Donald Trump is trying to bring into politics a phenomenon that’s taking off in college athletics: money for use of the former president’s name, image and likeness in campaign ads.
In a letter this week, the Trump presidential campaign asked all down-ballot GOP campaigns for at least a 5% cut of the money raised from advertising that features the party’s 2024 presumptive White House nominee.
“We ask that all candidates and committees who choose to use President Trump’s name, image, and likeness split a minimum of 5% of all fundraising solicitations to Trump National Committee JFC,” said the April 15 letter signed by campaign co-campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita.
Democrats need to let go of the revisionist “she did very well compared to Obama” bullshit.
It was her job to win the election, a job she fought bitterly to have, and she didn’t. She failed. She failed the party, and she failed America.
And you need to let go of the “nobody saw this coming” bullshit. Plenty of people saw it coming, but they were dismissed and ignored.
The modern Democratic party had never won an election with an establishment candidate. Carter did not have the support of the party, Bill Clinton invented his own “new Democrats” because all of the establishment Dems thought HW was unbeatable, and Obama had to squeeze out Hillary, Biden, John Edwards, and Chris Dodd as the disruptor. Meanwhile, Mondale, Gore, Kerry, Dukakis, rank and file candidates all, and all of them losers.
There is no such thing as a “typical politician” or a “typical race” at the presidential level. There is no one winning strategy that works in all elections, no national map that tracks across generations, no conventional wisdom that holds up to scrutiny.
Clinton was responsible for developing a strategy to beat her opponent. She wasn’t running against Obama. She didn’t need to beat Obama’s turnout, she needed to beat Trump’s turnout.
She was, objectively, a bad candidate. Trump was beatable, and she had a massive advantage in fundraising and experience and campaigning. She was smarter and more capable than her opponent, and had the money and infrastructure to monitor his moves and outmaneuver him at every turn.
Instead, she shat the bed. It wasn’t even close. There were five states where she thought she was winning and was exposed to be completely out of touch. That’s not someone else’s fault. There wasn’t some magical intervention or deus ex machina at the last minute. Hillary simply failed to convince enough voters to show up for her.
Having lived through it, watching it happen in real time, that was extremely frustrating. Having someone tell me after the fact that “well, actually she had statistically more of the base than previous elections” is maddening.
But the real kick in the balls is watching Biden make the same mistakes, try the same strategies that failed before, recognizing that Biden is our best hope to avoid catastrophe, and realizing that Trump is on track to move back into the White House.