I had seen NAFTA shut down the foundry my Dad worked at, costing him the first stable job he had gotten since he got out of the Army. Meals were never easy to find, education seemed like a privilege of stability. By the time I had gotten into college, my family had collapsed entirely. I had moved 6 hours away from home to find work, and try to work on a college degree when I had time. My girlfriend (now wife) and I were white knuckling life, with no chords tying us to any place. I had gotten to a point where I had the space to pursue that degree that I had always wanted, one that nobody in my family had ever gotten. That’s when the Department of Education sent me a letter and informed me that they could not send a student loan to someone under the poverty line. I saw red in front of me and felt the pressure of rage build in my veins. I had never expected anything from life, but I had thought that my country wanted me to better myself, which was what I was doing. But, as clear as day I walked into the “do not enter” sign on the stairway out of poverty. It was that day, when I opened that letter, was when I decided to figure out how to change things.
Most people who wind up in politics come in through a side door. Their mom went to Georgetown with a Congressman, their Grandfather is a large donor, their dad is a professor, but for me, I had to kick the fuckin door open. I had no idea how anything worked, didn’t know where to start, who to talk to, where to be. I just started showing up until I figured it out. I came in with callouses on my hands, coughing up lacquer, paint, and whatever else I was using on the job site that week. I started to hear people talk about their ideas, where they wanted to go, but all of it was regurgitated horseshit and unoriginal.
Of course, I had found my way into local Democratic politics.
I stuck around because I knew I could do better. Fast forward ten years, here I am sitting on my porch writing this. I’ve managed a dozen campaigns, worked for impressive people, unimpressive people. I’ve seen scandals, lies, and a whole lot of people that think they know how to play chess, but are really just banging the same piece on the table over and over again. This is what happens when people lose their expectations. Nobody expects public service to be hard anymore, or for people to make decisions that will do good but make their career testy. Any sense of a backbone has had a total collapse.
But, there are functional things that happen in politics that foster the environment in the lowering expectations game. One of those things is the vendor racket.
These companies cloak themselves in a “cause”, and then try to suck as much value out of a campaign or movement as they possibly can. These companies are held up by the likes of the DNC, RNC, DCCC, DSCC, RSCC, you get the picture.
You get a contract because you gave a contract. Those in leadership get there because they’ve built a growing chorus of vendors that they’ve given work to, and the circle keeps going into eternity from there.
TV vendors will tell you that you aren’t serious until you’re on TV, digital vendors will tell you nobody watches TV, mail vendors only work if you’re sending something to people that are over 70. People knock on doors because they’re told it makes a difference, but in reality it’s just to divert people into doing something rather than nothing.
Everybody is in it to get their check, they do not care anything about you.
This class of people run large structures in DC, and state capitals across the country. It isn’t hidden, you’re just not looking in the right direction.
It’s not just that vendors have an outsized role on campaigns, it’s that they decide who gets to run them. You think the candidate picks the team, but really, the vendors pick the candidate, at least the ones that get oxygen.
They control the job market, they have the data to spam every donors phone and email, and they write the rules from behind the invoice. If you want to eat, you play nice, if you push back, you’re blacklisted. They don't sell politics, they sell access to the table. Now if a party was winning at a dizzying rate, who would really care? But Democrats lose because insiders get hired to run the marketing, and select “who” is talented. Have you read anything lately about why Democrats have a messaging problem? That is why. There are no professional marketers in progressive politics. Only people that have pushed progressive agendas, and pushed access in the right directions.
In 2022 I had went back to working for an appointed State Senator in North Carolina. Her seat was extremely competitive and 2022 was looking like leading pigs to slaughter if you’re a Democrat.
Our polling was tied, there was no message formulated.
When it came time to plan our seven figure television budget, the first things the TV vendor said was “I don’t think we should put (candidates) face on camera, she is an attractive woman and I think she will make the women in the audience self-conscious.”
To date that is the dumbest one liner I have ever heard.
Now if that person would have had any real communications experience, she would have known why every corporation hires models of every shape and size to sell their products. Because people like attractive people. They like to be around attractive people, look at them, hear from them, and yes buy what they are selling.
Same race, same year. We were running against a former Marine Colonel, who was clean as a whistle and seemed like a nice guy. We had to cut out of the mold that had been cast on the Senator, who is a millennial Black woman. One of the themes that had worked years earlier in when I managed her first win, was not branding her as an anti-gun nutjob. She owned a gun, so we were going to use that to our advantage, it worked the first race, it’ll work again.
The spot said “I’m a gun owner, who believes in responsible gun ownership.” That’s it. It makes her a little tougher, and communicates that the current system needs some change, without being an asshole. Our vendors did not want to run that ad, because in their professional opinion, it would hurt us with progressives, and we needed to say words that they wouldn’t disagree with (we weren’t saying anything disagreeable to anybody, and this is the fuckin South).
We ignored those chimes, ran it, got earned media on top of it, and we won 5 points. This shit happens over and over again in Democratic politics, but operatives don’t push back, because they want a job after this campaign ends, and candidates are going to rely on the self anointed “experts”.
There’s no shortage of stories. Digital firms who have your data set up fake political action committees with a landing page. Asking you for money everyday. Where does it go? The PAC will raise $500,000 a year, and $450,000 of it will be “consultant” fees to the company that filed the paperwork, and they’ll donate the rest to some Blue candidates so they are fulfilling the “mission” that’s in Print. I asked one prominent Interactive firm owner about this specifically and his response was “you gotta find creative ways to make a buck.”
It’s all garbage that needs to be outlawed. Fake PACs, phantom races, the rage-click funding loops.
Most of these folks couldn’t sell a screwdriver to a mechanic. But, they are the messaging machine of the left. No real credentials, no understanding of what drives people, just greed and a false sense of importance.
You want a better political system? We start by ripping out the middlemen with soft hands and soft spines. Demand transparency in your party. Speak about what’s important, do it the way you want to do it. But look for innovation, copy what actually works if you need to. If you only accept authenticity, then the system itself will have to retrofit itself to survive, or one will be built to foster the growth. That is how people operate and that is what needs to happen. Expect better, if you want better.