I hardly ever watch a video ad. I’m a cord-cutter (no cable), use a lot of ad-free streaming services (Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBONow), and don’t watch sports. I am on YouTube Red (no ads) and I subscribe to most of the news sites that I read (fewer ads). Like most people who spent a lot of time on the Internet, I’m also pretty ad blind, so even if web advertising is effective for some, I know there are some like me who don’t even register it. Perhaps I’m an outlier, but I don’t think I’m that far out.
Yet I contribute to a political system that spends a huge amount of money on television advertising near the end of the campaign.
Something is wrong with this picture. We run billion dollar presidential campaigns, while a lot of our House campaigns struggle to raise 6 figures, and our statehouse campaigns struggle to raise anything. And a huge amount of that money goes someplace where a few people my age, and many more who are younger than me, can’t be reached.
Before I started writing here, I ran a blog that covered NY-29, which was redistricted after 2010. That district, at the time a R+7, was won by Eric Massa in 2008 after Massa ran in 2006 and nearly defeated the incumbent in a district that hadn’t been represented by a Republican for over 20 years. Massa, as some of you probably remember, promptly melted down in a scandal and resigned in disgrace. Still, his campaign was an object lesson in how a little money can go a long way, and that money didn’t go to TV ads (mostly), especially in 2006.
The main money in Massa’s 2006 campaign was his Navy pension and savings, which allowed him to campaign for over a year before the election. He spent a lot of time talking to local party committees, local Rotary meetings, and any other event where a speaker was desired. He traveled across the district to meet and greet and do some in-person fundraising. He leveraged free media to the hilt – every single damn thing he did merited a press release, and it was effective. Local newspapers and TV are understaffed and always looking for content, and he and his staff were great at giving it to them.
Massa’s campaign is reminiscent of George McGovern’s rebuilding of the South Dakota Democratic party in the 50’s. As the woefully underpaid executive secretary of the party, McGovern also traveled the state and met with local committees, operated on a shoestring, leveraged free media, and built a list of persuadable voters that was still in use in the 80’s and 90’s when Daschle, Johnson and Herseth-Sandlin were able to eke out victories in a heavily Republican state.
In short, a little money and a determined candidate who starts early can make a big difference. A little more money and an early starting determined candidate can win. But the real money all goes to the billion-dollar, every-four-year show. And it goes to pay for things of dubious value, like TV ads, which cost at least an order of magnitude more than social media and GOTV.
We will have to run a lot of NY-29 campaigns in 2018. The candidates for those campaigns will need to start soon, and really be working by next Summer, to win districts in 2018. I want to hear how the new head of the DNC, or whatever other entity will funnel money to these races, will pick their candidates and nurture them. And I want us all to think about whether there are some other things that could be as effective as pay TV ads for a fraction of the cost.
WereBear
More to the immediate point, the campaign starts right now.
Paul Ryan just announced the end of Medicare.
If that’s not a giant screaming headline, it should be. We can all make it one.
mistermix
@WereBear: One of the things that killed Randy Kuhl, Massa’s opponent, was signing on to privatized Social Security. Massa hit him over the head with that daily, and twice on Sundays.
Emma
We need to do something similar to what the right-wingers attempted. We need to start taking over local offices, from school boards to aldermen. Local government is where it can start.
Elizabelle
@Emma: Agreed.
mistermix: thank you for this post. I like it.
Because: people like Democratic ideas, although they have been taught not to like Democrats. We could use that.
They have the most dubious president-elect in history. Who isn’t a little unnerved (if you’re reachable).
Baud
@Emma: To do this, we also have to convince people to vote (who are not suppressed) as a civic duty. That’s also what the right does well.
mai naem mobile
I realize you’re talking about campaign funding and not money in general but I’ve been fo)lowING the Calexit stuff on twitter a little. I just wondwr if federal tax dollars from blue states can be fashioned into a financial nukular warhead? Blue states almost unanimously are ‘giver’ states. Also, I fully expect the tax reform package to make state taxes not be used as a deduction. The GOP has talked about it before.
brighid
@Emma: this is what I keep coming back to. If we do want to work on redistricting issues and change the structural bias that favors conservatives running for office at the state and local level is essential. but how do you encourage people to take the plunge into politics? Especially women and minorities and anyone else who may not have the time or money to conduct a traditional campaign?
bonzotex
Thank you. You are exactly correct. TV ads are mostly a complete waste of money. A few thousand dollars to a progressive community organization goes a long, long way.
There needs to be an actual Democrat in every race, even if it looks hopeless. It doesn’t cost much to get candidates on the ballot, but we need the organizational bones of a nationwide popular party to elevate and push viable candidates into the light.
Every county in the US should have an active Democratic Party office, even if at first it is just one angry woman in a farmhouse with a phone and PO box. This isn’t cheap, but it is cheaper and more effective long term than giving millions to big media.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Wow, talked to an actual Trump supporter last night. Basically this person, a woman, spent the whole time screaming about how awful Bill Clinton is, refused to even talk about Trump.
