Black Lives Matter protesters, at odds with Donald Trump
In 2012, President Barack Obama and his reelection campaign team did something very smart: they came out early and defined Obama’s opponent, Willard Mitt Romney, in a very unflattering way before Romney could define himself to the voters. Specifically, the Obama campaign defined Romney as an out-of-touch elitist, Mr. One Percent, with his offshore bank accounts and his dressage horse. This reinforced an existing narrative about Romney, one that Romney himself fed with his “47 percent” video, ultimately leading to Romney’s defeat.
This year, Joe Biden‘s campaign is taking a similar approach towards Donald Trump. Biden smartly has been running a general election-style campaign against Trump from day one. This was a risky strategy, since Biden had to battle some 24 challengers for the Democratic Party presidential nomination before he could run against Trump as the nominee. However, the strategy worked, and Biden is now the official Democratic nominee, something that would have happened sooner if not for primaries that were delayed due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
Part of Biden’s campaign against Trump is a series of hard-hitting ads, sometimes produced and aired within 24 hours or less of a particular action or inaction by Trump. For example, here is the latest ad from the Biden campaign, entitled “Just Doesn’t Care”:
Many of these ads criticize Trump for incompetence and injustice on matters such as his handling of the Coronavirus, and his reaction to the police murder of George Floyd and the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests. The Biden campaign ads have also been complemented by similarly effective ads from anti-Trump organizations, including Meidas Touch and The Lincoln Project.
Perhaps due in part to this early, aggressive campaign against Trump, Biden has been leading Trump in many polls, whether measured nationally or in various “battleground” states. Biden has even been able to match Trump in typically red presidential states such as Georgia, Arizona and Texas. As a result, there are signs of panic in the Trump campaign, including infighting and criticism of campaign manager Brad Parscale.
To make matters worse, as happened with Romney, Trump keeps feeding the unflattering narratives that have been created about him. For example, just yesterday, Trump tweeted a preposterous conspiracy theory that the 75 year-old man in Buffalo, NY who police shoved to the sidewalk and injured “fell harder” in what could have been “a setup.” The public, meanwhile, is siding with the protesters and against Trump when it comes to the protests against police violence.
In contrast, while we have heard for a long time that Trump and the Republicans would destroy the Democratic nominee with an avalanche of ads, that hasn’t happened yet, even though Biden essentially captured the Democratic Party nomination for all intents and purposes back on Super Tuesday, March 3. Some political strategists in the past suggested waiting until Labor Day to crank up their campaigns. Likewise, now we are learning that some Trump officials are suggesting that Trump give a speech on racial unity, which, given Trump’s constant campaigning and governing as a white supremacist, would be a turnaround of acrobatic proportions.
The question, then, is whether, in today’s fast-moving age of cable TV news and social media such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, such efforts by the Trump campaign would be too little, too late. Voters already have a solid, favorable impression of Joe Biden from his recent ads and actions, as well as his years of public service, from the Obama White House to the U.S. Senate. Biden is known as an authentic, empathetic, competent guy who visits George Floyd’s family without the press, something that would be unimaginable regarding Donald Trump. Instead, the voters have an increasingly unfavorable impression of Trump, as the polls indicate. While we can expects all kinds of lies and stunts from the Trump White House over the next 145 days, it’s possible that the 2020 election outcome is now mostly baked into the cake.
Photo by David Geitgey Sierralupe, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/Vg2P1X
