10 Comments

This is such a valuable analysis. This is what makes The Message Box such a great publication.

Both my wife and I worked hard in the presidential (and then senatorial runoffs) in Florida and Georgia. Writing postcards, texting and phone banking. Not bragging, just saying that we perceived something in the phone banking and texting operations. The Republicans seemed to have developed a highly negative narrative about Democrats that they used no matter what the issue. They single-mindedly brought it out whether the issue was Choice, Guns, Masks, Lockdowns, Socialism, Police Funding, BLM, etc., etc. They threaded this narrative through seemingly every issue, full of lies, distortions, and half-truths. But pretty effective. And weirdly universal -- we encountered versions of it from South Florida to Northwest Georgia (Fox News influence, maybe?)

Can Democrats do the same? Using truths, not lies? We are opposing the party of grifters who put ambitions ahead of country, the party that tries to camouflage the Insurrection, that opposes free and fair elections, who protects the rich and corporations from taxes, that would willingly empty the Treasury to give their cronies tax breaks, that wants to balance the books by attacking Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, that wants to take away reproductive rights, but will defend rogue cops to win the votes of the police generally. We have lots of creative types within the constituency. Today we too often argue our ideas in what I call "i before e except after c" complexity. Eyes glaze over while the Republican candidate intones "...socialist who want to take away police protection while bringing in hordes of immigrants to take your jobs and sell drugs to your children".

I keep hearing the phrase that a lie, repeated often enough, becomes accepted. I think it was Truman who countered that with: "the truth, repeated often enough, becomes accepted". We just need a cohesive and easily understood way of telling the truth.

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Dan, I just want to say, you really write well. I did not know anything about this race before I read this article. It was exceptionally informative and gave me a basis to care about this race.

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ALL of these races matter a great deal, and Dems must get their strategy exactly right. I wish I knew an easy strategy but I think this is going to be one of the hardest midterms ever.

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I'm curious; what were the messages about Critical Race Theory? (God, I feel 40% stupider just from typing those three words.)

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One nagging question about polling methodology: the likely voter screen versus results of just registered voters. It seems odd to me that if the pollster can tell whether a voter cast a ballot in 5 of the 5 prior elections, 4 of the 5 prior elections, 3 of the 5 prior elections, etc., that this might be a better measure of likely voters versus just registered voters and permits the pollster to perhaps ask the "motivation"/"paying attention" questions, but not use those as "likely voter" screens.

Is there any reason why any pollster -- not just this one partnered with Crooked -- cannot match respondents to the voter registration file and prior voter behavior?

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Democrats should be working to make increasing high value immigration, receiving more genuine asylum seekers (like hundreds a thousands from Afghanistan) and deficit reducing tax increases on high income people into hot button issues. And why not the child tax credit, voter protection, and the expansion of ACA?

I don't see any productive way of making climate change and white supremacy into issues.

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THANK YOU for this!! Also would like to know what messages diffused the CRT stuff

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