For certain, very Democratic values of ‘happy’…
All speeches limited to no more than 272 words. https://t.co/ZRl7YIXsns
— Adam Bonin (@adambonin.bsky.social) (@adambonin) October 18, 2023
(i.e., no longer than a tweet.)
apropos to suggest the site of not one but two of the Confederacy's few major victories for a GOP retreat https://t.co/mvX7j3Kglv
— knife-wielding hemophiliac (@NickTagliaferro) October 18, 2023
But (sorta) seriously…
‘There’s just no excitement’: Retail politics takes a nosedive in a Trump-dominated campaign https://t.co/WqHAaAybXU pic.twitter.com/KQzXHjYutN
— WonkPorn (@WonkPorn) October 18, 2023
If the professional ratf*cking / horserace tout campaign staffing and pundit classes have decided TFG is bad for business, that’s good for democracy, frankly. Per Politico — “‘There’s just no excitement’: Retail politics takes a nosedive in a Trump-dominated campaign”:
If the Republican presidential primary this year is putting you half to sleep, you’re not alone. And it’s not just because Donald Trump is running away with the nomination.
Operatives and party activists in key early voting states say they can’t recall a recent cycle in which they had such little interaction with candidates…
… GOP candidate events in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state, are down nearly 50 percent this election cycle, compared to the same point in 2015, according to a review of campaign event trackers in early states. In New Hampshire, the first primary state, the candidates’ roster of September events was a fraction of those eight years ago. And hardly anyone is making the trek to Nevada.
In a lopsided election year, retail politics is flatlining.
“I’m truly stunned. It’s way down,” said Chad Connelly, a former South Carolina Republican Party chair whose faith-based organization Faith Wins holds frequent meetings with pastors in the early nominating states. “I don’t think anybody would say this is a normal cycle.”
Faith Wins, but cash *spends*.
The decline of retail in 2024 is the product of several factors, all of them accelerated by Trump. First, rival candidates waited for months to see if the former president would run and then, once he did, if he would implode on his own. When they eventually did get in the race, they were confronted by a tightened calendar, reducing their time on the trail. Meanwhile, to qualify for a summer debate, lower-polling rivals were forced to focus more heavily on national TV appearances, social media and small-dollar fundraising to meet polling and donor thresholds.
And even when they did have time to press the flesh, the payoff was always going to be low in a primary nationalized by Trump’s legal entanglements, drawing more cameras to courtrooms in Miami, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and New York than the Pizza Ranch in Cedar Rapids.
The effect has been to further paralyze the race and cement Trump’s substantial lead — cutting off an avenue once relied on by lower-polling, lesser-funded candidates to shake up the field…
And even when the candidates are coming around, it isn’t like it was before. In New Hampshire, where several candidates flocked late last week for a series of in-person campaign stops and a cattle call, DeSantis told reporters that “voters resent being taken for granted” — in his first swing through the state in seven weeks.
Sean Van Anglen, a New Hampshire political consultant and Trump-turned-DeSantis supporter, said it “just seems like this cycle has been very bland.”
He added, “There’s just no excitement.”
Why does this matter? Per the Washington Post, company paper for the town whose monopoly industry is national politics, “The Republican Primary LARP”: [Unpaywalled gift link]:
… One way to think about a primary is as a jobs program. When the businessman Mike Bloomberg ran for president as a Democrat, in 2020, he spent more than $1 billion of his own money and had a campaign staff of about 2,400 people. Or you could think of it as a wealth redistribution operation, largely benefiting the consulting class.
Jeff Roe, the man behind a top DeSantis super PAC, told investors last year that his firm (which also has corporate clients) would take in $250 million in revenue by 2024 and make about $36 million in profit. “He’s laughing all the way to the bank,” LaCivita, the Trump aide, said of Roe. “You’ve got to keep the grift going as long as possible… This guy hasn’t won anything. But he’s a business guy, and he’s been successful at building a business.”…
For a certain kind of political professional, a losing campaign season can still be part of a winning strategy overall. Multiple consultants said working on presidential campaigns isn’t nearly as lucrative as the corporate clients they can get after having worked a presidential campaign.
But it’s not just political professionals who are primary beneficiaries. Even a fake-ish primary helps prop up very real economies, especially in states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, where political events can help sell newspapers, keep hotels and restaurants booked up, and provide millions of dollars in advertising revenue to local television stations. Publishing executive and rich guy Steve Forbes spent so much money on TV ads — nearly $6 million — during his quixotic presidential campaigns in 1996 and 2000 that New Hampshire’s WMUR studios in Manchester is known to some as “the house that Steve Forbes built.”
