ataraxia

I don’t care about candidates who don’t have a chance to win so I left the roll call off intentionally. Good job, though.

You’re acting all nonchalant and flippant now that you’re being ratioed for your clear stupidity, but that really contradicts how profound you were trying to be with it all:
“Our culture is changing”
“Never thought I’d see anything like this…”

Get outta here with your spam. Bots are better than smooth brains like you.

That detail makes the case much stronger. The studio was effectively DeSantis’s campaign trail.

Title: What actually wins elections now?

How does a candidate actually win an election in 2026 and over the next decade? Given finite time and money, what is the right balance between television, digital media, face-to-face campaigning, local events and the traditional ground game?

The case study I always come back to is Ron DeSantis against Adam Putnam in the 2018 Florida Republican primary.

Putnam looked like the ideal conventional candidate. He had been in elected office since he was 22, served in Congress and statewide office, raised more money, built support throughout the Florida Republican establishment and ran a traditional grassroots campaign. He was even a fifth-generation Florida citrus grower and rancher. He looked like someone who had spent his entire life preparing to become governor.

Putnam also did the old-fashioned work. He traveled Florida, held breakfasts, spoke to local groups and met voters face to face. DeSantis largely eschewed the whole shaking-hands-and-kissing-babies style of campaigning. He was still working as a congressman in Washington and used the television studio as his campaign trail.

That is what makes the contrast so compelling. Putnam tried to become known county by county. DeSantis was teleported into voters’ homes through Fox News. An early analysis of their campaigns found Putnam making far more traditional appearances while DeSantis relied primarily on cable television?. By the end of the primary, DeSantis had appeared on Fox News more than 100 times?. Trump endorsed him, and those television appearances became clips that circulated everywhere else.

DeSantis beat Putnam 56.5 percent to 36.5 percent. He became governor, won reelection and later ran for president. Putnam left elected office and now runs Ducks Unlimited.

That happened almost a decade ago, before the current ecosystem of short-form video, podcasts and algorithmic feeds had fully developed. If a screen-first campaign could overwhelm a traditional statewide organization then, what does that mean now?

That does not mean money or organization no longer matter. But Bill Cassidy spent millions on advertising and still finished third behind Julia Letlow and John Fleming. At the same time, I saw hundreds of Fleming yard signs and exactly one Letlow sign, yet Letlow led the primary by a wide margin.

There is also the uncomfortable matter of appearance and camera presence. The better-looking candidate does not automatically win, but voters make quick judgments from faces, voices and short clips. Research has found that appealing-looking candidates can benefit disproportionately from television exposure?, especially among less-informed voters. The halo effect is a real part of politics.

So what is the effective ratio now?

How much should go toward paid television versus earned media and online clips? How much time should a candidate spend shaking hands with hundreds of people when one strong interview might reach hundreds of thousands? Does the answer change completely between local, congressional and statewide races? Are face-to-face events primarily about persuading voters, or are they now more valuable for fundraising, creating content and building an organization?

I am not arguing that the ground game is dead or that campaigns can be won entirely through a screen. I am asking what each part of a campaign is actually worth now.

What does the winning campaign model for the next decade look like?

Not a 1:1 comparison but the huge amount of yard signs for Fleming versus virtually none for Letlow (I think I saw one for her versus hundreds for Fleming in the same timespan) have made me question how useful of a gage yard signs actually are as an indication of how the dice land come Election Day.

Hadn’t kept up with it much but just scrolling through her FB she seems to be pretty well into a campaign to visit all 64 parishes. For whatever critiques people can make of her this one doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Meanwhile I learned last week that Davis “budgeted diesel at $3.25 per gallon when he drew up his expected farm costs this year. But it’s now more than $5 per gallon.” as he spoke before a “fired-up crowd at a church with a Black congregation in Gretna.” I also learned in this article that he couldn’t even win re-election to the Tensas police jury. So between the guy not being able to budget properly for his business, focusing on voters that were already voting for him, and his terrible electoral record I don’t think any political winds will help him sail into office.

Culture. Name’s matter.

Those were the cows in the documentary Dominion.

She likes a good meal and has this disgusting nasally voice. Miss Congeniality of BFE.

People thought Letlow was bad…. This is a whole other level. That is a power hungry woman, and to what end? You’d think she was a feminist the level she panders to “women-this” and “women-that”. Pretty much her platform.

Nice to be vindicated. Been saying all year Fleming would lose and all the Fleming soldiers would pile on every time.

Maybe he’ll rally back and win governor in 2027! Or at least something along those lines would seem to be the logic of his deluded supporters. Anyway, will be nice to see this guy’s completely useless and unremarkable career in politics come to an end when he’s done as Treasurer.

Forks versus chopsticks