Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

This is an interesting article.

In the early days of his campaign, Mr. Biden’s team envisioned setting up its own digital media empire. It posted videos to his official YouTube channel, conducted virtual forums and even set up a podcast hosted by Mr. Biden, “Here’s the Deal.” But those efforts were marred by technical glitches and lukewarm receptions, and they never came close to rivaling the reach of Mr. Trump’s social media machine.

So the campaign pivoted to a different strategy, which involved expanding Mr. Biden’s reach by working with social media influencers and “validators,” people who were trusted by the kinds of voters the campaign hoped to reach.

“We were not the biggest megaphone compared to Trump, so we had to help arm any who were,” said Andrew Bleeker, the president of Bully Pulpit Interactive, a Democratic strategy firm that worked with the Biden campaign.

One validator at the top of the team’s list was Brené Brown, a popular author and podcast host who speaks and writes about topics like courage and vulnerability. Ms. Brown has a devoted following among suburban women — a critical demographic for Mr. Biden’s campaign — and when Mr. Biden appeared as a guest on her podcast to talk about his own stories of grief and empathy, the campaign viewed it as a coup.

Also high on the list was the actor Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, whose following skews center-right and male. Mr. Johnson’s endorsement this fall of Mr. Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, created a so-called permission structure for his followers — including some who may have voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 — to support Mr. Biden, members of the campaign staff told me.

...

A frequent criticism of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign was that it was too focused on appealing to the elite, high-information crowd on Twitter, instead of paying attention to the much larger group of voters who get their news and information on Facebook. In 2020, Mr. Biden’s digital team was committed to avoiding a repeat.

“The whole Biden campaign ethos was ‘Twitter isn’t real life,'” Mr. Flaherty said. “There are risks of running a campaign that is too hyper-aware of your own ideological corner.”

As it focused on Facebook, the Biden campaign paid extra attention to “Facebook moms” — women who spend a lot of time sharing cute and uplifting content, and who the campaign believed could be persuaded to vote for Mr. Biden with positive messages about his character. Its target audience, Mr. Flaherty said, was women “who would go out and share a video of troops coming home, or who would follow The Dodo,” a website known for heartwarming animal videos.

...

One of the biggest obstacles the Biden campaign faced was a tsunami of misinformation, much of it amplified by the Trump campaign and its right-wing media allies. There were baseless rumors about Mr. Biden’s health, unfounded questions about the citizenship of Ms. Harris and spurious claims about the business dealings of Mr. Biden’s son Hunter.

The campaign formed an in-house effort to combat these rumors, known as the “Malarkey Factory.” But it picked its battles carefully, using data from voter testing to guide its responses.

When the Hunter Biden laptop story emerged, for example, some Democrats — worried that it would be 2020’s version of the Hillary Clinton email story — suggested that the Biden campaign should forcefully denounce it. But the campaign’s testing found that most voters in its key groups couldn’t follow the complexities of the allegations, and that it wasn’t changing their opinion of Mr. Biden.

“The Hunter Biden conversation was many times larger than the Hillary Clinton email conversation, but it really didn’t stick, because people think Joe Biden’s a good guy,” said Mr. Bleeker of Bully Pulpit Interactive.

was it many times larger, though? it happened in a much more compressed period of time, was a rehash of another email controversy, and Hillary's 'email' controversy was actually somewhat based in fact and dragged on for over a year.

I also suspect that most not-dumb people could see the diff between an obviously Giuliani-lead fake and a legitimate situation where Hillary did store emails on an unsecured server (a dumb controversy but it at least actually happened and was FBI investigated).

Also high on the list was the actor Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, whose following skews center-right and male. Mr. Johnson’s endorsement this fall of Mr. Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, created a so-called permission structure for his followers — including some who may have voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 — to support Mr. Biden, members of the campaign staff told me.

i just want to throw my weight behind glennmeder.com and the rock for 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRAMn8IJqIw

Glenn Medeiros for President IMO

He ain't worth it.

maybe we could feel-good our way into universal healthcare lol jk

xpost Nothing's gonna change your vote for him?

look, ya bozos. then listen to glennmeder.com. hear him out, he's thought a lot about this. dwayne the rock johnson should run on the libertarian ticket for president of the united stats, 2024. first of all, he's already a celebrity. now, this sounds like a joke, but it's a very practical thing. a modern candidate needs massive name recognition, and if they don't already have it, they have to pay hundreds of millions to get it. and name recognition isn't celebrity, and the rock is a celebrity. see where i'm going?

"give universal healthcare another look, if you want to?" is a good slogan

just one look, and i fell so hard

Good morning!

