Biden Is Taking The Offensive Against A Floundering Trump

COVID-Kemp

Thanks to an incompetent ideologically-insane Trumpist governor, Georgia is one of the worst hit states by the pandemic. Georgia is the 8th most populous state but has the 5th most COVID cases of any state-- and the third most active cases, behind just Florida and California. Yesterday, Georgia reported 1,498 new cases, bringing the total to 270,471 cases, which comes to 25,474 cases per million residents (6th worst in the country and likely to overtake Alabama, for 5th place soon). Georgia now has had more cases than Italy, a country that was considered a disaster zone and that has around 6 times more residents than Georgia. Simple fact: Georgia has been, and still is, a text book case of how not to handle a pandemic. Republicans-- locally and nationally-- are allowing partisanship and ideology to drive decision-making, rather than science and public health concerns. Perhaps that helps explain why Trump is in trouble with independent voters in a state he won in 2016 by 5 points.

Almost all polling this summer has shown Biden and Trump within the margin of error. The most recent poll-- a PPP survey released yesterday-- shows Trump's approval underwater (52% disapproving and 46% approving) and shows Biden narrowly ahead 47-46% (within the margin of error).

Georgia has been a state where Republicans could count on winning without spending much-- and Democratic presidential candidates haven't seriously contested the state since... Jimmy Carter. This year, both Trump and Biden are spending money on advertising there. Biden has reserved ads in 9 states besides Georgia that Trump won in 2016: Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. Trump has ads booked in just 3 states that Hillary won in 2016-- Minnesota, Nevada and New Hampshire.

Trump is playing defense in Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania and is likely to start taking Texas seriously as well.

Yesterday, CNN's Chris Cillizza reported that "the number of swing states is far larger than we've seen in any recent election, a reflection of President Donald Trump's asymmetrical politics and the rapidly changing demographics in the country."

That there are 15 states that meet that bar is a remarkable testament to how wide the two sides see the potential playing field-- and how far we have come in the past two decades in terms of what can be considered a swing state. If you think back to the 2000 and 2004 elections, the group of swing states was familiar-- and small. Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and maybe one or two others. And that was pretty much it. Both sides were forced to dump tens of millions of dollars into that handful of states, not because they wanted to, but because they couldn't justify spending that money in other states in hopes of turning them.

Barack Obama broke that deadlock in 2008 with wins in Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia, states no Democrat had won at the presidential level in decades. And Trump further widened the swing-state category by notching wins in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, typically Democratic victories, in 2016.

What's clear from the ad reservations for this fall is that the we are now dealing with an even wider playing field. Both campaigns have reserved time in Arizona, a state long safely in the Republican column. Ditto Minnesota, a state a Republican presidential candidate hasn't won since 1972(!).

Viewed broadly, the size of the playing field -- and the states included in it-- suggest that Biden is a) playing more offense than defense and b) sees a massive Electoral College victory as a genuine possibility.

...The most fascinating part of the ad reservation is that Biden has blocked out time in Texas and Georgia, two major electoral vote treasure troves, and two states that haven't been won by a Democratic running for president since 1976 and 1992, respectively. Polling in both states shows the race close; Trump has a 3.5 point lead in the Real Clear Politics polling average in Texas and a 1.1 point average margin in Georgia.

If Biden were to win one or both of Texas and Georgia, he would have at least the possibility of a major-- 350-plus electoral votes-- Electoral College landslide. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said for the better part of the last two years that Democrats must win "big" in order to avoid Trump aggressively contesting the result and refusing to concede.)

But it's more than just Electoral College calculus at work here. If Biden goes through with his plans to spend on ads in Texas and Georgia -- which is a big "if" given how expensive statewide TV buys are in both states -- he would likely force Trump's campaign to spend (and spend heavily) in those states, too. And every dollar Trump spends defending Texas or Georgia (or both) is a dollar he can't play offense with in Minnesota or Nevada or Virginia.

The widening of the electoral playing field has been happening gradually over the past three elections. But for 15 states to be in the mix this late in a presidential election cycle-- including Electoral College monsters like Texas and Georgia-- is a new chapter in modern American politics. And one that holds all sorts of possibilities-- for both parties-- in future races.

I asked how Julie Oliver how it will play out in her district. Democratic presidential candidates haven't really campaign in Texas is ages. "Texans," she told me this morning, "put our state in play, running everywhere as hard as we could in 2018-- before anyone thought it was winnable. Just everyday people, standing up, building the movement to take our state back from the corrupt ideologues who for too long have tried to keep all of us divided while they enriched themselves. And in 2020, it's time for real change.

Like Julie and all Democratic candidates in swing states, Michigan state Rep and congressional candidate Jon Hoadley is happy to see Biden taking the Democratic case to voters in his state. "It's welcome news that the Biden/Harris ticket is campaigning in Michigan," he told me this morning. "We saw what happened four years ago when people took Michigan for granted. Voters want us to not only make the case why we're better for the job than the other candidates, but why we deserve their vote at all. A strong Biden/Harris ticket in Michigan will help bolster the case we're making for change in southwest Michigan, push back against the lies being spread by secret dark money groups, and remind even more voters what's at stake in this election." Meanwhile, Hoadley is hardly waiting; yesterday he launched his own first TV ad:

How Many Years Should Mark Zuckerberg Serve In Prison? And Who Runs Google?

I hate Facebook's ad department so much that I just stopped dealing with them entirely. Blue America no longer uses them for ads. We switched out on-line ads to Google. I hate them nearly as much, although my experiences with them are mixed. It's entirely random and subjective if they green-light an ad or reject it. A couple of weeks ago Blue America was trying to buy an ad as part of our I.E. campaign for Eva Putzova. They turned it down and didn't tell us why. And, of course, there is no one to speak with. It's arbitrary and chillingly Kafkaesque. Somehow Jacquie found someone to scream at and-- boom-- the ad was running. I wish there was a way around them. I tried CNN.com, but they turned out to be so lame that no one ever even called back when I told an operator that we have a 6 figure budget for the year and would like to spend it on CNN.com.