“Once, I was mic’ing up some candidates for an event and the moderator, Bill Maher, asked who I was going to be voting for,” said Bob Molloy, a sound and video contractor in New Hampshire. “I told him, ‘Whoever spends the most money with me deserves my vote.’ And Maher said, ‘Well, then it’s going to be Steve Forbes.’ And he was right.”
Molloy has been working political events for decades now, and he brags that, since 1976, no presidential candidate has won the New Hampshire primary without first renting a microphone from him. (One of those microphones, which Ronald Reagan famously said he’d “paid for” at a campaign event, is now on display at the Reagan Library.)
“I never let the primary become the majority of the business,” he said. “But it does provide a really nice blip in the finances.”
The New Hampshire restaurateur and former airline caterer Chuck Rolecek estimates that, during a presidential primary year, he gets an extra two months of revenue per year. This was especially important to Rolecek when he was first getting his start as an airline caterer out of Manchester. He remembers one of his first big contracts for his new business, in 1988.
“I got a call from The Washington Post saying they were coming in with an airplane full of reporters and they needed breakfast when they flew out,” he said. “I asked what their budget was, and they said: ‘We don’t have a budget. Just let us know what it will cost.’”…
Alison Rose
Are they saying they actually want to spend time with DeSantis and Ramaswamy? God help ’em.
Trivia Man
I’m assuming the Gettysburg address is 272 words
HumboldtBlue
@Trivia Man: Indeed it is.
And a retreat FROM Gettysburg is what the last gang of traitors this nation had to put down did, retreating TO Gettysburg is a new one.
And it’s odd Trivia Man, of all people, didn’t know that.
Maxim
I stared at that TFG rally photo with a sort of sick fascination. So this is what cult members look like. Actually traveling, no matter the distance, to see him after everything that’s happened should be listed in the DSM.
frosty
In my many years as an engineering consultant I never once heard these magic words!
Closest I came was a good budget and a schedule so tight I didn’t have time to spend it all. A different kind of headache.
Ken
Google says only one President, Grover Cleveland, has lost their re-election bid, run again, and won. Three have run again (although as third-party candidates) and lost; two have tried for the nomination again and failed.
Not sure I have a point here, other than it’s late and I’m having trouble falling asleep.
Kent
All white and all bottled blonde…
look at the dark roots on all those blonde women.
frosty
@Kent: Well, blond with brown roots at least in one case. //catty
ETA too late again!!!
moonbat
I may be reading that second tweet wrong (it’s been a long day) but if he is referring to Gettysburg as a Confederate win, he needs to check his copy of Shelby Foote again. While many were lost on both sides, Pickett’s charge was a disaster for the Confederacy and if Meade had pursued the Army of Virginia’s retreat he probably could have ended the war a lot early.
CaseyL
@Kent:
@frosty:
The ones in the photo haven’t reached the Age of Constant Facelifts yet, like the (S)Trumpettes who hang out at Mar-a-Lago. Now, those are some awful looking people. Between the bleached hair, face lifts, and botox, they all look alike, and what they look like are predatory reptiles.*
(*All apologies to predatory reptiles, who are rightly insulted by the comparison.)
dmsilev
@moonbat: No, if you click through, he’s referring to Manassas, aka Bull Run. Both battles of which were won by the Traitors In Defense of Slavery.
moonbat
@dmsilev: Oh, okay. Gotcha. I was thinking he named Manassas and Gettysburg as Confederate wins.
I try not to click through these days if I can avoid it.
danielx
Read something by Molly Ivins once that I remembered, miraculously:
Now if they can just keep the candidates unexposed until the Republican primaries are over, the gravy train will keep rolling.
Chetan Murthy
@dmsilev: “meaningful to our nation’s history” …. which nation kemosabe? [him, not you]
p.a.
@Kent: Miracle Whip on Wonder Bread for lunch. CoolWhip & lime Jello dessert.
Anne Laurie
Those guys’ money spends, just like a winner’s would.
Of course, every sensible vendor will get a cash advance before signing a contract with either of those two…
HumboldtBlue
@moonbat:
Yes, they are just referring to a historical place for the retreat.
Meade chasing and finishing off Lee, however, is a subject of fierce debate, but I think the modern consensus is that the Army was simply not in shape for a rapid, organized pursuit.
Gettysburg was as brutal an action as can be imagined, the Union lost what, 25 thousand men, including generals like Hancock to officers and senior NCOs throughout the ranks.
That’s a tough ask for such a large, and at the moment, seriously wounded army to undertake.
moonbat
@HumboldtBlue: Yes, I’ve participated in some of those debates. The counter argument being that Lee’s army was arguably in worse shape and still in enemy territory.
