Happy virtual convention week. I took a look at how this'll be the most visible test so far of whether Dems' virtual campaign can match up in crucial Wisconsin, as their ground game has been moved online while the GOP keeps knocking doors & holding events. vice.com/en_us/article/…
Part of this disparate approach is driven by necessity. WI Dem @JoeZepecki: "For every voter really longing for face to face communication there could be three that are really turned off by the depravity of sending someone out into a community and risking spreading coronavirus."
WisDems chair @benwikler: "“Trump waltzing around like there’s no pandemic underway and Democrats taking every precaution to show we’re not spreading coronavirus — that sets up exactly the right contrast."
But GOP voters feel differently. WI GOP strategist: "We can walk and chew gum at the same time, be safe and respectful but also show we’re going to go out there and earn your vote, and Dems are putting all their eggs in one basket, use this as a messaging tactic."
Dems are using the quasi-Milwaukee convention as an organizing focus. Lots of volunteer training and events inc. a state watch party with @ewarren. And they have Wisconsin speakers each night of the convention.
Dems think Wisconsin is where their efforts to move things online, focus on making sure people know how to vote safely and emphasis on relational organizing has come together better than almost anywhere. But it remains an open q whether it can match a physical ground game.
With Biden remaining in Delaware for the convention while Trump drops into Wisconsin this week, it puts that contrast on visible display in the starkest way possible.
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I spent the last few months trying to get my head around Tommy Tuberville for @RollingStone. Talked to him multiple times, chatted with former players and a bunch of senators.
Claremont recently opened its first state-based office in its history in FL, and DeSantis rolled out the red carpet.
He's involved them in his hostile takeover of New College, his push to end DEI programs and a K-12 civics program.
They're involved in his nascent campaign too.
“On a whole range of issues where wokeness is a threat he has risen to the occasion—rhetorically, but he’s also trying to do something about it legislatively," Claremont Institute senior fellow Charles Kesler, who DeSantis appointed at New College, told me.
Trump and his allies have spent two-plus years plotting to turn states with slower vote counts into scenes of chaotic protest, last-minute lawsuits and outright rejections of the democratic process.
“I'm very concerned about the possibility of violence in the post-election period incited by losing candidates."
The two swing states where conditions are most ripe for chaos:
Arizona (mail-heavy state, vigilante voter intimidation, a slate of election-denying candidates)
Pennsylvania (slow mail ballot counting caused by intentional GOP intransigence, focus from Trump folks)
“After I pulled an all nighter watching The Fall of the Cabal, I was wrecked. Between the compelling evidence indicating that the migrant caravan in 2018 was totally staged, to the bone chilling saga of Pizzagate..."
"..., to the idea that JFK Jr. could still be alive (which I believe is completely false), my world was rocked."
Shuppe repeatedly used the QAnon hashtag WWG1WGA and referenced "the storm," and seemed particularly alarmed by pedophilia conspiracies (Pizzagate/Wayfair).