I think a good case could be made for throwing Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Fidji Simo, David Fischer, David Wehner and the rest of Facebook's management upper echelon in prison for seriously damaging the country. Not because I don't like Facebook but because they are seriously damaging the country in the pursuit of profits without regard to the impact their poisonous decisions have on society. What am I talking about?

Yesterday I saw a piece by Craig Timber's and Andrew Ba Tran at the Washington Post, Facebook's Fact Checkers Have Ruled Claims In Trump Ads Are False-- But No One Is Telling Facebook's Users. How could it be otherwise? Lying and gaslighting are part of Trump's identity. It's who he is and always has been and always will be. But his ads go up anyway.

All 5 of the fact-checking agencies that Facebook used to assess Trump's new ad found it "false" and "deceptive." Facebook didn't tell their readers though. "That’s because the company specifically exempts politicians from its rules against deception. Ads containing the falsehoods continue to run freely on the platform, without any kind of warning or label."

Enabled by Facebook’s rules, Trump’s reelection campaign has shown versions of the false claim on Facebook at least 22.5 million times, in more than 1,400 ads costing between $350,000 and $553,000, a Washington Post analysis found based on data from Facebook’s Ad Library. The ads , bought by the campaign directly or in a partnership with the Republican National Committee, were targeted at Facebook users mainly in swing states such as Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

They weren’t the only times Trump’s campaign has taken advantage of Facebook’s policy allowing politicians to lie with impunity, something the company does not tolerate from non-political advertisers. Fact-checking organizations that partner with Facebook also have ruled that Trump ads have made untrue claims about Biden’s positions on school choice and health care for immigrants, as well as on the effectiveness of Trump’s response to the coronavirus, yet ads including these claims have been allowed to stay on the platform and carry no warning label, The Post’s review found.

Biden’s campaign has not taken similar advantage of Facebook’s leniency about political claims. Fact checkers working with Facebook have found far fewer misleading statements from him or his campaign, a review of their work since May found. Most concerned misstatements made in the candidate’s public remarks, typically in interviews or campaign events, such as when he said in June that covid-19 had killed 120 million Americans when the correct number was 120,000. No fact checker from Facebook’s network has recently taken issue with a Biden campaign ad that appeared on Facebook.

When Facebook’s fact checkers deem non-political ads false, the company removes them from its platform, though they remain in the publicly available Ad Library for research purposes. In the case of the Trump ads, the only public presentation of the factcheckers’ conclusions has been on their own websites-- where the organizations routinely run all their assessments.

“It’s crazy,” said Claire Wardle, U.S. director of First Draft, an organization dedicated to fighting misinformation that has a partnership with Facebook. “Because Facebook has decided not to actively fact check political ads, you have this perverse situation where these fact-checks of problematic ads sit on the fact-checking websites, but there is no mechanism for their work to impact Facebook or their users.”

...Critics particularly warned that the ability of political advertisers to narrowly target demographic slices undermined transparency and created the opportunity to rapidly and strategically push falsehoods far more easily than in broadcast ads, which typically are seen by everyone in a particular area-- allowing obviously misleading statements to be challenged.

...Biden campaign spokesman Matt Hill said, “Facebook has chosen to sell the Trump campaign the tools to target specific voters with false advertisements… A company that values American democracy would reconsider this indefensible practice.”

Worries about a 2016 repeat

Concern about falsehoods in Facebook advertising stems from the rampant lies, distortions and disinformation that flooded the platform in 2016, including by Russia’s Internet Research Agency, which used rubles to buy ads in which the operatives pretended to be American political activists. U.S. intelligence officials later determined that Russia’s goal was to divide Americans along racial, social, religious and other political fault lines, and to help elect Trump.

But Trump’s routine use of false and misleading claims during his presidency, along with his heavy and sophisticated use of social media, has fueled concern that unchecked disinformation on would be a problem during the 2020 election season.

The Post’s fact-checking team-- which does not work with Facebook but on July 14 ruled Trump’s claims about Biden wanting to “defund” police forces merited “Four Pinocchios,” the worst possible rating of veracity-- has detailed more than 20,000 lies, falsehoods and misleading comments by Trump since he took office, for an average of 12 each day.

Facebook’s network of independent fact checkers has catalogued a similarly robust stream of untruths by Trump, his campaign, cabinet members, Vice President Pence and numerous campaign surrogates on a wide range of subjects. The rate of falsehoods far outpaces those documented from Biden or his campaign.

The Center for American Progress, a left-leaning [right-of-center, corporately-funded] think tank, said it had found nine different Trump ads on Facebook whose central claims against Biden or Democrats generally had been ruled false by fact checkers that were part of the company’s network. Those ads have appeared at least 140 million times on the platform, at a cost of between $2.2 million and $3.7 million. (Facebook’s Ad Library, which is the source of such data, gives ranges, not precise amounts).

“This is something that is not hypothetical. It is real, and it’s going to get a lot worse,” said Adam Conner, vice president for technology at the Center for American Progress. He previously worked on elections and policy issues for Facebook before leaving the company in 2014.

“I did not imagine that these would be tools that harm democracy rather than strengthen it,” Conner said.

Several key members of Facebook’s network began their work before social media was a major vehicle for delivering political falsehoods, but the emergence of Facebook’s operation has provided them with resources to more effectively monitor deception on the platform.

FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, started in 2003. It received $324,000 from Facebook in the most recent fiscal year to check facts on the platform, allowing it to add staff to conduct more fact checks. Project director Eugene Kiely said he would like to see its work at least linked below advertisements it has evaluated.

“The policy should be that you provide Facebook users with as much information as you can to make good decisions. That’s why we’re here,” said Kiely. “I don’t see how you can argue against giving Facebook users more information.”

Politifact, part of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, also has had combating political lies at the core of institutional mission since its founding in 2007. Editor-in-Chief Angie Drobnic Holan said that the claims of politicians should get more scrutiny, not less, though she praised Facebook for having a fact-checking system that goes beyond what other platforms do. (She declined to disclose how much Facebook pays Politifact to participate in its fact-checking program.)

“I feel like they’re giving politicians a privilege they don’t give to ordinary people, and why would they do that?” said Holan. “The politician’s exemption, from a fact-checking point of view, doesn’t make a lot of sense. They’re giving a break to power.”

