"Candidates and incumbents should center each day on content creation.... creating output tailored specifically for TikTok or Instagram or YouTube."

"It means several hours a day filming in campaign offices — even candidates’ homes.... Successful candidates understand they are putting on a permanent show. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has championed the use of livestreams, including appearing on Twitch while playing Madden. James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas, has used town halls and a late-night TV appearance as part of a strategy to produce nonstop content. Zohran Mamdani did this in his campaign and is still doing it as mayor of New York, understanding that reaching citizens should not stop when the campaign does. The bulk of Democratic candidates don’t have the range or talent of these three. Some who try to replicate it, like Andrew Cuomo, come across as more cringe than confident. But they still need to build the production studio..."

Writes David Plouffe, in "Always Be Posting: The New Rules for Democratic Candidates" (NYT).

The future looks a little something like this: 

We were talking about Trump not being "polished or smooth" and about a place called "Creatable World."

The first post of the day, here, quoted a NYT writer who said: Trump "wasn’t polished or smooth. His appearance was shoddy, strange, lacking all polish." Trump has tarted up the Oval Office with gold, but he's still rough, lumbering, and orange.

And here's the post this morning about Mattel's line of "gender-neutral" dolls called "Creatable World." But somehow the kids did not flow into the world that Big Toy had envisioned for them.

So this NBC headline caught my eye: "Obama world loses its shine in a changing, hurting Democratic Party."

You see the resonance.

There was once a place called "Obama World" and it was shiny.

Don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot/For one brief shining moment that was known as... Obama World!

A brief shiny glimpse at the NBC News article:

"The debate has been a source of anxiety for Walz, according to people close to him..."

"... who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss his private mood. Walz conceded to Harris when she was evaluating him as a potential running mate that he was not an experienced debater, the people said, adding that he is concerned about letting the campaign down on Tuesday night. Asked shortly after the Harris-Trump debate whether he had started thinking about his own meeting with Vance, Walz said he had. 'Yes, I need to,' he told MSNBC. 'Look, he’s Yale Law guy. I’m a public school teacher. So we know where he’s at on that.'"

The Washington Post sets the expectations low, in "Vance and Walz face contrasting pressures in much-anticipated debate/For Vance, Trump may be his most important viewer. For Walz, the task of introducing himself to voters looms large."

The hope seems to be that Walz can win on likability. We're told that "Some Democrats are less concerned" about Walz's lack of thinking/speaking ability, because "Walz is far more popular than Vance." The public school teacher would like to make the young guy seem like the nerd that "popular" kids shun? If that's a debate strategy, I hope to detect it in real time. 

I like the "probably" in this sentence:

"Hillary Clinton has warned that Russia, which interfered in the US election she lost in 2016, is 'grooming' a Democratic candidate for a third-party run next year..."

"... signalling congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard could fill the role. The goal of this would essentially be to divide the US electorate and help President Donald Trump win re-election, Clinton said. 'I'm not making any predictions but I think they've got their eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary, and they're grooming her to be the third-party candidate,' the former secretary of state told David Plouffe in his 'Campaign HQ' podcast. 'She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.'"

Yahoo News reports.

Is she just making this up? She thinks the Russians have a favorite and they have "ways of supporting her"? They have ways of supporting her but are they using these ways? The "so far" at the end insinuates that they are already using these ways, but maybe it only means that so far they have ways and of course they have "sites and bots" and Hillary "thinks" they can use them and if they did, they'd use them for Tulsi. If Trump came out with a theory like this, he'd be portrayed as a conspiracy-theory lunatic.

ADDED: Tulsi responds:

Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a ...

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019

... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.

It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019

WaPo article "On IRS issue, senior White House aides were focused on shielding Obama" seems to be about throwing White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler under the bus.

Here's the article.

[White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, and other senior White House aides] agreed that it would be best not to share [news of an upcoming inspector general’s report on the Internal Revenue Service] with President Obama until the independent audit was completed and made public....

... Obama’s top aides were trying to shield him from any second-term scandal that might swamp his agenda or, worse, jeopardize his presidency....

But Ruemmler and McDonough’s careful plan for the IRS was upended on May 10, when Lois Lerner, a senior official at the agency, broke the news.... Senior White House officials were stunned to see the IRS trying to get ahead of its own story...

I don't know how much of this to believe, but the article strains to portray Ruemmler as narrowly legalistic:

"Watching Woodward last 2 days is like imagining my idol Mike Schmidt facing live pitching again."

"Perfection gained once is rarely repeated."

Plouffe takes his shot.

Why is it that Obama can't just enjoy his slow jam with Jimmy Fallon?

We were talking about Obama's effort at comedy on the Jimmy Fallon show. I had said, in the post, "Doesn't he have a job?" In the comments, Rabel said:

From the AP, April 25, 2012....

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO says that two service members have been killed in separate attacks in southern Afghanistan, while two others have died of non-battle injuries.

The coalition said in statements that one service member was killed by an improvised explosive device Wednesday and another by a similar weapon on Tuesday....

So far this month, 31 coalition members have died in Afghanistan, bringing the year's toll to 122."

