completely irrelevant but I overall am with Rick on this. Donald Trump is a 12 alarm fire and Democrats seem to be bickering over what color begonias to plant in the window sill. Just explain why Trump must not be re-elected and why you should be. https://t.co/EMvwFRmlyt— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) August 1, 2019
Rick Wilson is a political consultant, but he's never handled a national campaign; so his expertise stops at the Florida state line.
My expertise, admittedly, is non-existent. But this "advice" from non-experts is getting a bit silly, and damaging in its own right.
Just explain why Trump must no be re-elected and why you should be.
And that results in Kum Ba Yah and we all hold hands in kind and loving Democratic unity? Quite often explaining why you should be elected means clawing your way over the back of the other guy to stand on their shoulders and shove a sock in their mouth. Politics, as I think someone has said, ain't bean bag. I can think of several candidates right now (O'Rourke, Castro, Buttigieg, all come to mind) who tried the "mild-mannered nice guy vote-for-me-because-of-my-policies route, who are sinking fast in the polls and may soon be barred from the debate stage (not to mention the forgotten ones who have already left that stage). Last night the first thing CNN's pundits wanted to talk about was who "won" and who "lost" and the first criteria was, quite simply, who provided the best reality TeeVee soundbite. Props to Corey Booker for a remark about Kool-Aid (that sounded clever but I guarantee almost no one outside Jersey understood)! Boo to Kamala Harris for not going junk-yard dog on Biden again! Cheers to Kristen Gillibrand for mentioning Clorox and bringing up an editorial Biden wrote when he was in his 20's! Who among us isn't embarrassed by what we did in our 20's, especially in our 70's? And when is somebody gonna throw a chair and turn over a table?
Now how do you envision this "why you should be" being conducted, again?
Every time they open their mouths Dems should be explaining those two things:— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) August 1, 2019
1. How Trump has messed things up (gave tax cuts to the rich and you paid, tariffs killed your biz, let foreigners help him cheat and will again, made us Putin's poodle etc)
2. Why/how you'll fix it.
Because what every citizen wants to hear from an aspiring politician is a detailed account of how the incumbent is screwing up a very, very specific issue, and how you will fix it when you get into office?
Besides, that's different from what Elizabeth Warren is doing how, exactly? Not enough detail about Trump? Best way to win an argument is to first be sure the audience knows exactly what you're opponent has been doing? Please never represent me in an argument where something important is on the line. Please. Never.
Get a healthcare question? Explain how he and his party are trying to steal your healthcare.— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) August 1, 2019
And how you'll stop him.
Policy is part of the argument, but it is not THE argument. If people trust the candidate they'll trust them on policy that "will help people like me."
No, THE argument is all about Trump, I take it, and what he's up to. And I'm not sure how I learn to trust a candidate who seems obsessed with everything Trump is doing. After all, one of Trump's obsessions is to undo everything Obama did. Is that what we need, a replacement Trump on "our" side?
People (most anyway) Trusted Barack Obama. He resonated with them. They trusted his instincts on having opposed the Iraq war. They felt good that voting for him would fix the problems Bush made. It wasn't the details of his healthcare plan that made him win.— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) August 1, 2019
But I don't remember him campaigning on "Everything W. did, I'm gonna undo!" Maybe my memory's just bad....
The only question on the table for 2020 is who can inspire trust -- and just plain inspire -- the voters who see that what we are living through is deeply wrong, and are seeking a leader who can end the nightmare. Explain the threat. Tell us how you'll fix it. Fin.— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) August 1, 2019
Tell us how fucked we are; then tell us only you can save us.
Hell, it worked for Trump.
How does a candidate stand out from a crowd of 20-plus other candidates except by talking about differences? Maybe I'm alone, but I was interested in the discussion of healthcare policies.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Joy Reid is beginning to get on my nerves. In fact, she began to get on my nerves when she would not fully own her past anti-gay commentary in her blog posts from a decade ago. That's quite a while, and we can all change and evolve in a decade. Forgiveness is possible, but own up and apologize for the mistakes of the past. Reid never has. Hackers wrote the posts. Really?
I don't trust the advice of recently-converted anti-Trump, but still conservative, Republican pundits who tell Democrats how to win.
Exactly. Smacks a bit too much of "We'll tell you how to save us from ourselves."
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