I continue to muse on Hillary Clinton’s media strategy and remain baffled by it. I laid out in general terms the evidence of its ineffectiveness a couple of days ago (“Mr. Empathy“), but I think it’s worth taking a closer look because this is usually where campaigns are won and lost and hers sure ain’t firing on all cylinders right now.

I have not, of course, seen the Clinton campaign’s polling nor am I privy to their focus groups. I just have to assume they’ve got the best that money can buy in terms of data, experience, analytics and creativity. Which makes it all the more puzzling that they seem to be sputtering so badly in this department.Read More »

He says “follow me,” gets in his car and starts to drive down the road. You follow. You’re not always 100% sure where he’s going, but more often than not you have a fairly decent idea, and you’ve kind of got a duty to try to see where he’s going–not to mention you’re curious as hell.

Then he suddenly swerves off into a cornfield. Sometimes he stops to pick an ear of corn, maybe sometimes he offers one to you. Sometimes he’ll swerve back onto the road. Sometimes he’ll drive through a pond and a forest and come out on a different road altogether. Then he stops and you have no idea where you are or where he intended to go; and asking him is pointless because he’ll just say “I’ll show you, follow me,” start up the car and start driving down the road again. When it’s all over you can identify where he’s led you about as often as a blind pig finds an acorn.Read More »

The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers ad guys.

But before we get to that, let’s get this out there to begin: while the before and after party coverage of Monday night’s debate was every bit as appalling as expected, the moderator for the debate itself, NBC’s Lester Holt, is getting, as far as I can see, zero coverage for the solid performance he turned in. He put some curbs on the road, but mostly let the two candidates drive while pointing them, much more often than not, to substantive issues.  Good for him.

By now you’ve heard all of the analysis of the debate you want to hear, so I will spare you from mine. Here’s all you really need to understand: no one will really know the effect of the debate on the race until Monday–by which time there will be enough post-debate polling to get a sense of who benefited and who didn’t from their performances.

Also understand this: if Hillary does not get a poll bump from this debate, where by all accounts she clearly outperformed Trump, her campaign is in very serious trouble. Read More »

“Share this if you’re outraged!”

Unless you’re clicking on, posting and sharing only cute animal videos, chances are these days that, in this heady, strange election season, not a scroll through your Facebook feed goes by without an invitation to share your exasperation and disgust about this or that abomination du jour.

Another police shooting of an African American, quarterbacks kneeling to the national anthem, guns, the rich, the poor, polluters, tax laws, legality of certain drugs compared to the illegality of others and of course the latest uttering and/or past exploits of our beloved presidential candidates.Read More »