But whatevs, as the young ones say. Counterfactuals are fun for a reason.
Mike in NC
When we lived in NoVA we had the opportunity to visit many Civil War historic sites within a reasonable commute: Antietam, Manassas, Harper’s Ferry, Cold Harbor, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg among them. All wonderfully maintained by the National Park Service and highly recommended.
HumboldtBlue
@moonbat:
Indeed. I’m a third through Meade at Gettysburg and finding it slow going, and there is always another book to read.
NotMax
@Ken
And at least one (Franklin Pierce) refused the proposal of nomination for a non-consecutive term, in 1864.
NotMax
Topical.
The 2024 GOP race leaves donors cold, and other takeaways from FEC week.
sab
I spent 3 hours today passing out sample (Democratic) ballots at my county’s early voting site, and it was so much fun, and very interesting.
With me were a couple of school board candidates, and a relative (dad or step-dad) of a third. One was Emilia Sykes’ mother! Utterly charming, funny lady, and very sharp. (Emilia is my county’s new Congressperson. BJ did a fund-raiser for her.)
I had arrived thinking I know who I wanted (we get to vote for three.) Now there is a fourth that I think would be great. Urgh.
I might discuss this with my husband and maybe persuade him to vote for the fourth that I cannot vote for. And brought some literature home for the next door neighbors who are teachers and only want to vote for educators.
We don’t seem to have any whacko Moms for Intolerance, which is a huge relief, but last Board of Education had some guys who thought the Board should micro-manage the Superintendant instead of just set policy. And also seemed to have no sense of the fiscal limitations when the state is massively shifting funding from public schools to charter schools.
Getting to talk to serious thoughtful school board candidates for several hours was amazing.
piratedan
@HumboldtBlue: I’d volunteer to shoot a musket at the GOP contingent if they wanted to recreate Pickett’s Charge
also too, I do have some bsky invites should someone want one
JAFD
@moonbat: Still time to preregister at http://www.fall-in.org
(the autumn gathering of grown-ups who still play with toy soldiers, Nov 3-5, Lancaster, Pa)
Alex
272 words is the length of the Gettysburg Address
the greatest speech in American politics and the antithesis of everything the modern GOP stands for
West of the Rockies
I hope this economically-depressed Republican primary season is a harbinger of a depressed Republican voter turnout in ’24.
prostratedragon
@moonbat: Maybe that dude[presumably]’s handle is not ironic.
Mike in NC
@Alex: In junior high school many of us were required to memorize and recite the Gettysburg Address. Too bad and so sad that our children will never have to memorize Fat Bastard’s quips abut grabbing women by the p+++y.
kindness
The political industry is suffering. All because of Trump. He kills everything he clutches.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
You should all go see this, if at all possible. It is about a very good dog. Who happens to be named Cole.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@piratedan: Same.
Maybe we should have a daytime post where people with links can let this be known.
steve g
There’s nothing happening in the presidential election. We already know who the two candidates will be, and who will win the popular vote. It will come down to electoral votes from a few swing states again, and it will probably be about turnout. It is still too early for all the other races to ramp up. So we wait for February and March to roll around.
piratedan
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): agreed, I can try and make the offer in the AM when I check the morning threads.
While I like Mastodon, I feel that bluesky will likely win out with all of its similarities to the old bird site. I’m starting to see more of the decent content producers show up there, granted they are not as active as they are/were on twitter, but it IS changing slowly.
and I will be honest that I’ve not seen much in the Nazi and Fascism issues that plagues the birdsite.
NotMax
@steve g
When has turnout not been a metric of import in any U.S. election?
JaySinWA
@piratedan: I’d like a bluesky link, please.
My nym links to my Mastodon account.
NotMax
@piratedan
Another up and comer is Pebble, although I’m chary of their touting generative AI.
JaySinWA
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): I thought about suggesting a recurring Bluesky invite exchange post. Maybe a more general ex-x exchange to connect on other platforms.
piratedan
@JaySinWA: Jay, I’ll just post it here:
bsky-social-oxq3e-k65qi
piratedan
@NotMax: yeah, not a big fan of anyone using the AI terminology when it should be called machine learning (imho), there’s no “thinking” involved, just data gathering and regurgitation based on what has been scraped.
and depending on what and where you’ve been scraping…. well….
JaySinWA
@piratedan: Got it, thanks.
piratedan
@JaySinWA: great! went ahead and gave you a follow to get you started. You can check out who I follow and see if there’s anyone there you wish to start off with.
