My favorite political campaign strategist & tactician is Sarah Longwell, who runs The Bulwark, and the Republican Accountability Project. She’s a former Republican campaign operative turned resolute & relentless Nevermore Tr*mper. More about Longwell here.
But enough about her. Longwell’s goal for 2024 is not self-promotion, but mounting a guerrilla media campaign that can keep the GOP front-runner OUT of the White House.
Her latest sortie is a 60-second ad introduced this week on the Hallmark streaming channel, and which is going viral as this is written.
The ad made for a very jarring 60-second interval in the trademark Hallmark flood of escapist sentimentalism. But Longwell believes it’s necessary: the Hallmark audience includes some 45 voters who may be persuadable away from him in 2024, and Longwell is going to the ends of the earth (and the most unlikely corners of the streaming universe) to reach them.
How many? Maybe not many, but Longwell is piecing together her Stop-45 slice of the electorate one sliver at a time.
The ad is not subtle. It calls the target a
And compares him to Pinochet, Mussolini and other dictators
It quotes him as pledging “termination” of the Constitution .. .
And he’s planning to purge the civil service, and replace the skilled career professionals with corrupt loyalist flunkies . . .
And the ad reminds us about the . . .
And makes a New Year call for everyone to
Did I mention it’s time to get to work . . .
All this in 60 seconds. Watch it right here in full.
Go, Sarah, Go!
Alas, Ms. Longwell has fallen for the ancient Fallacy of the Excluded Middle. Currently the choice between the red and blue candidates is an illusion. You have to drill down to the detail level of WHICH of our Constitutional rights are being destroyed to find any difference between the red and blue wings of this Tyrannodon. Both red and blue agree on raising taxes, both agree on piling up evermore laws and regulations and government power, and neither are willing to stay out of wars. The real crisis is that the Electoral College, who are elected in a winner-take-all [bi]partisan procedure in all but two states, cannot reflect the nation as a whole. The ultimate solution is to unbundle the party-serving slates, and let the Electors be elected individually by the voters. These procedures are controlled by lawmakers state by state. This has the added advantage of allowing the unaffiliated voters to select individuals THEY can trust to pick a candidate according to values that particular candidate stands for. For example, people could run promising, to the best of their ability, to find a president who might actually “… preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” for a change.