Barack Obama was their Commander-in-Chief.

Fuck him.

 And then Rabel came right back and said:

That's his job right there.

Fuck him and fuck his Goddamn comedy act.

Now, that's a very harsh way to talk about Obama, but it's the way people talked about George Bush all the time. Remember how Bush was savaged for displaying a capacity for enjoying himself when Americans were fighting and dying?



That much criticized performance occurred in 2002. A year later, after he received news of war deaths while golfing, Bush gave up golf:

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf... I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong message."

Does a slow jam with Jimmy Fallon send the wrong message? Or do we not think about the mom whose son may have recently died anymore? (Obama has no Cindy Sheehan dogging hounding him bothering him... at least not that we see in the news.)

Why is Obama immune from the criticism that normally befalls a President? Back in 2008, running for President, Obama pushed back the press one time with "Why is it that I can't just enjoy my waffle?"

It's like that was a really hard question — why is it that he can't just enjoy his waffle... and his multiple vacations and his golf and his rock concerts in the White House and his slow jam with Jimmy Fallon?

The answer is: Because you have a job. You applied for it. We hired you. Make us believe you're doing it.

You know, a couple days ago, Rush Limbaugh said something that sounded outlandish to me at the time:

There's a lot of mythology out there still today about Obama and his strengths and how there hasn't been any fallout from the dismal record that he has amassed.  None of this is true.  They're in trouble.  They're in deep trouble.  You basically have David Plouffe, who's the president, you got Axelrod who's the chief of staff and Obama's out playing golf.  Obama... Not quite.  Obama's out doing the fundraising, but David Plouffe is the acting president, Axelrod's chief adviser, and Obama's out playing golf.  Obama basically has a nine a.m. to four p.m. day.  It's these other guys that are formulating policy, doing all this other stuff.  He knows what's going on, don't misunderstand, and he's guiding and influencing it.

I'm not saying Obama's disengaged, doesn't know what's going on and he's a puppet.  Don't misunderstand.  Not saying that at all.  But he's not known as a hard worker. He's not known as somebody who gets in there early and stays late....

While David Plouffe is the president, Axelrod's the chief of staff, Obama's out raising money. After his campaign stop in North Carolina today, he's going on his comedy tour.  He'll be appearing on the Jimmy Fallon show and then with Jimmy Kimmel before being roasted at the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend....

Plouffe is the acting President?! That sounded outlandish. But look around. Obama performs 5 minutes of a musically sexualized speech about students and... it's wearing down my sense of the outlandish.

Gingrich gives his opponents a quote to gasp about: "There is no Supreme Court in the American Constitution."

Just a few days ago, I was talking about a certain type of clever remark:

A witty, engaging speaker will say something surprising and counterintuitive, but then flesh it out or add one more point, and then it clicks. Of course, if you have opponents, you've got to anticipate what they'll do with the little slice of what you said that seems head-slappingly idiotic. So it may not be so smart to be smart like that. 

The context was David Plouffe saying "people won’t vote based on the unemployment rate." And now, here comes Newt Gingrich with an even juicier example of the seemingly stupid line that wakes up the audience and draws them in to hear the whole context but that also gives opponents an easy way to use the remark to make you look like an idiot.

Here's the quote, in it's full context (transcribed in a post by Ian Millhiser at Think Progress):

In the American system, if you read the Constitution correctly — this is why I wrote “A Nation Like No Other” — if you read the Federalist Papers correctly, the fact is the Congress can pass a law and can limit the Court’s jurisdiction. It’s written directly in the Constitution. The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton promises, I think it’s Number 78, that the judiciary branch is the weakest of the three branches. There is no Supreme Court in the American Constitution. There’s the court which is the Supreme of the judicial branch, but it’s not supreme over the legislative and executive branch. We now have this entire national elite that wants us to believe that any five lawyers are a Constitutional convention. That is profoundly un-American and profoundly wrong.

It's obvious to me — as a law professor who has studied and taught Article III of the Constitution for 25 years — that Gingrich is not denying that the Constitution provides for a Supreme Court. He's denying the supremacy of that Court over the other branches. He's stressing the checks on the judicial branch, which include Congress's power to make "Exceptions and... Regulations" to the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, and the idea that the Supreme Court is not the sole voice in the interpretation of constitutional law. This is routine stuff in a Conlaw I class. It's what we conventionally talk about along with Marbury v. Madison. It's not the slightest bit edgy, believe me.

Watch the video at the Think Progress link. You can hear the stress on "Supreme" in "There is no Supreme Court in the American Constitution." He knows there's a Supreme Court. It's just not, in fact, supreme over everything. The Supreme Court can strike down statutes and order members of the Executive branch around to a certain extent, but it is also subject to jurisdiction cutbacks, new appointments, impeachment, and constitutional amendments. And the question of what the Constitution really means survives independently of the case law. We are free to argue that the Court got it wrong, to try to get cases overruled, and so forth. And there are many places where the Court hasn't spoken yet or may never speak, in which case there are important responsibilities elsewhere in government for other individuals to say what the Constitution means.

"What did David Plouffe really say about unemployment?"