Geminid
@moonbat: One Gettysburg counterfactual: what if Meade had kept Sedgewick’s 6th Corps in reserve July 3, and used it to lead a counterattack after Pickett’s charge failed? Sedgewick’s force had joined Meade’s army the afternoon before, too late to be thrown in. Its six brigades constituted a formidable fighting force.
But the cautious Meade concentrated on his defense, and parcelled out those brigades all along his battered line. So when the remants of Pickett’s Virginia and North Carolina troops retreated back down Cemetary Ridge, the Union forces let out a great cheer but did not counterattack.
Meade’s wary pursuit over the next few days showed an attitude similar to that expressed by General Sherman after the bloody Battle of Shiloh: “We’d had enough of those fellows’ company and were very glad to see them leave.” Lincoln wrote a scathing letter to Meade about his failure to bag Lee’s Army, and then left it in his desk marked, “Never sent.”
JaySinWA
@piratedan: Just ran through setup, and had to figure out how to reset my password, since my password manager refused to generate one when I first signed up so I kludged one. “Forgot password” is kind of awkward, but it works.
mrmoshpotato
Go Phils! Fuck the GOP into the Sun. Good night.
Tony Jay
@steve g:
Well now, isn’t that the nub of it, and so succinctly put.
This whole thing is boring for the people who usually make big bucks and reputational bank off the circus, and they don’t like it. There’s no energy, no pop, no pizazz. It’s a predictable ratings flop and it will be until very probably the last few hours of Election Night when they count up how many votes are left on the table after the GOP’s suppression tactics and what that means for the post-election legal challenge and political violence spin-offs.
For now, though, they’re stuck with throwing increasingly unlikely plot-twists at the wall to see if anything might stick. What if Biden was forced out because of his age? What if Harris was really unpopular and lazy? What if the electorate somehow forget about women’s rights and only care about Hunter’s laptop? Anything but address the actual elephant in the room, which is the collapse of the GOP into an extremist cult based around a mentally-challenged criminal.
It’s like the writer’s room for the last Flash movie; lots of wasted CGI and sound-effects that won’t grow a hit because the product itself is based around the unwelcome return of an unpopular actor in the role of a character no one wants back.
Honus
@Geminid: Union pursuit after Gettysburg is a longtime subject of debate; after three days and huge casualties on both sides (and the U S Army, with a brand new commander and having been stung a number of times in the years before) it’s understandable that it was reluctant to pursue. What’s pretty much historic consensus is that if Jackson had pursued the routed Army of the Potomac at Manassass he almost certainly would have destroyed it and probably ended the war. Instead he went into a religious trance and never gave the order despite repeatedly being asked by his subordinates.
Shelby Foote is OK if you want to read romanticism about Confederate generals, for the real history of the war Bruce Catton’s trilogy is much superior.
Chris T.
@Honus: I’m just surprised that there was a Sedgewick after which “The Ridges of Sedgewick” (where I had a lot of my childhood) was named…
Chris T.
Oops, maybe it was “Ridges of Stedwick”. Oh well, anyway, suburbia whitebread.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): He is really cute when he is sleeping upside down!
Geminid
@Honus: Have you read E. Porter Alexander’s Fighting for the Confederacy (edited by Gary Gallagher)? That’s a pretty good history of the war, compressed into a personal account.
Alexander was sent west with Longstreet in September of 1864. He did not get there in time for Chickamauga but was around for Bragg”s defeat at Chattanooga and has a lot of inside dope on the Army of Tennessee. Same with the Army of Northern Virginia. Alexander has a lot of critical analysis iof Lee’s strategy. He was very much a Longstreet partisan.
I think the best single book on the Civil War might be W.F.C. Fuller’s The Generalship of Ulysses Grant (1926). Fuller gives a good overview of the war, using Grant’s career as a framework. Economics, Grand Strategy, Strategy and Tactics- Fuller covered them all.
Fullers biography of Grant is unique in that he does not treat the subject of Grant and alcohol. Instead he dedicated the book to the “Youth of America,” that they might profit by the example of Grant’s moral character.
Having served as a British Army officer, Fuller probably thought an officer who did not appreciate a good glass of whiskey to be untrustworthy. Fuller was a little strange, but he was well regarded as a strategy theorist in the years between the two World Wars.
Honus
@Geminid: I haven’t read Fuller but I did read Grant’s autobiography. Mark Twain edited it and actually wrote a lot of it and as Harry Truman said, because of that “it’s a lot funnier than Grant was”
Origuy
I’m still looking for a bluesky link. If you have one, send it to me at jefflanam /at/ gmail.com.
Thanks
Shalimar
@HumboldtBlue: As I’m sure you know, Hancock survived his Gettysburg wounds. It was Reynolds who was killed.