And if anyone figures out who runs Google... that crew belongs in prison too. For now I'll pass on pronouncing judgement on CNN.com.

Total coincidence-- after writing the post above, I saw this: State attorneys general blast Facebook’s civil rights record, blaming social media for rise in hate crimes and discrimination, perhaps a glimmer of hope that Zuckerberg actually will wind up in prison. But they don't put politically-connected billionaires in prison in this country, do they? Elizabeth Dwoskin reported that "Nearly two dozen state attorneys general demanded Facebook do more to stop the spread of disinformation, discrimination and hate in an open letter on Wednesday, the latest volley in a growing campaign targeting the company’s civil rights record. Citing a rise in hate crimes and online harassment, the attorneys general asked Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to step up enforcement of the social media company’s hate speech policies. They also asked the company to allow independent audits of the hateful content on the site and of Facebook’s measures to eliminate it. And they called for the company to improve its responsiveness to victims of hate-filled attacks. Their requests add to a growing chorus of demands by civil rights advocates, advertisers, politicians and others that the company improve its handling of some of the most charged and divisive issues involving free speech and harm in U.S. society. Facebook is facing a boycott of 1,000 advertisers, including Disney and Verizon, over its civil rights record. While the boycott failed to make a dent in the company’s bottom line when the company reported earnings last week, the pressure from the attorneys general is significant because they have the power to sue Facebook if their requests are not met. Democrats from states including New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and California signed the letter."

And then, finally...

Ragnarok vs Trump + Bloomberg-- Over $20 Million Wasted On Super Bowl Ads PLUS... A Bonus Midnight Meme

Trump's Super Bowl ad was rated dead last of 62 ads. He wasted $11 million on something that made people hate him even more than they already do. Bloomberg didn't do much better... just a little better. But Trump was the big 2020 Super Bowl loser.

Thank God for YouTube. Sunday I was able to binge-watch my favorite new Norwegian TV series on Netflix, Ragnarok, which mixes the Climate Crisis with the greatest tale of Norse mythology, Ragnarök, a series of events, including a great battle, foretold to lead to the death of a number of great figures, natural disasters and the submersion of the world in water. How does YouTube figure into this? Aside from watching the duel between the Norse gods and giants, I was eager to see the dueling presidential Super Bowl ads by the feuding conservative assholes, Trump (a former Democrat) and Bloomberg (a former Republican), but without having to watch the Super Bowl.

Yesterday all I could find were the two billionaire former friends-turned-rivals insulting each other like 9 year olds, Trump calling Bloomberg "Mini-Mike" and denigrating short people (Bloomberg is 5'8" and there are tens of millions of male voters who are that size or shorter). Bloomberg responded by pointing out that Trump "is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan... I stand twice as tall as he does on the stage that matters." At least, unlike Randy Newman and Marco Rubio, Bloomberg didn't refer to Trump's abnormally small hands/penis. But this morning I found the ads themselves... on YouTube.

Each asshole spent over 10 million dollars on the ads they ran. I doubt either ad changed a single vote. Both targeted African American voters, a demographic that dislikes-- and rightfully so-- both Trump and Bloomberg. This was one of the two 30 second Trump ads.





And this was the instant Bloomberg campaign spoof of the other Trump ad, which, unfortunately, hasn't been played on TV:





Here's the original 60 second Super Bowl spot that Bloomberg did run. The reaction was largely "meh" and it isn't expected to help him much in the Iowa caucuses tonight:





Politico reported that "Ad experts and political consultants who previewed the ads weren’t all that impressed, suggesting that they were standard political fare that would pale against the flashier, more inventive offerings for which the game is known. 'The goal on the Super Bowl, whether you’re a beer company or an automobile manufacturer or a politician, is to have everybody talking about your ad the next day,' said Fred Davis, a Republican ad-maker and founder of Strategic Perception, a California ad firm. 'This isn’t going to be the Bloomberg ad and that isn’t going to be the Trump ad we saw.'"

The other Trump ad-- an appeal to his base-- which had been released a few days before the game, "took on a more Trumpian-tone," highlighting Trump's specious claims that he is responsible for the country's supposed economic growth, "while cutting between clips of his rallies, military ships and planes and industrial workers. 'And ladies and gentleman, the best is yet to come,' Trump says, closing out the ad as his supporters applaud. If Trump’s Stronger, Safer, More Prosperous spot--clips of his rallies, military ships and planes and industrial workers--is a 30-second shot of 'Everything is great' spin, Bloomberg’s one-minute ad... is a far more somber reminder that the country has some big problems to confront. Bloomberg, a former New York mayor who has made gun control a signature issue, barely speaks in the ad. Instead, it’s narrated by Calandrian Simpson Kemp, a Texas woman whose son, George H. Kemp, was shot to death in 2013. As the camera pans through photos of a young George in football gear, Kemp says: 'When I heard Mike was stepping into the ring, I thought, Now we have a dog in the fight.'"

Davis, who has produced political Super Bowl ads in regional markets, said Trump’s criminal justice ad was a good counter to Bloomberg’s anti-gun spot. It’s likely Trump kept it a secret to generate more buzz and prevent Bloomberg from changing his ad prior to the game, Davis said, adding that Trump may have produced more than one commercial and made a last second call on which to air. The two spots released earlier in the week were duds because they didn't tell viewers anything new or unexpected about the candidates, he said. To get people to put down their beers and chicken wings, the billionaires would have needed to do something surprising or entertaining. For Trump, that could’ve been a commercial showing his humility. Bloomberg, who has long been known as a leading gun control advocate, could’ve highlighted a part of his life the public doesn’t already know about, he added.

Ad-makers don’t think the commercials will sway any voters. But while most people have made up their minds about Trump, who’s a household name, experts say Bloomberg’s ad purchase will give him a little more bang for his buck because he can get his name in front of people who haven’t yet heard of him.

“A huge proportion of Americans don’t even know who Michael Bloomberg is,” said John Geer, dean of Vanderbilt University’s College of Arts and Sciences and a political science professor who has written about presidential ad campaigns. “He’s providing some baseline information for lots of Americans and he’s gained a huge audience. So there's actually much more of an upside as far as just giving people that initial impression of Bloomberg than there is with Trump.”