I think everyone is just over thinking it this – this is basically a bunch of idiots conditioned the last 20 years to hate Clintons. I really think two years of non stop Trump will change a lot of minds.
Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
There’s a fascinating “what if” about the candidacy of John Fetterman for Senate in PA. Fetterman was a young guy who got elected mayor of a down on its luck industrial town. He didn’t look like a politician – 6’8″, shaved head and Ming the Merciless beard, always in a black work shirt Andrew not a suit and tie. He ran on a lot of Bernie Sanders populist/ working-class issues and really energized a lot of Bernie voters in the runup to the primary. He also pretty obviously clamored for support from Bernie (Fetterman basically started his campaign with no money), which somewhat mystifyingly never came (“I don’t know John,” was Bernie’s only quote).
However, on primary day, running against Katie McGinty, a well qualified and connected candidate who nonetheless had no core issues and basically stayed off the media radar the whole election, Fetterman polled well above expectations. And in the end, McGinty’s support in the general was tepid.
So it’s hard not to imagine what might have happened if Sanders had supprted Fetterman at all, Fetterman maybe gets the nom, and galvanizes young voters and working class whites, and maybe HRC doesn’t lose PA.
Downpuppy
20 years too late, I’m finally joining my Ward Committee.
The goal will be outreach. Less meetings, more Bar Trivia nights. The dream is to make it spread, make politics part of normal life.
I’ll probably suck at this, but hey.
Robert Green
As someone who pitched HRC’s team a digital concept early on (at a very high level–i’ve done a lot of this stuff before going back to the Great Schlep), i heard the standard “sure sure sure but we don’t have money”.
They had money. Giant wheelbarrows full of it. But the way D consultants work is they make money as a percentage of their media buy. The bigger the buy, the bigger the paycheck. So, HRC outspends DT 3:1 on TV ads in the last 2 months, and thanks her “Volunteers” in NC for whom there was no money.
It’s pathetic. It’s yesterday’s ground bits shoved into today’s sausage casing. It’s everything that’s wrong with the DNC, the Clintons, the D ecosystem in one anecdote. No money for digital. No money for original ideas. No money for street teams in key states. But SHIT TONS of money for consultants to dump into the pockets of the moonves and Zuckers of teh world, who ironically are the same fucking people who hoisted trump on us.
Jesus (hey-zeus) wept.
JohnH
Remember early on the campaign when trumpster was criticized for not buying TV ads… it’s time to rethink conventional wisdom here. Great post. Sadly, the red team seems to already gotten this memo.
Srv
Write another circular firing squad post. That was helpful.
WereBear
@Robert Green: Exactly. They have a cushy thing going, and aren’t going to upset anything now.
The world has changed, but we are handcuffed to a fellow prisoner who won’t even run when the bloodhounds get near.
BlueDWarrior
@Robert Green: If anything what that screams out for is for alternative sources of money that’s not tied to the existing Democratic consultant class to start 3rd (not-political party) organizational mechanisms and media houses.
We don’t necessarily need a Brietbart-style website and clearing house, though it might help, but being able to organize prominent online Democrats and general liberals to constantly cheerlead Team Blue (when they want to act right) can go a long way to helping us win Congress and the reachable statehouses.
At some point, we actually do need to look at the Right-Wing Noise Machine and see what structural things we can mimic for our own ends.
OzarkHillbilly
I am joining the local Dem party and doing what I can to make sure the next Washington Co dog catcher is a Dem.
Doug!
This is the most important point to be made about the DNC
Persia
We also need to message, message, message. What’s the better way we’re offering? Condense it down to three words, make a bunch of graphics about it, and roll.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: So you’re running for dog catcher?
Travis Mitchell
I agree about the need for new approaches. I’ve been trying to get progressive candidates interested in inexpensive digital outreach for a few years now. IMHO we need voter-candidate engagement which is non-partisan, text-based, moderated and limited to the actual voters of the district. (Like a very much improved reddit Ask-Me-Anything, or an online version of a call-in show.) More on my approach and a link to a prototype discussion board are at votervoices.org (link squirelly: ).
A non-partisan discussion board which would let candidates engage with their voters would be very inexpensive ($2 a day), and would work especially well at the state government level. I offered to run a board to a number of progressive politicians on track to lose this cycle, including John Fetterman mentioned above, and none of them were interested in participating. All of them subsequently lost, which was in the cards, but perhaps digital outreach could have helped them. At least it would have been something new.
wormtown
Main people benefiting from all this money spent on advertising are the consultants, ad agencies and the media. I thought Hillary’s ads were really good – but I was already voting on her.
I would like to know what the total amount of $$ spent for this campaign was (both sides). I think it is terrible waste of money; and lining pockets of people who already are very rich.
gene108
@Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.:
I hope Fetterman keeps active in politics. He seems like a good guy, who wants to and can do some good.
He also worked his ass off for Bernie in PA.
