Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Tricky Tricky

Salon: Donald Trump’s new losing strategy: No, Democrats won’t fall for his dirty tricks against Hillary - Democrats have gotten too good at seeing when they’re being manipulated by ever-so-clever Republican operatives by Heather Digby Parton
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2 comments:

Marion said...

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/amateur-gop-ratfking-2016.html

Last May Ashley Parker and Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times reported that the GOP was executing an elaborate social media strategy to make the case that Hillary Clinton was selling out the left wing of the Democratic Party. They sent out tweets and Facebook posts which were then shared by thousands of Democrats in their circles without realizing they were generated by Republicans. The program was run by the right wing PAC America Rising’s Matt Rhoades, Mitt Romney’s campaign manager who took the lesson from his own experience that the best way to weaken a general election candidate was for their own base to attack relentlessly during the primaries, as had happened to Romney in 2012. He was not alone. Karl Rove’s group American Crossroads created digital content with the same intention: to portray Clinton as corrupt and untrustworthy and aim it from her left:

Steven Law, president of American Crossroads, said the goal was simply to erode what should be her natural core of support.
“It can diminish enthusiasm for Hillary among the base over time,” he said. “And if you diminish enthusiasm, lukewarm support can translate into lackluster fund-raising and perhaps diminished turnout down the road.

Both groups used sophisticated micro-targeting:

“You might start looking at union households. You might start looking at Bernie Sanders’s core of support,” Mr. Moffatt said, referring to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Mr. Law said members of his staff at American Crossroads had easily been able to inhabit the liberal role, despite being fervent Republicans. “We wear these little bracelets — W.W.E.W.D.,” Mr. Law joked, referring to “What would Elizabeth Warren do?”

6:50 PM
Jim Sande said...

Unfortunately pulling these kinds of tricks is common and has been for a while. People do whatever they can to maintain power, and that's what it's about. Just look at Trump's candidacy, it's nothing but a farce. He rarely if ever says one thing that has a factual basis. In a way Trump's campaign itself is a trick, he's pulling the wool over a bunch of people willing to throw money and support at someone selling snake oil.

7:25 AM

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