Bloomberg is betting on a barrage of ads to deliver him the Democratic nomination. The billionaire’s self-funded campaign is expected to drop $300 million on TV spots by March, when he is set to be on the ballot for the first time. And his strategy appears to be working. Though he entered the race much later than other candidates, he now polls about even to Pete Buttigieg and ahead of Sen. Amy Klobuchar in national surveys.

Trump has few political points to gain with his Super Bowl ad, experts said. So why did he spend the money?

“It’s all ego,” said Mark Longabaugh, a partner at Devine Mulvey Longabaugh, a Democratic media consulting firm working with Andrew Yang’s campaign. “He's not going to let Mike Bloomberg advertise in the biggest national sporting event of the year with the biggest audience.”

The L.A. Times reported that Bloomberg "is far outspending all of his Democratic rivals, surpassing $300 million, according to Advertising Analytics. He is skipping the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, plowing his money instead into California, Texas and more than a dozen other states with contests still more than a month away.

...On Saturday, Trump tweeted that “Mini Mike Bloomberg” was wasting his money on advertising, then went on to make his false allegation about the box.

USA Today's AdMeter measured how successful each Super Bowl ad was. Jeep's Groundhog Day was numero uno with an average rating of 7.01, followed by Hyundai's Smart Pahk with a 6.98 average and Google's Loretta close behind with a 6.77 average. The political ads didn't fair as well. In fact, Señor Trumpanzee's Criminal Justice Reform came in dead last with an average rating of 3.33. His pal Bloomberg didn't do much better-- the third to last (#60 out of 62 ads) with an average of 4.23. As for YouTube views, only 11 ads had over 10 million views:

• Amazon- 60.8 million
• Hyundai- 38.6 million
• Genesis- 25.9 million
• Jeep- 25.9 million
• Facebook- 21.8 million
• Budweiser- 14.3 million
• Microsoft- 13.6 million
• Google- 12.5 million
• Cheetos- 11.2 million
• Heinz- 11.0 million
• Olay- 10.2 million

Neither Bloomberg, with 4.3 million views, nor the Evil Orange Blob with less than 137,000 views, was in the ballpark of having produced a successful ad. Trump just managed to beat the utterly lame Avocados from Mexico Shopping Network ad, which was rated better than his #52 with a 4.61 average rating, but only got a bit over 125,000 YouTube views.





Noah couldn't wait for midnight-- and you'll see why tonight-- for this one, so... here's a bonus:

Extra! Extra! Midnight Meme: Special Super Bowl Edition!!!
-by Noah

Hey kids, what time is it?

It's Sharpie time!

The stable genius has struck again! No the knuckle-dragging Trumpanzee didn't actually draw on the map to justify his idiocy again, at least not yet, but as you can see in the tweet, he did congratulate the state of Kansas when the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl last night. Never mind the fact that Kansas City is legally a city in the neighboring state of Missouri. Let's just chalk it up to more of Trump's patented Real Fake News.

Now if someone can just convince the walking bag of Cheetos that that big chunk of Antartica ice that's about to break off into the sea due to "non-existent" global warming is also a state and is home to millions of Trump fans and that he needs to go hold a rally there and get bigly ratings...

Can you imagine if the Philadelphia Eagles were in the game and won? Trumpanzee would be congratulating Mississippi, since Philadelphia, Mississippi is the only Philadelphia in the country that means anything to him.
 

Does The Ineffectiveness of Jeb's Campaign Itself Disqualify Him In The Eyes Of Most Voters?

Jeb's SuperPAC, Right to Rise, made the 30 second ad above. I don't know what it cost them to make it or to run it but I do know one thing: it was a complete waste of money no matter what it cost and didn't persuade a single voter... unless it persuaded them to not vote for Jeb. He-- and his donors-- are being taken for a ride by consultants who are getting rich while Jeb's campaign flounders. And it isn't just poor Jeb... even if he is getting the worst of it. Total political ad spending for the presidential campaigns are through the roof. A week from today Iowans will caucus. The most recent CBS/YouGov poll of Iowa Republicans shows that Herr Trumpf is probably going to win and that Jeb will be an asterisk:

• Herr Trumpf- 39%
• Cruz- 34%
• Rubio- 13%
• Dr. Ben- 5%
• Rand Paul- 3%
• Christie- 2%
• Jeb- 1%
• Fiorina- 1%
• Kasich- 1%
• Santorum- 1%
• Huckabee- 0%

The polling numbers do not reflect what the campaigns and their SuperPACs have spent on advertising in Iowa, from from it in fact:

• Jeb- $14 million
• Rubio- $11.7 million
• Cruz- $6.3 million
• Herr Trumpf- $3.5 million
• Jindal- $3.3 million
• Huckabee- $2.3 million
• Rand Paul- $1.3 million
• Walker- $1 million
• Perry- $798k
• Christie- $587k
• Fiorina- $570k
• Graham- $119k
• Santorum- $32k

So Jeb spent $14 million for the same 1% share of the vote that Kasich is getting after spending nothing at all? On top of which 67% of Iowa Republicans say they "could never consider" voting for Jeb. The Blue America PAC noticed several years ago that the kind of clusterfuck broadcast advertising was a colossal waste of money. So we stopped doing it. Jeb's advisors and Rubio's consultants (as well as Hillary's and Cruz's) are making a helluva lot of bank by persuading the campaigns that this kind of spending is worthwhile. It would be as easy to make the case that for every dollar Jeb has put into TV and radio, he's lost a voter. The barrage of ads in Iowa and New Hampshire are driving people crazy and all the negativity-- most of the advertising is viciously negative-- is further wrecking the GOP brand and depressing the base.

Joseph Tanfani, in Monday's L.A. Times reports that "there is little relationship between money spent on ads and poll numbers for candidates, at least on the Republican side. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio, the top two spenders, have spent about 10 times as much on ads as have the two polling leaders in Iowa, Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas-- who until recently bought far fewer ads than their rivals." He attributes that to several factors: a celebrity front-runner getting tons of free media and driving the daily media message for the entire field (Trump has been mentioned about 195,000 times on news shows since he entered the race, more than twice as much as his closest rival), an overly crowded field with two many choices and not enough substantive differences, questionable campaign strategies and the kind of voter burnout that prompted University of New Hampshire professor Andrew Smith to remark that "If you turn on your TV over the last few weeks, it's one ad after another after another. It just becomes wallpaper."