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 6 December 2020 bookmarkflaglink

pic.twitter.com/Qqb2rKr8OV

— Pelosi Wishes You a Good Sunday Morning (@PelosiMorning) December 6, 2020

Joe Biden will nominate Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense according to the NYTimes. Austin was not on Data for Progress's list of cabinet proposals.

So far DfP is 0:11 in cabinet recommendations, with Biden rejecting 50 of their proposals. https://t.co/lxIryp2Duy

— Carl Beijer (@CarlBeijer) December 8, 2020

Biden thinks Sean McElwee was the head of the Scranton Irish mob in the ‘50s.

hmm, amazing that Biden passed over Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna for SecDef

Fingers crossed for Larry Krassner as AG though!

Yeah who’d’ve guessed Biden wouldn’t be tapping the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ leadership for cabinet posts

how many progresso cans in the lazy susan, though

looking on the relative bright side:

Lloyd Austin has a troubling record of not wanting to incinerate civilians, critics sayhttps://t.co/XY4payMe87 pic.twitter.com/YT0C2GbAXc

— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) December 8, 2020

Wednesday, November 18, 2020 12:16 PM (three weeks ago):

- Richmond's hiring was lauded by South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, the most senior Black Democrat in the House and one of Biden's key allies during the 2020 campaign. "I think everybody knows I've been pushing him for this administration forever," Clyburn said. "I think it's very good for both the administration and him."

...

- During his 10 years in Congress, Richmond has received roughly $341,000 from donors in the oil and gas industry — the 5th highest total among House Democrats. That includes corporate political action committee donations of $50,000 from Entergy, an electric and natural gas utility; $40,000 from ExxonMobil; and $10,000 apiece from oil companies Chevron, Phillips 66 and Valero Energy.

Richmond has raked in that money while representing a congressional district that is home to 7 of the 10 most air-polluted census tracts in the country.

Richmond has repeatedly broken with his party on major climate and environmental votes. During the climate crisis that has battered his home state of Louisiana, Richmond has joined with Republicans to vote to increase fossil fuel exports and promote pipeline development. He also voted against Democratic legislation to place pollution limits on fracking — and he voted for GOP legislation to limit the Obama administration’s authority to more stringently regulate the practice.

Posted: Dec 5, 2020 / 09:19 AM CST / Updated: Dec 5, 2020 / 09:19 AM CST (two days ago):

Only 25 congressional Republicans out of 222 have acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 Presidential Election, a new Washington Post survey finds.

December 7, 2020, 6:32 PM PST Updated on December 7, 2020, 7:01 PM PST (two hours ago):

The Biden administration plans to create a position to find common ground with conservatives, said Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond, a senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement for the president-elect.

...President-elect Joe Biden named Richmond, a campaign co-chair, to head the Office of Public Engagement last month. On Monday, Biden appointed him as one of five co-chairs of his inaugural committee.

...Richmond, who will resign his seat representing most of New Orleans in Congress, also said that part of his mandate would be “private sector engagement” and to serve as a “conduit straight into the White House” for chief executive officers.

“Nobody’s going to persuade me that somehow, some way that CEOs in this country are bad people,” he said.

So “office of public engagement” is a euphemism for “graft department” I see

part of his mandate would be to serve as a “conduit straight into the White House” for chief executive officers

This is one of those salutary effects of Trump's norm-breaking: there's no longer an obligation for the "good guys" to bother pretending that yr not there explicitly to serve corruption at the expense of the population, before you even get to plug the phone in at yr new office.

office of public(ly traded company) engagement

of course he's not going to come out and support that because it sounds to the entire country like "getting rid of all police" which is not going to have broad support. Say 'demilitarize" and "redirect funding to education and social programs" and maybe more people will understand. But I'm of the opinion that 'defund the police' is a messaging fail.

― akm, Tuesday, June 9, 2020 7:07 AM (six months ago)

Nearly 37% of respondents were in favor of completely dismantling the police department to give more financial support to local programs, while 63% opposed that idea. Respondents were more split on the general idea of “defunding” police, with 47% in favor and 53% opposed.

Respondents heavily supported the idea of individuals in crisis being met with teams of first responders that included police and nonpolice responders, particularly when the incidents were described as nonviolent.

idk seems like, six months in, this is a popular policy with convincing messaging. it's lightly plausible that it would do even better if treated sensibly by mass media, instead of as an insane and unworkable proposition.

the question is whether to win over to this moderate, centrist position 2% of the people who've been told it's insane, or all 37% of the total that are "fuck it, abolition"

at least Richmond will be out of congress I guess?

At least he didn't name Richmond head of the EPA.

