Story time. Four years ago in Nov 2015, I was on a three-person panel at Georgetown sitting between the head of digital for the Democrat and Republican parties. I didn’t know either of them, I was mostly there to discuss social media and its impact on news and information. /1
As we were wrapping up, the panel moderator did something fairly unique and asked the RNC and DNC representatives (DNC - @mattcompton, RNC - @lansing) to ask each other a question. I slowly ducked my head as I wanted no part of a food fight ;) /2
The RNC rep went first and to his credit, @lansing asked a fairly innocuous and respectful question. I can’t remember what it was but it wasn’t memorable to me. But then the DNC digital head through a zinger at the RNC... and it was very memorable to me. /3
As I recall his question, “Democrats have owned Republicans for several elections in terms of data operations. When do you think you’ll catch up?” @lansing didn’t blink and politely said, “Maybe we’ve caught up and you haven’t realized yet.” Something to chew on for 2020. /end