"It's a complete waste of money, and I think people are starting to figure that out," Barry Bennett, a Republican strategist, said of the expensive strategy of outside groups blanketing the airways with advertising at premium rates. Bennett, former campaign manager for Ben Carson, now is advising Trump.

Even at its best, television is a blunt tool for reaching the relatively small numbers of people who vote in small-state primaries. "The money spent per actual voter is huge," said Joe Fuld, a Democratic campaign consultant. "It's like trying to kill a fly with a sledgehammer."

Some suggest that the problem isn't the medium but the message; the ads aren't working as well because they simply aren't very good. No one has come out with a standout ad that generates its own buzz. And this year, ads that tout a candidate's credentials or attack opponents with grainy footage aren't getting through.

Some of the explanation also lies with which candidates were doing the advertising. Right to Rise, the super PAC supporting Bush, raised more than $100 million before the campaign got underway and paid for a bombardment of ads in an attempt to jump-start his sputtering candidacy. After at least $60 million in spending, Bush remains stuck at about 6% in polls.

"Guys like Jeb Bush are spending more than anybody and he has absolutely nothing to show for it," said Justin Holmes, a politics professor at the University of Northern Iowa.

"If they don't like what you're selling, it won't matter how much you try to sell it."

Trump, Bush's antagonist, meanwhile, didn't advertise at all until recently. But he stormed to the top of the field and has stayed there while dominating news coverage and speaking directly to millions of followers on Facebook and with a Twitter feed full of insults, incendiary statements and promises to restore America's swagger.

...For candidates without Trump's news saturation, an increasingly fractured media landscape also is making it tougher for them to get their messages across.

"You have more media outlets today than you've ever had, and the audience is more and more splintered," said Dominic Caristi, a professor of telecommunications at Ball State University. "It's made anything less effective, whether we're talking about an ad for Jeb Bush or an ad for Crest toothpaste."

A recent Gallup survey found that fewer people than ever said that "watching television" was their favorite way to spend an evening. They might still be looking at some kind of screen, but the days of gathering around the set to watch a network show is on the wane, said Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief.

"Now it's dispersed," Newport said. "With so many different kinds of screens and different ways of watching, it's more complex to try to reach them."

Millions of dollars' worth of ad spending blended into the background cacophony, with more than a dozen voices in the Republican field struggling to differentiate themselves and to be heard at a time when many voters simply weren't paying attention.

The consultants are not creative and are largely incapable of thinking outside of the box and are too tied to the rake-offs that enrich them from paid advertising. (And it isn't just the GOP. The corruption is endemic in operations like the DCCC and EMILY's List as well.) Most of this year's GOP campaigns-- as well as Hillary's-- still regard broadcast as the most effective way to reach the most voters. The number of ads purchased is up by 45% since the 2012 presidential cycle.

The ads that are doing better, in a time of deep dissatisfaction with anything that smells of old-school politicking, offer a promise of authenticity and an aspirational, idealistic message, according to Ace Metrix, a company that measures ad effectiveness. Mark Bryant, a vice president at Ace, said the firm had shown each ad released this year to focus groups of 500 voters from different parties and demographic groups.

...[T]he ads getting the best overall response so far are from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is seeking the Democratic nomination. He has the four highest-scoring spots and seven of the top 10. "Fairness, equality, an economy that works well for all-- these are themes that are resonating with Democrats and independents," Bryant said. "They love his stuff."

Hillary's campaign, whose ads are as stiff and unengaging as Jeb's, is so freaked out over Bernie's ads that they've been running around whispering to media allies that Bernie's ads are racist-- like this one, which has her team running around like chickens without heads:

Why Simon And Garfunkel Agreed To Let Bernie Use Their Iconic Song For His Ad

Friday, Bernie's campaign started using the Simon and Garfunkel ad in New Hampshire and Iowa. The song is iconic and so is the minute-long ad. The former right-wing Republican operative the Clinton campaign uses as an attack dog, David Brock, one of the sleaziest and most dishonest players in American politics, is claiming to the media that ad is racist for not including enough people of color and said "From this ad it seems black lives don't matter much to Bernie Sanders." It's exactly the kind of response you would expect from a Republican. It's just odd that this is a Hillary Clinton Republican, doing his best to cause friction and divisiveness inside the Democratic Party. Leave it to Hillary to surround herself with people like David Brock, the right-wing political assassin who called Anita Hill "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty"; it has so much to do with why so many Democrats can't stand Clinton and won't vote for her.

This morning Art Garfunkel was on CNN with Michael Smerconish explaining why he's backing Bernie and why he was glad to give Bernie the rights to use the song in his ad. Smerconish was eager to ask him why he's "a Bernie guy; why not a Hillary person?"

I like that Benie is very upset by the gap between the rich and the poor. I think that's central. When Bernie says "Hillary gave a speech; she got $275,000 for that speech; you have to give a very good speech to earn that money." He's winking at we know the power of whoever backed her. And she's beholden to them. And she's beholden to them. And that's how America works-- until somebody says "Not with me!"

Friday Ted Johnson, the Variety politics editor wrote about the decision for allowing Bernie to use the song and published Garfunkel's full statement about it:

1. I never wanted to gain an influence on the public through my songs, and then use it for my politics. It’s bait and switch.

2. Xenophobia (fear of different people) is the issue of the 21st Century (said Bill Clinton to me backstage). We reach beyond nationalism-- don’t I sing for ALL hearts and minds.

3. But after 9/11 I realized that I truly love my America and quest for an identity with my fellow Americans.

4. Almost 50 years ago I professed my love in a melodic suspension that soars at the end of our song, "America."

5. I wanted my arrangement to be urgent, reaching, yearning, shining, and full of glory, full of my love for this country.

6. Who are we? 13 states in rebellion, making what kind of composite? Southern planters defending states’ rights or a beautiful unity founded on Hamilton’s respect for northern bankers.

7. 33 yrs later, just after 9/11, I wrote a piece (in my website, to be out in my autobiography next year) that again holds up a mirror.

