Okay, so everyone is dunking on this take. And I’m gonna dunk on it too. But from a sliiiiiightly different angle.

I think the Biden/Harris non-answer is basically fine. It’s also identical to the answer Leonhardt suggests they give instead.

(Short thread)
Trump and Republicans desperately want to make this election about something other than COVID.

(Self-plug: I wrote about this for @wired last week) wired.com/story/the-elec…

The reason they keep asking “is he gonna pack the court” is because they see a potential reframe.
When Biden says “I’m not going to answer the question because they’re just trying to change the subject” he is 100% correct.

Any answer will get stripped of context and nuance and played on a loop. That’s the whole purpose of pursuing an answer.
Saying “well that’s up to Congress” or “we’ll have to wait and see” won’t end the matter.

Republicans want a hard denial that they can hang around his head during a potential Biden administration, or they want to run on the lack of a hard denial.
Saying “but Merrick Garland!” lets Republicans insist that this election is about stopping The Left from destroying the courts out of a politics of retribution.

Which, in turn, would provide legs to this narrative and turn it into an ongoing narrative.
Saying “sure, we won’t expand the court” is a problem because it is extremely likely that a Biden administration will have to, at a minimum, credibly threaten to expand the court. (I think they’re gonna have to actually do it, and also that they should fwiw.)
So the strategic goal here is to provide no soundbytes for the Rs, put the focus back on COVID, and let Trump’s intemperate self-immolation eventually replace it in the news cycle.

That’s... pretty much exactly what they’re doing.
The only downside is that it’ll annoy reporters like Leonhardt. They like crisp, definitive answers, and they like doggedly pursuing those answers when candidates don’t give them.

That’s fine. You accept that downside is a campaign. The reporters will get over it.
Sometimes the non-answer is the most strategic answer.

Sometimes the comms plan that pisses off reporters is the best comms plan.

The Biden campaign is handling this fine. They shouldn’t change a thing.
(Fin)

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with dave karpf

dave karpf Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @davekarpf

28 Sep
I’m actually optimistic that this Trump taxes NYT story will *matter*, even in this #lolnothingmatters moment in history.

That’s not because some crucial subset of voters will read this and change their minds.

It’s because of how Trump will react.
(1/x)
Trump is already an undisciplined campaigner. Even on an average day, he is routinely his own worst enemy.

The thing he is best at is maintaining constant attention and repeatedly creating new distractions.

It’s a reality TV gimmick. It’s his one superpower.
(2/x)
When Trump flails—when he’s really wounded—he loses that superpower.

Instead of creating another news cycle that leaves us forgetting the previous one, he just intensifies and extends the one he’s stuck in.

He is not a man who is capable of strategically staying quiet.
(3/x)
Read 10 tweets
14 Sep
There’s a tension in election coverage that is going to become increasingly jarring in the weeks ahead.

We’re going to read stories about business-as-usual campaigning, alongside stories of structural voter disenfranchisement.

The two storylines don’t easily coexist. (Thread)
Here’s a business-as-usual example:

Florida is an important battleground state. Polls show a close race. Whose message is resonating/what strategic choices are the campaigns making/who will win?

It’s a genre of reporting that we’re all used to — horse race reporting.
But then there’s this alternate storyline:

The courts have just effectively barred 770,000 Florida citizens from voting. This is part of a multi-year disenfranchisement effort that FL Republicans launched after FL voted to restore voting rights for ex-felons.
Read 11 tweets
28 Aug
Here's what I think will matter from tonight's speech/this convention:

The premise of the RNC is that everything was going great, COVID has been a blip, but we're totally past it and back to fine now.

That's comforting to an audience that wants to believe it. But it's fleeting.
It's nine and a half weeks until the election. That's a really long time. Particularly now, when every week brings another disruptive horror.

Nine and a half weeks ago was June 16th. What news do you recall from June 16th? What has stuck with you that long?
Reality is the unavoidable problem for the Trump campaign.

They just spent four weeks utterly ignoring reality. I'm sure that felt nice for the supporters who tuned in -- it sure felt infuriating to us critics!

But, tomorrow, reality will start setting in again.
Read 7 tweets
25 Aug
My real takeaway from RNC night one is how much the program felt like a fan-service episode of a long-running tv show.

If you aren’t tuning into FNC every night, you don’t know who the McCloskys are, or what “cancel culture” is all about.
(1/2)
There was a moment in DJT jr’s speech where he mentioned Biden “supported TPP. Goodbye manufacturing jobs!”

Dude... normal people don’t know what that acronym stands for. The ones who do are already firmly for or against you.
(2/3)
And please don’t reply with “but... base mobilization!”

A political base-mobilizing message should resonate wider than a fan base-mobilizing message.

It has to. The Fox News audience isn’t large enough to win an election.

(3/4)
Read 4 tweets
18 Jul
In lieu of my normal “Bret Stephens write a column and it’s dumb let me make fun of it” thread, let me urge you to read this searing conversation between @cwarzel and @IwriteOK.
The Stephens column is his normal low-batting-average stuff.

It’s basically a book report. Stephens read @AlecMacGillis’s complex, thorough article about policing in Baltimore before and after Freddie Gray and provides a conservative Cliff’s Notes version that loses the nuance.
The Stephens column only *matters* in the sense that it signals what you’ll be hearing from his conservative peers — police are good, everyone submit to them or Bad Things will happen.

But what’s happening in Portland? That’s new. It’s dangerous. That matters.
Read 4 tweets
13 Jul
Man, I just listened to @ezraklein interview @Yascha_Mounk on his podcast.

For a political scientist who writes a ton about American politics, Mounk *really* needs to reread his E.E. Schattschneider.
(1/2 or 3)
The central insight from Schattschneider is that politics is not like an intercollegiate debate where the rules, norms, and boundaries are agreed upon in advance.

Politics, rather, is about the mobilization of bias. Politics is about about power.
(2/3)
As far as I can tell, Mounk’s new publication/newsletter/community is constructed around the premise that politics *should be* like an intercollegiate debate.

He wants to gather some wonderful debaters to show off just how nice that would be.
(3/4, I guess)
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!