JWR
From the transcript of Tuesday evening’s PBS News Hour, “Moderate” GOP Rep. Carlos Gimenez tells us who’s really to blame for his party’s disfunction.
Well okay then. Guilty as charged, I guess. BTW, his Wikipedia entry says he supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. Go figure.
bjacques
272 words seem like a lot. Most of what the GOP have to say can be summed up in fourteen.
Thanks, I’ll be here all week. Try the Schnitzel!
Shalimar
Did Musk do something bad to Tesla while I wasn’t paying attention? The stock is down $11 a share overnight and the trading day hasn’t even started yet.
lowtechcyclist
@Honus:
This. Both of them, actually. His Army of the Potomac trilogy is amazing, and his Civil War trilogy is excellent as well. If I open either one to check on some fact, I always find myself reading for twenty or thirty pages before pulling myself away, because his writing is so good.
Anne Laurie
Not seen anything specific, but Musk’s threatening to pull Twitter out of Europe entirely, because they want him to crack down on the kiddy porn and Nazi fanbois. If his *Boy Genius* facade keeps cracking, I think people are (rightfully) afraid it’ll affect Tesla’s quite-possibly-overvalued stock…
Rusty
There is a definite segment of New Hampshire political life, on both sides, that is apoplectic that the Dems won’t have the state as the first primary. The economic impact is certainly part of the reason. I live here, but we hardly represent the rest of the country and I’m good with moving the first primary around. I do think it’s unfortunate we are a swing state since at the margin anger over this could .are a difference in a close race.
oldster
@Geminid:
There are many reasons to think that Lincoln was our wisest president, but his ability to dash off an angry late-night email rebuking a subordinate, and then never hit the “send” button, really cements his claim to wisdom.
oldster
@Shalimar:
Drop in Tesla share price is not connected to Skum’s destruction of twitter.
It results from a 40% decline in profits, due to Tesla’s having to steeply discount most of their models.
His company is worth less because his cars are worth less.
Anne Laurie
@oldster: Thanks for the correction!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mike in NC: @HumboldtBlue: @piratedan: @Geminid: My niece’s husband, James Hessler, has been a docent for the Gettysburg battlefield for years. He’s written several good books about it. He has one about Pickett’s charge but I think his book about Sickles is particularly interesting.
LiminalOwl
@bjacques: Took me a second. Nice call.
LiminalOwl
(Gift link, no paywall) Alexandra Petri: “Why I hate elections, by Jim Jordan
Chief Oshkosh
@moonbat: No, it’s not that they are confused about who won or lost at Gettysburg. They just like to pretend that since Lincoln was a Republican, and they are Republicans, then they are on the team that won. Some of them cynically know that the parties are the reverse of what they were back then. Some of them are just stupid enough to think it’s true. After all, we’re into the third generation of people brought up on rightwing hate radio and TV (and now the intertoobes).
Trivia Man
@Dorothy A. Winsor: In elementary school we had a “field trip” across the street from the school. An old WWI told us stories about army life and about his grandfather… General Pickett of Gettysburg fame. I have a clear memory of his grandfathers sword on the wall, but in retrospect that seems very unlikely.
plot twist: this was in the SF Bay Area, we had otherwise very little discussion of the Civil War. ca. 1970
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Trivia Man: That is very cool.
Glidwrith
What’s missing from the two first in the nation are the Democrats. The article completely fails to mention there are two parties and perhaps there’s so little excitement is because events are happening where the President is at.
Mousebumples
@Origuy: emailed you. I’ve got an invite to spare.
Paul in KY
@moonbat: The Union Army had already taken terrible losses at Fredricksburg a few months before. Not unreasonable to rest a tired and bleeding army.
Don’t be like King Harold, who won a hard victory against the Danes and then immediately force marched his soldiers 150 miles to face the rested Normans. We know how that one turned out…
Paul in KY
@Alex: I read it again at the Lincoln Memorial, when I visited DC back in June and it brought tears to my eyes. What a great president and writer he was!
Paul in KY
@Anne Laurie: I saw a quote from/about him on Yahoo saying the cybertruck sucks balls…
Paul in KY
@oldster: He and FDR stand shoulders above anyone else who’s ever had that job.
Paul in KY
@Chief Oshkosh: Lincoln would have been a Democrat today.
JAFD
@Geminid: There’s been a new ‘standard’ 1-volume popular history of the Civil War roughly every generation – Fletcher Pratt’s Ordeal by Fire in the ’30’s, Catton’s in the ’50’s, McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom in the ’90’s. One can learn a lot about the US at the time by ‘reading between the lines’.
Mayhap we are ‘due’ for another ?