8. Now I believe the monied interests have gone too far and have rigged the system.

[a poem from 2001]:

9. “Perhaps if I steal from Thomas Wolfe and give him his proper due — not the ‘man in full’ but the ‘homeward angel’-- he might reappear for you. Then see him up there where the Rockies rise, his legs dangling over the ledge above Denver, eight thousand feet in the air. Before him, the plains, behind, the Pacific, stars coming out on a summer’s night, and everywhere the twilight falls on America.

To the right is Amarillo, beyond it the Astros at play, over my shoulder, Seattle, over the other beyond the Great Canyon, gas fumes and fast food mix with the smell of L.A. Hear the blues parade across the stage. Up from New Orleans into Chicago, see all the clusters of lights beyond. Follow the fashion of Rock ‘n’ Roll-- St Louie to Cleveland to Philly to bond the nation’s soul with music in its cars.

And in our hearts, love of the physical entity. America. Identity in doubt. We can’t go home again, so we’re runaway vagabonds, lost in twilight, wondering what we’re about.”

Now... if you'd like to make sure lots of folks in New Hampshire and Iowa actually see the ad on TV, please consider contributing to Bernie's campaign by clicking on the Blue America thermometer:

Unleash The Ads! And The Mud!

Greg Sargent's headline in today's Washington Post shocked me. It's completely accurate and totally precise but I had never seen the word "darkies" in a Post headline before. Herr Trumpf sure has done strange things to our country. Sargent says Trumpf's dark propaganda piece makes crystal clear how the fear-mongering demagogue wants to make America "great" again-- by making it white again-- and by keeping the darkies out. "Trumpism in all its xenophobic glory." It won't be on TV anywhere but in Iowa and New Hampshire (why not South Carolina? They'd love it there)-- except it 's already everywhere as "news." Watch it up top. So just when Reince Priebus is talking about how he believes Trumpf can win a general election, the Republican Party frontrunner is viscerally equating ISIS terrorists with Latino immigrants (invaders). Doesn't exactly play into the post-Romney RNC (now-shredded?) plans for 2016. Sargent is smart enough to know Trumpf isn't going to be able to beat Cruz for the nomination but is still asking the obvious question: "Wither the forces Trump has unleashed inside the GOP? Trump’s candidacy-- and to a somewhat lesser extent, that of Ted Cruz-- is framed around the idea that the way to win the White House is by unleashing the power of white backlash. This is plainly obvious in Trump’s case, but Cruz, too, has repeatedly suggested a GOP victory must be powered by evangelicals and “Reagan Democrats,” i.e., culturally conservative blue collar whites. Cruz has engaged in more sophisticated demagoguery about Muslims and has flatly ruled out any form of legalization for undocumented immigrants."

The ads released at the same time today by the other two campaigns flush with cash-- Cruz's and the Jebster's-- are tame yawn-fests compared to Trump's ominous red meat. Cruz is trying to make an appeal that goes slightly over the heads of the garden variety Trumpf fans:



And the Jebster ad is typical consultant-driven pablum, more about how media consultants can soak sucker candidates than about moving numbers with a message likely to connect with TV viewers. Jeb will spend millions on his ad (at the bottom on the page) and still wind up at the bottom of the pack with also-rans like Fiorina and Huckabee. Speaking of the also-rans, apparently this is their last chance to get in all the mudslinging before they start dropping out in serious numbers

Supporters of Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee are poised to unleash a wave of ferocious attacks this month, according to Republicans familiar with their planning, plunging the muddled contest into a multidimensional war in the weeks leading up to the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses.

“You’re going to see even sharper elbows” starting this week, said Jon Seaton, a Republican strategist not affiliated with any of the campaigns. “And by the middle of January, everybody will have their pads on and helmets buckled.”

By month’s end, the candidates and their allied groups could spend as much as $100 million combined, much of it on negative advertising delivered via television, radio, mailers and digital spots. And after the effectiveness of positive television commercials came under question last year when tens of millions of dollars failed to lift Mr. Bush, January will offer insights into whether attack ads still have the power they did in past presidential elections.

Before he rides off into the sunset, Santorum is trying to make the bizarre claim that Cruz isn't a conservative, just some kind of opportunistic poseur. "The fact that he’s out there calling people 'neocons' tells you that he doesn’t see himself as a conservative." And he and Huckabee are both hitting Cruz hard in Iowa as being someone who fights and always loses. I suspect neither is trying to bolster Herr Trumpf, but that's exactly what those kind of anti-Cruz missiles will do. Meanwhile Cruz, Bush and Christie are going to unleash the dogs of war on Rubio and beat him to a bloody pulp so that it becomes apparent he's the wrong choice for the all-important not-Trumpf lane. Funny how scared they all seem of the silly bully Trumpf, shaking in their cowboy boots that he will make good on his idiotic threats to "hit back" if anyone dares goes after him. These clowns are just so pitiful. How can any of them lay claim to being able to protect America in any way if they can't even protect themselves and their sad little party from Trumpf and his ism?

Poor Jeb And Marco Are Being Taken To The Cleaners By Self-Serving Professional Campaign Operatives

On Friday, we noted that the more poor Jeb spends on his mundane TV ads, the lower his support is driven. He doesn't read DWT and it certainly not what the 15% rake-off crew is telling him.

Because the poor fella has the most conventional and stultified mind of anyone running this cycle, he's decided that what his failing campaign needs is to spend more of his idiot-donors' money on more ineffectual ads... and in New Hampshire, where the barrage he's already run has worked least. Boston's Republican newspaper reports that the Jebster SuperPAC plans to dump another $14 million into incredibly expensive ads-- "a clear sign that Bush operatives, despite criticism over already spending more than $35 million nationally on commercials for just 4 percent in the polls, are doubling down on a strategy of massive TV buys." Meanwhile, one of the billionaire-funded SuperPACs funded that supports Bush-lite is spending another $6.1 million, Christie's desperate campaign is spending $4.9 and even poor Kasich is in for $1.4, presumably to beat up on Herr Trumpf some more.

But the political bombardment-- especially in a cycle with so many candidates on the ballot-- may only make it harder for campaigns to stand out, said Tobe Berkovitz of Boston University, a former political media buyer.

