It's the money stupid. It's social media stupid.

[Ninga]

Paraphrasing the words of James Carville.
One billion was spent in Ohio on Sherrod Brown’s senate race. One Billion. One tv ad over and over every sports broadcast every channel where ads could be placed. So Brown’s message about fighting for Ohio and all of the work he had done on behalf of workers and union and getting business to Ohio could not overcome the smothering constant lying ads by Bernie Marino.
Add in the republican bots flooding social media and whoa la! Election bought.
The grainy black and white ads portraying Ksmala Harris as unfit were run 24/7 everywhere there was a tv station.
I am not in the “Democrats have a wrong message” camp.

[Scrivener7]

1. More than that, the numbers prove it's racism and sexism, stupid.

We can't do much about republiQan billionaires buying the election. We can't do much in the near future to take back social media, and there doesn't seem to be a plan to do it in the long term.

But if we acknowledge the racism and sexism in our own party and look at the numbers, they tell us to nominate a middle aged straight white protestant male next time we have an election (if there is a next time).

I don't like it, you probably don't like it, but it's what we need to do to get a Democrat elected and begin to turn this mess around.

And I wholeheartedly agree that it's not the message, but I will insist that messaging plays a large part. (Two very different things.) And we really need to up our messaging game.

[GreatGazoo]

2. You have misused Carville's quote

Carville famously said "It's the economy stupid" meaning that Carville was in the “Democrats have a wrong message” camp. And he was giving them some much needed tough love.

Harris/Walz outspent DJT 3 to 1 in paid media and received about a 10 to 1 edge in in-kind media. This should negate any theory that outspending the GOP by even higher multiples would make the difference.

Democrats had just as much reach and repetition as GOP and they lost so clearly the DNC needs to work on messaging.

[Ninga]

4. Ok, I give you my misuse. I am very reluctant to

give you your point but on $$ spent by DJT due to the overwhelming $$ that were spent by dark money pacs.

[GreatGazoo]

5. These guys tracked dark money via FEC filings

They claim 8.4x more dark money spent on Harris:

https://readsludge.com/2024/10/23/harris-backed-by-9-6x-more-dark-money-than-trump/

Their overall numbers -- $196m vs $23m -- seem low in a $2 billion GE. Looks like they were counting only "dark money" in those numbers and not the amount openly spent by the SuperPACs that money went to. I keep hearing Musk spent "$250m" and that is clearly not in the $23m figure but perhaps that is because it was not dark money.

[sop]

3. In 2024 "It's the corruption, stupid."

[evilhime]

6. Until such time

as our elected officials are willing to give up their perks and get money out of politics we will continue to see elections bought over and over and over again. . Fear sells! And when (low information) humans are bombarded by it constantly they “buy into it” every damned time.