WaPo's Greg Sargent tries to rehabilitate Plouffe, who clearly did say that the unemployment rate is not going to determine how people vote in 2012.

When you see the transcript and think about it, it's obvious that Plouffe did not say that unemployment wouldn't matter to voters. He said that the percentage itself isn't what affects voters' minds. What matters is their personal subjective experience:

So, you know, people won’t vote based on the unemployment rate. They’re gonna vote based on, “How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?”

Sargent says:

You can argue that it was a misstep in that the quote does sound tone-deaf when reproduced without the surrounding context, and it’s understandable why people would see it as insensitive when viewed without that context.

A lot of clever remarks are like that. A witty, engaging speaker will say something surprising and counterintuitive, but then flesh it out or add one more point, and then it clicks. Of course, if you have opponents, you've got to anticipate what they'll do with the little slice of what you said that seems head-slappingly idiotic. So it may not be so smart to be smart like that.

Now let's look more closely at that possibly clever notion of Plouffe's: Any given voter is going to ask not what the facts are about Americans in general, but how do I feel about what's happening to me personally and do I believe that the President cares about me. 

This is how people* got hooked into voting for Obama in the first place! Plouffe and company massaged people into the place where they had a feeling about Obama. Hope. Change. Yes We Can.

And Plouffe is gearing up to do it again. The difference this time is that Obama is not an outsider to the current conditions. He represents not change, but: the same. And the current situation is dreadful. Plouffe knows that, and his comments show how he's planning, this time, to do the same thing but different. Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family? Yes, you do. Or you will. Plouffe hopes.

You can savage Plouffe all you want for his seemingly stupid remark, but don't miss the opportunity to see what he revealed about the theory of the reelect Obama campaign.
_______________________

*Not me. I voted for Obama, but I coolly observed all this emotionalism, soberly examined the 2 major party candidates, and made a rational choice.

The reactivation of Plouffe.

Time to get back to what Obama does best: running for President.

AND: Ouch.

"I still think Hillary has a lot of what I am looking for in a VP."

"Smarts, discipline, steadfastness. I think Bill may be too big a complication. If I picked her, my concern is that there would be more than two of us in the relationship."

David Plouffe, quoting Obama, in his new book "The Audacity to Win."

Obama wants to turn his "YouTubing-Facebooking-texting-Twittering grass-roots organization ... into an instrument of government."

According to the NYT, Obama has been telling his aides this is "a top priority, even before he was elected."

His aides — including his campaign manager [David Plouffe] — have created a group, Organizing for America, to redirect the campaign machinery in the service of broad changes in health care and environmental and fiscal policy. They envision an army of supporters talking, sending e-mail and texting to friends and neighbors as they try to mold public opinion.

The organization will be housed in the Democratic National Committee, rather than at the White House. But the idea behind it — that the traditional ways of communicating with and motivating voters are giving way to new channels built around social networking — is also very evident in the White House’s media strategy....

The effort needs to be moved out of the White House in order to escape a legal restriction against using the 13-million-person e-mail list his campaign built up.

"Organizing for America," how do you like that name? It resonates with the presidency's "community organizer" provenance, and it has a distinctly lefty vibe. I note the "for." Why not just "Organizing America"? (But I don't want to be organized!) So there are those other people, those 13 million, who are organizing. For us.

There is a clear interest in keeping the Internet-based political machinery that made Mr. Obama’s brand so iconic and that helped him raise record amounts. The new group’s initials, O.F.A., conveniently also apply to his Obama for America campaign.

Anagram for "oaf," from the man who famously took the "oaf of office."

Still, sensitive to ruffling feathers even among fellow Democrats wary of Mr. Obama’s huge political support, Mr. Obama’s aides emphasized that the effort was not created to lobby directly or pressure members of Congress to support Mr. Obama’s programs.

“This is not a political campaign,” Mr. Plouffe said. “This is not a ‘call or e-mail your member of Congress’ organization.”

It's not a political campaign?

Instead, Mr. Plouffe said the aim was to work through influential people in various communities as a way of building public opinion.

So what is this distinction? The group won't be directly pressuring Congress. It will be stoking and massaging public opinion. Members of Congress can respond at their leisure.

Meanwhile, at the White House, there is a "new media" director, Macon Phillips. He's redesigned the White House website, which "will be continually updated to add presidential orders and blog postings that make the case for administration policy, often echoed by talking points that Organizing for America is sending to supporters."

In an interview, Mr. Phillips, 30, said the site would give the White House another way to reach the public without having to rely on the mainstream news media.

This is the sort of thing George Bush should have done. Funny that Obama, who's got the media fervently on his side, is the one to figure it out.

We'll see how it works out. What was a campaign becomes a big propaganda machine. What proportion of the 13 million want to be on the receiving end of that? And as for new media, how many of us new media outlets will passively pass along the talking points? My idea of new media is that we take the raw material and do something with it. It needs to get out of the control of the one who's sent out the original message. You can distribute your propaganda, but you can't organize it. You can't organize us. The internet is self-organizing, and we will see how it organizes itself. It can't be according to the will of a President.