“Unless you come out with a really good ad, most of this is like water off the back of a duck,” Berkovitz said. “You get to the point of sheer tonnage that it’s hard to break through the clutter.”

Bush, who’s struggled to shine with his debate skills, appears to be banking on TV to better convey his message.

Bush’s independent super PAC Right to Rise has already reserved two 30-second ads during the Super Bowl-- which will be played just two days before the New Hampshire primary-- on Boston CBS affiliate WBZ at a total cost of $600,000. Right to Rise has also blocked off ad space in Boston during the NHL Winter Classic, the Golden Globes and multiple NFL playoff games in January.

Bush will also have a huge presence on New Hampshire powerhouse affiliate WMUR.

Both the Bush campaign and his super PAC have reserved a combined 253 TV spots on WMUR at a cost of $459,830 the week before the New Hampshire primary, according to filings.

That includes 10 ads a day from 5 to 8 p.m. on weeknights on WMUR during, among others, local news, ABC World News Tonight, Chronicle NH and Inside Edition.

...Andy Smith of the University of New Hampshire suggested there’s a simple “untold” motivator for buying Super Bowl ads-- the commission (typically 15 percent) the media firms get from each sale.

“Fifteen percent of a couple-million-dollar ad during the Super Bowl is a whole lot better than 15 percent of an ad on Saturday morning on WMUR,” Smith said. “There’s money to be made by people running the campaigns, and you can’t forget about that.”

Reminder: Cruz, the surging second-plcae candidate has spent $1,253,726 in ads and scored 18% among Republican voters in the most recent national polling. Jeb is in 7th place with 3% after spending $38,109,644 (nearly $5 million of which went towards rake-offs from professional campaign hucksters who, apparently, aren't very good at their jobs) and Rubio, who has slipped to 10% has spent $17,799,911. Herr Trumpf has spent virtually nothing for his 39% first place position but the value of the free media that is being lavished on him is certainly worth more than Jeb's and Marco's ad budgets combined. Perhaps the two of them should start tossing around words like "putz," "fakakta," "drek," "shtoop" and start referring to Herr Trumpf as a "meshugana," a "beheima" and an "alter kocker." It would probably get them some attention.

The Chaos Candidate shows how future GOP primaries will be waged

Poor Jeb... $38 Million In Mediocre TV Ads And He Now Has Less Support Than Christie And Rand Paul!

Blue America stopped making TV ads a couple of cycles ago when we found that they're a tremendous waste of money and don't move the needle much-- if the deceitful networks even run them in their entirety (which they rarely do.) TV ads are a tremendous rip off but the political operative class makes all their money from them-- especially corrupt operations like EMILY's List and the DCCC, which force (literally force) their candidates to sit on the phone begging for money all day and then turn it over to DCCC and EMILY's List-related consultants and companies which take gigantic rake-offs for substandard and pointless ads. If a candidate says they'd rather spend money on something uselful-- like field-- the DCCC and EMILY's List threaten to withdraw their support.

I don't care that Republicans waste their money on this kind of nonsense but I bet they're learning what a waste it is faster than the Democrats are. So far $111 million has been spent on TV and radio ads by the presidential campaigns, some good, some bad, most unremarkable. (Many millions of dollars generated in commissions and other rake-offs for the people who trick these candidates into wasting this kind of cash.) This week NBC News reported how the more money Jeb Bush spent on ads ($38 million so far)-- more than all the other candidates combined-- the more his support tanked.

Keep in mind that the latest CNN poll-- released Wednesday-- looks like this (juxtaposed with how much has been spent on TV and radio ads):

• Herr Trumpf- 39%, up 3 points ($216,669)
• Cruz-18%, up 2 ($1,253,726)
• Dr. Ben- 10%, down 4 ($3,229,812)
• Rubio- 10%, down 2 ($17,799,911)
• Christie- 5%, up 1 ($8,124,131)
• Rand Paul- 4%, up 3 ($1,000,074)
• The Jebster- 3%, steady ($38,109,644)
• Huckabee- 2%, steady ($75,258)
• Kasich- 2%, steady ($9,075,362)
• Fiorina- 1%, down 2 ($1,021,237)

Meanwhile Hillary spent around $12.2 million and Bernie spent around $7.6 million. The 4 biggest GOP ad spending machines-- Jeb's, Rubio's, Kasich's and Christie's (4 tired establishment campaigns)-- have resulted in a combined 20% support, about a third of the support that just Herr Trumpf and Cruz, the 2 proto-fascist candidates who have spent very little on TV and radio, have accrued. Here's a typical ineffective, expensive TV ad run by the Jebster's SuperPAC:



I can tell you for sure, these kinds of stupid and mostly ineffective ads are not what Blue America's Independent Expenditure Committee has in mind for 2016. If you want to contribute to our independent efforts as part of your end-of-the-year giving, the I.E. Committee is here. Oh... and Happy Holidays from everyone at DWT We have some year coming up!

Republicans Wasting Millions Of Dollars On Useless, Perhaps Counterproductive, TV Ads-- Poor Jeb

A few cycles ago the Blue America PAC used to spend money on TV and radio ads. It didn't take us long to figure what a useless scam that kind of advertising is, especially considering that the TV stations rarely even play the full ads they're charging so much for. But that isn't the only reason why we've come to the conclusion they're a colossal waste of our contributors' money and why we stopped making them years ago and instead have found more effective ways to support our candidates. Reporting yesterday for, ironically ABC-News, Matthew Dowd feels that the Republican candidates are wasting millions of dollars on TV and radio advertising right now, from which no one benefits but the crooked consultants ripping off the idiot candidates.

I have asserted many times that advertising in a presidential campaign is at best minimally effective. In fact, more money is wasted on ads than any other part of a campaign over the last 25 years. Millions and millions have been spent in presidential races without any demonstrable effect. It is an old tactic that no longer works well (or efficiently) in today's world of campaigns, but consultants continue to push this strategy either because they are trapped in old ways or have a vested financial interest.

