Thread by @Rodericka

Thread 🧵

You know what? I like to have fun, so I'm actually going to defend @TudorDixon some here. The core Q driving this memo is where the burden sits for ensuring favorable outcomes for Michigan Rs. Given the facts of this cycle in particular, it always rested with @MIGOP.

https://twitter.com/TudorDixon/status/1590850114729693186

Now, I'll give Paul this: Dixon was a weak candidate. But you know who else would have been "untested," suffering from "low name ID," advancing past the primary with "no statewide operations," and angling to earn Trump's favor?

Every other goddamned R that launched a bid.

Even happy-to-light-their-$$$-on-fire @KevinRinke and @PJQualityGuru would've run into the same infrastructural issues, as they also would have been forced to "start from scratch."

Now, Dixon committed the grave error of going dark in Aug. Not even tweets! That's on her.

But this memo is truly some brazen revisionist history. It is frankly, bullshit, that MIGOP didn't realize they had a problem until Dixon personified it in August.

The clock started way back in early 2021 and they know it.

Let's be real. COVID was a big issue. But even at the height of its saliency in early 2021 and all the anti-Gretch frustration that came with it, MIGOP suffered setback after setback on the #migov recruitment front.

That should've been the smoke alarm.

We (@MichiganDems) issued a memo of our own in April 2021 on this very issue. Perhaps Paul should've read it! michigandems.com/mdp-memo-failu…

By June '21 it was very clear. Whoever won the GOP primary was probably going to be a random with zero political experience, brandishing extreme stances tough for Independents to swallow. So what do you do?

You leverage the one thing you can control -- the party apparatus.

MIGOP should've adapted to reality and used the entirety of the 2022 pre-primary cycle to build an operation ready to support whoever won, a strategy that would have REALLY paid off after The Great Signature Fraud Fiasco wiped out top-two poll leaders Craig and Johnson.

If this sounds ridiculous, need I remind that Chair Ron Weiser is a BILLIONAIRE who has the position largely due to pledges to bankroll MIGOP. It costs less to do what I'm suggesting than the $40M he donated to UM in 2020 alone. #TipYourResearchers

Throwing some Weiser $$ on air starting Aug. 3rd would've at least done *something* to counteract the body blows Dixon was taking day after day unanswered. Although I agree it would've been tough to come up with a credible response to her own callous anti-abortion rhetoric.

But it's not just Weiser. For all my talk about Dixon being a DeVos sellout...where the hell were they?

Sure they stood up a PAC that dominated her TV ad presence, but the investment rate was relatively weak compared to how they bet the barn on John James just one cycle prior.

Campaign finance heads check me here, but I don't think the DeVos family ever got close to the $30M speculated in this CNBC piece from mid-August. Has anyone asked them why? cnbc.com/2022/08/18/mic…

Next, it is breathtakingly tone-deaf how much of the memo is spent dunking on Dixon as if Matt DePerno and Kristina Karamo bear no responsibility for how throughly caustic the top of the Republican ticket was. Each are referenced only once, and not even by name! Come tf on.

And it's not like things were more palatable downballot either. Candidates were garbage throughout and it turns out that quality matters to voters! Here's Sen. @MalloryMcMorrow's words on that for @nytimes.

tl;dr Tudor Dixon deserves considerable blame for running a campaign that reflected her fringe, which was riddled with own-goals (wasting August, anti-abortion extremism, obsession with trans students). But to place Tuesday's outcome entirely on her shoulders is not realistic.

These losses belong to @MIGOP, which had the privilege of ample time, experience, and resources to mitigate the downballot impacts that come with statewide candidates too weak and extreme to grow coattails. It's not Dixon's fault they were asleep at the wheel. /end