Thread by @blockedfreq

As I conduct the postmortem on #PASen, my thoughts keep drifting back to the one realistic shot Dems have at a pickup in 2024 - #TXSen. This is because I see one element of Fetterman's playbook that can be used there to devasting effect. I'll elaborate. (1/x)

Now, nobody should try to replicate him and his unique brand. Nobody can. It was a mixture of a lot of things that came together properly. But one thing that stands out and can be carried over to other races is the ability to brand opposition candidates as unserious. (2/x)

We already know Ted Cruz is deeply unpopular in Texas. That helped Beto a lot and made it close in 2018, but he didn't quite push/leverage Cruz's unpopularity in as aggressive or as joke-y of a way that Fetterman did. This is a guy who vacationed in Cancun, ffs. (3/x)

Bottom line is this - like Oz, Cruz is unserious. He's already got enough flak on Twitter and real life as things stand. And like Oz, he's the subject of easy ridicule. The tricky part is the perception of that ridicule and how it's weaponized. (4/x)

This is where candidate quality come in. This tactic worked for Fetterman because he posed himself as a credible foil to Oz's "I'm from Jersey" shtick. This is also why Conor Lamb wouldn't have pulled off that contrast nearly as well. (5/x)

So for weaponized ridicule to work and seriously hamper a candidate's ability to gain votes, you have to have an opposing nominee who can sustain it properly. So, if Texas Dems were to nominate someone like Veronica Escobar, it probably won't work that well. (6/x)

But if they were to nominate someone like Scott Kelly? An astronaut who, in contrast to Cruz, makes the latter look even stupider? It may have some effect. Maybe not enough to carry Dems over the finish line, but I'd be shocked if it didn't have an effect.(7/x)

There are other credible candidates too, but by now you should have a good idea of the type of profile that's needed to make that line of attack work. Beto did good, but he's not of the personality type and stature to really make it shine. (8/x)

And all of this is under the assumption that Cruz runs again, fwiw. So take everything with a grain of salt for right now, but if he ends up taking another shot, all bets are off and Texas Dems need to full send with this strategy. (End)