There is good news: money may be wasted by presidential campaigns on advertising, but underfunded and more efficient campaigns can still win. Money is no longer as important in determining victory as it was in the past. The barrier to communication is as low as ever. You can communicate with thousands of people for free sitting at your desk through the touch of a computer keystroke. Message delivery is no longer dependent on paid advertising, and this democratizes communication more and more. This is a healthy development in our body politic.

Now let's get back to the GOP race and examine the ad spending and its effectiveness on getting voters to support candidates. I would argue that advertising has done more to eliminate "bad" candidates than it has helped. And let's look at ad spending specifically in the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire which will help determine who the GOP nominee is for president. This analysis utilizes data on ad buys (both candidate and affiliated Super PACs) compiled by one of the best companies in the business, Kantar Media CMG.

Governors Rick Perry, Scott Walker, and Bobby Jindal spent millions on ads and are already out of the race for president. Super PACs couldn't save them.

Governor Kasich will have spent nearly $8 million on ads by the end of November and he's polling in single digits in New Hampshire and Iowa.

Ben Carson and Donald Trump have spent very little on advertising-- in some places none-- and lead the polls in nearly every state including Iowa and New Hampshire.

The most troubling signs of this are for Jeb Bush. By the end of November, he will have spent roughly $19 million in New Hampshire and Iowa, and Jeb is polling in single digits in both states. It seems that no matter how much he has spent, the consumers (voters) are not buying the product (Bush). So much for shock and awe.

So what does all this tell us?

Earned media (parlance for getting free media on news platforms) is the most powerful mode of communicating with voters. And to that end the four debates thus far have had more impact on this race than the millions spent on advertising. These debates caused Walker, Perry, and Jindal to drop out. They have caused Carly Fiorina to rise and fall. They have caused Bush to drift down from the upper teens to single digits of support. They have helped coaelesce Trump's support at about a quarter of voters. And they have helped Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz rise.

Candidates would be better off spending less time on raising money and more time on preparing a vision and a compelling message to deliver to the public. They would be much better positioned if they spent time and resources on preparing for debates and not on fundraisers.

The best campaigns will use advertising to reinforce a message delivered at a debate or in the press or through voter visits, and not as away to correct some fundamental flaws a candidate is carrying with them. As observers of this process and those interested in the outcome, pay attention to who seizes the moments, not fundraising totals.

Jeb Bush and his highly coordinated-- illegally so, but no one in a position to do anything about it seems to care-- SuperPAC have spent at least $20 million on TV ads so far this cycle of the $32,042,855 they've spent in total, the most of any campaign. And the more Jeb spent the more his polling dropped, not just in terms of whether he is anyone's first choice, but even if Republican voters could stand him and his message. The more ads they bought, the more the campaign collapsed and the more Jeb himself as a political figure diminished. The SuperPAC spending was all in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and the campaign itself threw in another half million, also in those 3 early states. Last year, before there was any spending, Bush was pretty consistently polling in double digits in Iowa and always among the top 2 or 3 candidates. Last April a Republican Vox Populi poll, for example lined up like this:

• Mike Huckabee- 20%
• Paul Ryan 19%
• Jeb Bush 18%
• Ted Cruz 9%
• Marco Rubio 9%
• Rand Paul 8%
• Chris Christie 7%
• Scott Walker 6%

A year later, Bush was still a viable candidate, although cracks in his top tier status were already beginning to surface. In late April of this year PPP found a pretty different field but with Scott Walker as king of the hill in Iowa.

• Scott Walker- 23%
• Marco Rubio- 13%
• Jeb Bush- 12%
• Mike Huckabee- 10%
• Rand Paul- 10%
• Ted Cruz- 8%
• Ben Carson- 7%

By August Jeb had vanished from the top ranks and double digits had vanished for him as well, His Iowa polling average is now 6.3%, putting him in a very distant 5th place, ahead of Carly Fiorina, but nowhere near the frontrunners. The most recent polling-- from Bloomberg and not in the RealClearPolitics polling average-- and after millions and millions of dollars in TV ad buys shows him struggling with just 6% in Iowa:

• Trump- 24%
• Carson- 20%
• Rubio- 12%
• Cruz- 9%
• Jeb- 6%

Similar pattern in New Hampshire-- double digits last year with 15% and in 2nd place, and then the descent into single digits after a few polls early this summer showed him in first place. By late summer, though, it was all falling apart as Trump just destroyed him. The RealClearPolitics average for New Hampshire shows him with 7.8%, in 5th place, and just a fraction of a percent against Kasich. The most recent WBUR poll is even more dismal. His unfavorables are at 47% to just 36% favorable and the top candidates rank like this:

• Trump- 22%, up 4 points since Nov 1
• Carson- 11%, down 4 points
• Rubio- 11%, up 2 points
• Cruz- 8%, up 2 points
• Jeb- 7%, flat since Nov 1, down a point since mid-Sept.

If he was hoping for salvation in South Carolina, the other state he's spending a bundle in, forget it. He's fallen from an early fave to a single-digit also-ran. Last May he polled 22%, ahead of runner-up Chris Chistie by 12 points. By August of this year, he was in single digit territory and it's been all downhill. The most recent Monmouth University poll of South Carolina Republicans this month shows him with 7% in 5th place:

• Carson- 28%, up 13 points since August
• Trump- 27%, down 3 points
• Rubio- 11%, up 5 points
• Cruz- 9%, up 4 points
• Jeb- 7%, down 2 points

So up against Bush's $19.9 million in TV ads in these three states (including $2 million this week alone), what have the other campaigns spent? Rubio's Conservative Solutions SuperPAC laid out $8.4 million. Kasich went all in-- almost entirely in New Hampshire with $7.3 million-- and has found himself struggling alongside Jeb in the single digits and barely a candidate anyone takes seriously. Christie has also blown his entire wad in New Hampshire-- $5.7 million and is seeing virtually no return. He's not even a second tier candidate for all that spending, the WBUR poll this month showing him in 7th place with 6% in his "must win" state. Jindal wasted $3.3 before dropping out. Meanwhile Trump has spent nothing and Carson has spent around $1.5 million and they;'re number one and two in each of the early states and nationally. Funny enough, Carson's campaign spent $214,000 this week, just as his campaign started getting into free-fall mode. All that "earned" (free) media the Trump clown show gets everywhere trumps all the millions the rest of the circus is spending.