Yet

Nearly 37% of respondents were in favor of completely dismantling the police department to give more financial support to local programs

sic, to be fair, this is 37% of people who live in Los Angeles; I completely believe that Joe Biden could swing behind a full police abolition program and still win LA. But it's not evidence that police abolition is nationally popular.

he could win nationally on the platform of abolishing the LAPD in particular

Miami did one of those there surveys too!:

The poll, conducted by the firm Bendixen & Amandi International for The United Faculty union of Miami Dade College, did offer this surprise: Though Blacks, Hispanics and whites differed in many beliefs, the biggest divide wasn’t race. It was age. People polled under the age of 30 believe more than their elders that there are racists in police departments, that money should be siphoned from law enforcement and poured into social services and that this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests were justified.

There were, however, several areas of almost universal agreement. A large percentage of all the groups agreed that Black parents are forced into the unjust burden of having to teach their children how to interact with police, for their own safety. They all overwhelmingly agreed on the need for civilian oversight, increased hiring standards, better training and body cameras for all police.

And most people questioned also said that while they don’t believe police departments should be financially hamstrung, reallocating a percentage of law enforcement funds to social services and economic development is the best use of tax dollars.

“What this shows is that the public values law enforcement, but recognizes there are issues that need to be resolved to strengthen the trust and relationship between police and the public,” said Fernand Amandi, president and chief executive of Bendixen & Amandi.

“What this shows is that the public values law enforcement, but recognizes there are issues that need to be resolved to strengthen the trust and relationship between police and the public,” said Fernand Amandi, president and chief executive of Bendixen & Amandi.

Fernand Amandi then noted that his firm was paid a very hefty fee to conduct the survey and write the accompanying report in support of these platitudes and he smiled broadly enough to split his face.

.@JoeBiden @Transition46 is set to choose Tom Vilsack as his ag secretary, despite concerns from Black leaders. "too little was done during his tenure to address the long legacy of discrimination against Black farmers." https://t.co/zeKLRS5Msm

— Kari Hamerschlag (@KariHamerschlag) December 9, 2020

https://prospect.org/cabinet-watch/biden-selection-process-veering-off-course-fudge-hud/

good writeup on the vilsack pick

good piece, thanks

he could win nationally on the platform of abolishing the LAPD in particular

I'm fine if he starts by saying that the police should only shoot protestors in non-West-Coast states, and the ones with radical left-wing governors should have their forces defunded

That's a terrific piece. I'm dispirited but unsurprised, especially the Defense Secretary pick (another military dude requiring a waiver?!). A quibble:

Impressions are being given that HUD and Interior are not important federal agencies but political chits to be handed out

Presidents have treated federal agencies and postings like political chits since Washington.

HUD and Interior are run by political appointees because they are politically important. The non-political expertise they need is already baked into the civil service staffing of those agencies.

Vilsack’s fuck-up re:Shirley Sherrod should disqualify him from any leadership post.

The non-political expertise they need is already baked into the civil service staffing of those agencies.

― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Wednesday, December 9, 2020 1:33 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Er, about that...

"politically important"

ffs once you have this job you *become* politically important. Is there no aspect of this utterly broken backroom order that you won't stooge for?

knowing how it's done

how it works in D.C.

s/he understands the system

etc.

like non-lifer/lobbyist candidates would just be airlifted into these jobs from way off grid somewhere

Why not appoint someone from high up the civil service chain and give them a speechwriter

ffs once you have this job you *become* politically important. Is there no aspect of this utterly broken backroom order that you won't stooge for?

ffs, get a grip. you are just knee-jerking.

politics and policy are joined at the hip. when I say a cabinet level department is "politically important" it is because that department is charged with carrying out the administration's policies. those policies can be corrupt or simon pure, but either way, the policies are political in nature.

xp I love this idea tbh, and I'm not even sure the speechwriter is required. Have YOU ever heard a speech from the secretary of agriculture? (Oh wait, yes, here in Wisconsin the current SecAg gave a speech where he said small farms were probably doomed and big agribusiness was the future, so maybe this proves even a speechwriter isn't enough)

silby otm

just this prevailing weird fetishization of "players" in the capitol like there's some rarified hermeneutics of taking campaign donations in exchange for shit legislation

Why not appoint someone from high up the civil service chain and give them a speechwriter

When you are president you appoint whoever you want. If you want a colorless functionary, you appoint one. If you prefer a hack, you appoint a hack. But the fact that the position is filled by appointment makes it political no matter how you slice it.

there's a lot of colorful functionaries out there I'm pretty sure

When you are president you appoint whoever you want

wait...WHAT?!

like poll some GS-12s for who they want as their boss

wait...WHAT?!

Are you playing games here? Cabinet level officials are nominated by the president, and are subject to senate confirmation. But the senate can't appoint anyone. Only the president can.

Sorry, yes, games. I am sometimes triggered by your relentless pedandtry.