#dolegingrich — Public Fediverse posts

Trump/Thomas 2024

Nearly 30 years ago, Democrats chose a rhetorical running mate for their Republican opponent.

That playbook could be the key to winning in 2024.

History books will tell you that the Republican Party’s 1996 ticket was Bob Dole and Jack Kemp.
-- And it’s certainly true that if Dole had won, Kemp would’ve been sworn in as Vice President.

But for campaign purposes, those of us who were involved in the effort to re-elect Bill Clinton know better:
⭐️Bob Dole’s running mate was Newt Gingrich.
⭐️We made sure of that.
Jack Kemp was a bad candidate with bad policy preferences that would have been bad for America,

But Kemp’s badness wasn’t additively bad
— it didn’t add particularly important new dimensions of badness Dole didn’t already have,

and Kemp didn’t particularly magnify Dole’s own flaws, either.

Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, was deeply unpopular
And was peddling a worldview and agenda that ranged from bizarre to frightening and back to bizarre again.

Gingrich was bad in ways that both added to and amplified Dole’s own flaws as a candidate.

👉 So the Clinton campaign1 did everything we could to make Gingrich into Dole’s running mate in the public eye.

👉 Television ads blasted the “Dole Gingrich” agenda,

the two names verbally smushed so close together some viewers likely thought the Republican presidential nominee was named “#Dolegingrich.”

In opposition research documents, talking points, press releases, speeches and every other way we communicated with the public and with the news media,
we made clear that we were running against Dole/Gingrich,
down to the “Dole/Gingrich” buttons we produced

That November, Bill Clinton
— written off for dead the previous year
— was re-elected with a whopping 379 electoral votes.

Not entirely due to the Dole/Gingrich gambit, of course,
but it played a crucial role.

💥Democrats have a similar opportunity this year.💥

Donald Trump will announce his vice presidential pick any day now,
and that person will undoubtedly be an aspiring autocrat, just like Trump,
with no shortage of dangerous and unpopular policy preferences and odious personal characteristics,
just like Trump.

Democrats certainly shouldn’t ignore Trump’s literal running mate
— we didn’t ignore Kemp in 1996, either
— but whoever it is will likely be something of a #Trump #MiniMe:

Bad in many ways, but as bad as Trump in few.

Trump’s running mate may provide the opportunity to 🔸highlight Trump’s extremism on issues on which the news media falsely portrays Trump as a moderate 🔸(most notably abortion)

But for the most part Trump’s running mate probably won’t add much to our understanding of Trump himself, or the danger to America of his election.

The Republicans on the Supreme Court are another story.

⭐️They are Trump’s real running mates: essential participants in his campaign who will govern in lockstep with him, extending and amplifying his power and influence, and whose own deep unpopularity, ruinous agenda, and flamboyant corruption can be useful in demonstrating the threat Trump and Republican candidates up and down the ballot pose to Americans’ basic freedoms and wellbeing.⭐️

Democrats should do everything they can to make clear that
🔥 the real GOP ticket this year is Trump/MAGA Supreme Court.🔥

-- JAMISON FOSER

https://www.findinggravity.net/p/trumpthomas-2024