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1. I'll add to this, I still have some knowledge gaps as to how a fully funded, Red to Blue/DCCC campaign or a high level Senate race is operated in terms of the campaign's relationship w the party's org. I know a great deal, but its come to me in bits & pieces & I'd appreciate https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer/status/1332328303559061505
2. a full debrief so I can better understand the whole process. But what I DO know of it there are some obvious issues, some of which the authors here allude to (when they refer to the DCCC's "one-size-fits-all" messaging approach). But I do know candidates are railroaded into
3. the party's preferred messaging and targeting systems, vendors, etc by essentially a behavioral choice system, that provides options but only within a predetermined strategic framework designed in advance. I do know that campaigns have so independence, esp if they are prolific
4. fundraisers, but those upshot campaigns, esp. ones that end up on Red to Blue, are going to be heavily reliant on party help, and thus, unwilling or unable to push back. I am under the assumption that if an R2B campaign wants to use their own messaging strategy for direct mail
5. they must first poll-test the messaging. This is, of course, a deterrent from going off the party's pre-packaged DM (direct mail). I've been studying the DM campaigns of the Democratic and Republican Party for years now, and argue that the GOP's methodology for DMs is much
6. better than the Dems. DM is one of those things that its hard to find a measurable effect for, but, if you don't run it, and your opponent does, in a competitive race, the assumption is your opponent will have the upper hand. Its hard to test this in truly competitive races bc
7. no candidate or party wants to be the control group! My argument w DM is with the same as signs. Its a momentum or viability indicator to voters. If they are seeing your name everywhere on signs they are going to feel social pressure or social acceptability. My own little
8. neighborhood sign experience this cycle was very interesting. After 4 Trump signs went up on the 4 house on the intersection corner- plus another pro-Trump pocket emerged at the beginning of the street, my super fun neighbors next door responded with hand-painted signs
9. advocating for their dog to be president. I decided to put up a Biden sign, a little act of protest. A few days later, a neighbor further down the street put up their Biden sign- now there were 2 of us! This provoked even more Trump signs which provoked even more Biden signs
9. (but there was no doubt about it, the Trump people really liked their Trump signs. Rather than shy, they seemed proud and defiant, esp because I live in a very diverse city. With mailers, I taught my students, and the GOP consultants clearly understand this, that a mailer has
10. only the time of a glance to convey its point bc for the majority of its recipients, that's all its going to get. Democrats spend all this time & emotion laboring over this word or that, this policy added or that, each mailer full of helpful info that no one will ever read.
11. That's bc, as a rule, Republicans design campaigns for voters and Democrats design campaigns for themselves. The superiority of the Republican model is evident. When you're +11 after killing through negligence 250,000 people, won't give anyone economic aid, and are led by an
12. actual crazy person (see Trump's 11/26 press conference) than yeah, you are bad at electioneering. Its possible to convey a lot of info in a glance. Soon I'll have an example of a real-life ad/billboard design from a Bitecofer concept doing this to show y'all.