Did not get any reciprocal support from Bernie.
AMinNC
Very true, and what I and my friends have dedicated ourselves to working for at the state-level here in N.C. The Kochs and other funders of the right know this is the way to go, and have been funding local and state-level races for decades. Clearly it has paid dividends.
I also agree that when polled, a fairly substantial majority across the country approves of Democratic policies. The key is getting those policies across to people in a way that resonates. Small rotary-club-style conversations is a great way to do that. We need to be in this for the long, slow, slog, but it will be so worth it!
Mnemosyne
@Emma:
@Elizabelle:
@brighid:
I haven’t read all the way to the end of the thread so, like, hundreded.
Despite the screaming match between me and goblue72, we actually do agree on a fundamental truth: Democrats must re-take state houses and House seats that are currently held by Republicans. We must. It’s the only way to reverse this.
I honestly think that the core message of the Democrats is the right one: Stronger Together. There actually are a lot of people out there who are feeling economic anxiety, but they are not the ones who voted for Trump. So how do we reach them without betraying our core message of inclusiveness?
Mnemosyne
@JohnH:
We scoffed when Trump hired the CEO of Breitbart to run his campaign, but Breitbart was feeding pro-Trump propaganda into people’s Facebook feeds in an unending stream every. single. day. Before i unfriended him altogether, I had to block the Breitbart posts that my cousin-in-law kept liking.
We need propaganda. Propaganda doesn’t need to be lies, but it does need to be non-stop. Facebook and Twitter are the places to start with that.
Mnemosyne
@BlueDWarrior:
Honestly, I think we do need a Breitbart-style clearing house, or something very close to it. Earlier this year, I was referencing this classic propaganda film that was produced by the US government during WWII to show to the armed forces: “Don’t Be A Sucker.” Is it propaganda? Sure. Is it wrong, or telling lies? No. It tells the truth in a clear, direct way that tells a story that people can relate to.
mistermix
@Robert Green: I thought that it was R consultants (only) who billed a portion of the ad buy. If it is the D way, too, then it is obviously a huge conflict of interest.
mistermix
@Mnemosyne:
The Massa campaign’s constant press releases were a form of pre-social-media propaganda. Something different, every day, relevant and interesting. A lot more than media were on the press release list – county party people, bloggers, etc.
A lot of it was comment on national political stories. Basically, Eric read the morning paper, picked some political issue, and wrote about it. That’s a very powerful model that can be transferred to social media.
Neldob
Yes. Also, and talk to people as friendly. So many people just need someone to show them the reality beyond the right-wing talk factory. Once a person heard me say ‘socialize the costs and privatize the profits is the way it’s done’ and she’d never heard that before, yet it made perfect sense to her. Changed her world view, at least a little.
Skippy-san
My problem here is that the GOP does not want a fair playing field. They want a single party system. Just like in Singapore. And like Singapore they will use the law to discredit any opposition. You should look up the history of J.B Jetyaram, who LeeKwan Yew went out of his way to break.
West of the Cascades
@Robert Green: contrast that to the efforts of the Nevada Democrats, who (with the help of unions) bussed people to vote early, knocked on doors, had extensive phone banks (had people here in Oregon calling Nevada voters, even), and flipped their state legislature from red to blue along with electing Catherine Cortez Masto to the Senate. The had less money than the Rs (if you count money funneled in by Sheldon Adelson and the Kochs) but had a far better GOTV machine, largely Harry Reid’s legacy. It worked. It can be replicated. But the DNC needs serious new thinkers, and to have local office and congressional candidates for 2018 who start their campaigns this week.
Mnemosyne
@West of the Cascades:
I am proud to say that, in my small way, I helped hold the line in Nevada: I was able to go help register voters there for a weekend in Las Vegas. There’s at least one other commenter here who did the same from northern California.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: And I am grateful to you :)
NMgal
Excellent post. There is no one reason for the loss of the presidential race or the loss of apparently gettable Senate and House seats; to try to reduce it to that is folly and gets nowhere. About a dozen things lined up perfectly for the results that happened. The OP and comments are talking about a best way forward with analysis post-event: start with looking at where the successes (and near-successes) were, where the failures were and how they got that way – poor leadership, bad resource allocation, establishment privilege ignoring intel from non-establishment groups, fiefdom-protection, grifty and ineffective consultants, crap messaging, weak Voter ID pushback, lackluster GOTV, whatever. Tantrums ain’t gonna help. Analysis and targeted change will.
boatboy_srq
The single most interesting thing about the GOTea primary was that tRump wasn’t following the fundraising/campaigning/publicity rules – and those who did mainly lost catastrophically. Campaign Finance Reform might be the one bipartisan item left on the agenda: the establishment Repubs aren’t all that happy that the unCandidate won the election despite all their donations to the anyone-but-tRump, and the Dems are already generally on board.
NW Phil
It also helps to have organizations like the Win/Win Network available in your area –
You can’t always count on your issues or small campaign to be a top priority of the local Democratic party.