Archives for 2024

Former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan giving some great advice on the TeeVee:

[…]What does it mean to be a Democrat? People want to trust us. They don’t want to go to Donald Trump. I’m telling you, the middle-of-the-road people, they’re holding their nose to vote for him but we did not give them enough, like, we are reindustrializing, we are talking about American competitiveness. We are moderate on things like natural gas in western PA which ended up being a big issue which we can’t be for natural gas replacing coal. We are in a big fight with the crypto industry. What are we doing? Why are we in a fight with crypto right now? We’ve got to get back to the bread and butter policies.”

I don’t know about you, but when I think of issues that middle-of-the-road Maws and Paws talk about around the dinner table, crypto is number one.  “Dangit, Paw, if only Bitcoin would clear $100K, then maybe we could afford new tires for the pickup and braces for little Timmy.  But those durn Democrats want to slap regulations on it, so I guess we just have to ride around on bald tires and Timmy’s gonna have buck teeth!  Dang them to heck!”

Anyway, back in the real world where centrists aren’t cloaking their desire to get their paws on some sweet crypto cash with nonsense, this is happening:

Robert Almonte, a former U.S. Marshal and deputy chief with the El Paso Police Department, told NewsNation that cartels have taken advantage of modern technology, including cryptocurrency, to enhance their criminal endeavors.

As appears to be the case with Tether, cartel members often hire professional cryptocurrency money launderers to move the money and then pay them a commission based on the total amount of cash they launder, Almonte said.

Once the money from the drug proceeds is moved around, it eventually ends up back in cartel hands to further finance their global operations, he added.

“It’s difficult to track the cryptocurrency and the exchange of the cryptocurrency,” Almonte said. “In many cases, these money launderers are moving it around several times before it reaches its final destination. So that’s one of the main reasons they are using cryptocurrency because it is so hard to detect.”

If any issue was more full of the intent to lose than crypto, I don’t know what it is.  It is fake money dreamt up to let people do illegal shit without being traced.  The exchanges are more often than not scammy — if FTX taught us nothing else, it should have at least taught us that.  I mean, shit, Trump has his own crypto, which should tell you everything you need to know right there.  Yet there are Democrats who want to lead us into disaster by getting in bed with the grifters who inhabit the crypto world.  These Dems should be ignored, if not shunned.

The Art of Losing Isn’t Hard to MasterPost + Comments (69)

In yesterday’s post about the Democrats’ messaging situation, my number one observation is that Democrats don’t like to campaign all the time.   Some commenters had reasons to explain that, and some of them may be valid, but let me offer an experience-based counterpoint.

I started blogging around 2006 when Eric Massa ran for the then NY-29 congressional seat.  This was my district at the time, and my blog was focused solely on NY-29 politics.  It was mainly in the Southern Tier of New York, but a bit of it was gerrymandered north to the Rochester suburbs.  The district went for Bush by 10-11 points in  2000 and 2004, and it went for McCain by 3 points in 2008.  As a basically R+6 or tougher district, it was essentially conceded by the Democratic Party.  The district had been represented by Amo Houghton, an old-school New York Republican, which is to say someone who was fairly liberal on social programs.  After Houghton retired, Republican Randy Kuhl took his place.

Massa, who turned out to be a nutcase, a closet case and a sex pest, was a gifted and determined politician.  He was a retired navy officer who had done some business consulting.  He traveled the district, meeting with party committees and the few Democratic elected officials, to set the groundwork for his 2006 campaign.  He got nothing from the DCCC or really from any of the party — this was the foundation of my view that the “50 state strategy” was all talk and no action. But he persevered.  He hired a talented media person and the goal of Massa and his tiny staff was to get stories in every local paper every day.  Each morning, like clockwork, a press release landed in my inbox from the campaign.  It picked on something Kuhl had done, or imagined a different world with a Democrat in charge, or talked about a visit to a town festival or civic club (like the Lions or Rotary).

The first key point is that Massa didn’t really spend any ad money, by standards of a Congressional campaign.  Almost all of his media was “earned media” — stories in the paper.  With small town papers drying up, this strategy wouldn’t work today, but the takeaway isn’t the details of the technique, it’s the persistence and desire to spread the Democratic message every day.

A second key point about Massa is that he wasn’t a splitter or a mealy mouthed centrist.  He was fully for single-payer health insurance.  He was against the Iraq war.  He picked issues that addressed the pain felt in the district.  A lot of kids went to war from the 29th, and some of them were maimed or died in a war that by 2006 seemed like a waste.  And, the district was older, so paying for healthcare was a huge issue.

Massa lost the 2006 election to Kuhl by 3 points, or 6,000 votes, which was a squeaker by standard of a district where the last two races were won by Republicans with solid margins.  Immediately after that loss, he started campaigning again.  This time, he got a wee bit of support from the party, but he still mostly raised funds on his own and continued his tradition of issuing press releases and traveling all around the district.  In 2008, he won by 5,000 votes.  Then, he self-destructed, but that’s a story for another time.  In the brief period that he represented the district, he did have a lot of town halls and also kept sending out press releases.

I realize this experience is almost 20 years old now, but it left me (and DougJ, who also followed that race closely) with the view that Democrats are losing seats because they don’t campaign long enough or hard enough.  I believe then, and I believe now, that paid media is of far lesser quality than earned media.  In today’s highly fractured media environment, earned media is probably mostly social media, and that’s a challenge.  But even in 2006/2008, it was clear that repeated, dark, negative TV spots were a money sink of questionable return.   Massa had hardly any ads in 2006 and almost won.  Kuhl had a ton of ads on 2008, compared to Massa’s meager ad budget, and Kuhl lost.  Another take-home is that someone who climbs the party ladder like Kuhl is a far weaker candidate that an outsider like Massa.  Kuhl was often left flat-footed by Massa’s attacks, because he had been a state legislator for umpteen years and then moved up in the hierarchy when Amo Houghton retired.  That is not a recipe for an aggressive, fast-on-his-feet candidate.  But, the Democratic party establishment (DCCC) is far more comfortable with someone who’s ascended in the ranks because the DCCC is risk averse.  Finally, the lesson of a little money early being far more effective than a lot of money late is borne out by my experience in the 29th.  Another $100K in May 2006 could have made the difference for Massa.  Late money sent to campaigns mostly goes to more TV, because whatever organization and staffing the campaign has by, say, October, is what they’re going to end the campaign with.  Money given at that point doesn’t go to laying the groundwork for organizing and GOTV that I still believe can make the margin of victory.

This is why I will continue to criticize elected Democrats for failing to run 24/7/365 campaigns — because I’ve seen it work and win in an “unwinnable” district.

ABC – Always Be Campaigning – My ExperiencePost + Comments (113)