Thread by @jamisonfoser

It was always pretty clear that the Lincoln Project ads that got a lot of attention were unlikely to be particularly effective wrt actual voters Joe Biden needed. Not because “Twitter isn’t real life” but because Democratic voters aren’t GOP voters. (1/N)

https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1336701970351083527

A lot of Democratic activists are perpetually frustrated Democrats aren’t more “aggressive” and “hard-hitting.” (I often share this view!) So they’d see a harsh LP ad and think “See, Republicans know how to throw a punch!” and assume the LP ads were *effective.* (2/N)

(There’s nothing some Democrats enjoy more than assuming Republicans are strategic geniuses.) (3/N)

But there’s a problem here.

We know there are deep differences between people who vote for Democrats & people who vote for Republicans — not just disagreements about tax policy or whatever, but core attitudinal/emotional/etc differences. (4/N)

So tones and themes that might work with Republican voters/leaners often don’t work with Democratic voters/leaners. And vice versa.

This is a core problem with a strategy of having GOP strategists make the kind of ads they do well, but to elect Democrats. (5/N)

A lot of people assumed, absent real evidence, that the LP ads were effective because they were ads made by Republican ad-makers doing what they do best. My assumption was *that was a flaw, not an asset,* because audiences differ. (6/N)

And as for Twitter virility not being a good proxy for effectiveness, again that isn’t really a “Twitter isn’t real life” problem so much as an obvious “virility simply requires some people to like it a lot regardless of whether those are the people you need to persuade” problem.

As for the LP defense that hey, those ads weren’t *intended* to persuade actual voters, but rather to get media attention … yeah, I mean, Lincoln Project’s goal of making Lincoln Project famous was never subtle, and not something Dems should’ve funded. (8/N)

TL;DR: Democrats shouldn’t fund Republicans on spec.

(9/9)

I see this defense/praise of Lincoln Project a lot, and I’ll just say I find it extremely bizarre. Donald Trump certainly doesn’t need encouragement to act crazy. This is a strategy to get booked on Morning Joe, not to affect an election.

Ah, broke the thread. Dammit:

https://twitter.com/jamisonfoser/status/1336750079886020608

One more postscript: Most ads have very small effects at best. It’s hard! Not being particularly effective isn’t unique to Lincoln Project.

But the widespread praise/attention/assumption of efficacy LP enjoyed *is* pretty unique.

This from Rick Wilson is transparent bullshit. Lincoln Project did not persuade 9-13 percent of Republicans to vote for Joe Biden. That’s nonsense, and printing it without pressing him to provide the “metrics” that supposedly show this is absurd. adage.com/article/campai…