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Media Professor and Former Wisconsin Journalist Wonders If the Dems Seamlessly Executed a Brilliant Strategic Marketing Plan
Democrats may have flawlessly executed a mischievous plan this summer that shifted the political winds from a potentially disastrous hurricane come November to a refreshing tropical island breeze, complete with animated chirping birds, technicolor rainbows and a catchy Beyoncé-inspired soundtrack.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ successful storming of the traditional political process – and with it, the capture of the full attention of mainstream media and social media platforms that have focused the nation’s attention on the race for president – has led to surging Democratic poll numbers reflective of a dramatic momentum shift, with Harris erasing former President Donald Trump’s lead over President Joe Biden, and Harris even edging ahead of Trump in those key battleground state races, including Wisconsin, according to several recent polls.
As she formally accepts the nomination at the Democratic National Convention this week in Chicago, I wanted to reflect a bit on all that has transpired this summer.
Having grown up in Wisconsin, and, as a young Wisconsin radio and newspaper journalist, having covered some interesting political stories – including a Ronald Reagan campaign rally in La Crosse in 1980 and Walter Mondale’s campaign rally in Merrill in 1984 – I am cognizant, perhaps even proud, of how Wisconsin has played quite an important role in presidential politics over the years. More recently, in 2020, I did some reporting from Milwaukee, where the Democratic National Convention had become mostly a virtual convention because of the raging COVID pandemic. Four years later, I once again did some reporting this summer from Milwaukee, where the Republican National Convention had occurred just days after the July 13 assassination attempt of Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.
But it’s what has come after the assassination attempt and the RNC that has really shaken up this surprising election season. From Biden dropping out of the race to Harris and her new running mate Tim Walz attracting huge crowds, including their intense focus on Wisconsin, the race is suddenly a real contest.
The shift in momentum toward Harris was impressive, considering Trump seemed to be coasting to an easy victory, following Biden’s debate debacle, Trump’s near assassination at that rally in Pennsylvania, and that crazy Hulk Hogan-Kid Rock-JD Vance-Donald Trump reality show/early victory celebration that was the RNC in Milwaukee.
But the Democrats now have a renewed sense of vigor and enthusiasm, as record amounts of donations have poured in and volunteers are making Olympic-sized leaps as they spring wholeheartedly into the newly revitalized presidential campaign.
Democrats may even have to start to worry about overconfidence this fall.
Was it all a nifty marketing ploy?
As a journalism and media communication professor, I marvel at the brilliance of what speculatively could have all been part of a masterplan – a cleverly designed marketing strategy to suck all the air out of the news universe with nonstop bombardment of attention-grabbing real news. As we all know, it started with Biden’s horrible June 27 debate performance, followed by a growing chorus of high-powered Democrats calling for Biden to withdraw from the race, then to Biden’s July 21 announcement he was dropping out, to Harris’ quick ascent and the coalescence of near unanimous support of Democrats for her presidential candidacy, to the successful launch in Wisconsin just two days later, July 23 in West Allis, of her contagiously energetic campaign. My excited sister-in-law Teri texted me photos of Harris waving from her SUV at some of her West Allis neighbors as Harris’ motorcade passed through their neighborhood.
Then there was Harris’ surprise selection August 6 of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate after a speeded up vetting process of potential partners, with Walz’ unveiling at a boisterous, deafening Pennsylvania rally followed by a packed Eau Claire rally the next day. With folk-indie band Bon Iver, led by Eau Claire-native Justin Vernon, warming up the August 7 Wisconsin rally, Harris told the roaring crowd it was good to be back in Wisconsin, proclaiming, “The path to the White House runs right through this state.” And this week, Harris and Walz were to rally in Milwaukee as the DNC was meeting in Chicago, just 90 minutes away down I-94. Perhaps to sting Trump even more, the rally at the Fiserv Forum was where Trump accepted his Republican nomination at the RNC a month earlier.
Whew! What a whirlwind! Perhaps even a sharknado!
I’m sure I’m not the only one who predicted months earlier that no way would Biden be the nominee following the Democratic National Convention. At the start of 2024, I insisted to my coworkers, families and friends – anyone who would listen, really – that Democrats would switch candidates midstream as a way to catch the Republican slime machine off guard, resulting in the waste of corporate-sponsored millions in cash in the efforts to discredit the Democratic ticket that wasn’t. I argued, as many others did, that Joe Biden, while doing a good job as president, just looked too old and feeble to run for another four years. But as Biden faced no serious opposition as the primary season approached, I firmly insisted at a happy hour with my coworkers that Democrats would replace Biden at the convention. “No way,” said one journalism instructor, a non-apologetic liberal who had been lamenting the sad outlook for Democrats in November with Biden at the top of the ticket. “How would that switch possibly happen?” she asked, incredulously.
Well, it happened – earlier than I expected, in fact, and the switcheroo materialized all rather effortlessly, painlessly, and flawlessly. I had imagined folks like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and California Governor Gavin Newsom duking it out at the convention in Chicago to win over delegates – a battle that might have been reminiscent of the last time Democrats had their convention in Chicago, back in 1968, when I was a mere child – I actually remember a lot of chaos on the TV that week.
This summer of 2024 hasn’t been so much about chaos, but rather a fast-moving political twister, with “weirdos” and “childless cat ladies” tossed into the election-season gumbo, too. Phrases like “Brat summer,” Kamala memes such as falling out of a “coconut tree,” Trumpisms like “I didn’t know she was Black,” a meandering Trump press conference filled with – according to NPR – “at least 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies in 64 minutes,” plus the return of the ex-president’s obsession with crowd sizes – all served to keep the media out of the summer doldrums this election season.
Glued to the news
Who hasn’t been engaged with the news this summer?
Personally, I am religiously checking the New York Times each morning, and in the evening I can’t keep my eyes off CNN as well as the broadcast networks’ streaming newscasts. Back in June, I hopelessly sought out a TV to watch the presidential debate while I was at Summerfest, “the world’s largest music festival,” in Milwaukee. At one point, I snuck a few glances at CNN on my phone when suddenly onstage the alternative rock musician and classically trained violinist and pianist Tracy Bonham moved toward my direction and looked right at me in the fourth row of a crowded show and started lecturing about watching that “shit show” debate during her performance. “Do you think she was talking to me?” I asked my friend Ernie, as he sat embarrassed next to me, shaking his head in disbelief.
In July, my sister-in-law Teri texted while I was eating tacos at a Taco John’s in York, Nebraska, about Biden quitting the race. Shocked not that he dropped out, but that he dropped out well before the DNC, I excitedly announced to the fast-food crowd, “Biden just dropped out!” The friendly, talkative woman behind the counter looked at me earnestly and asked, “Do you think President Biden had Trump shot?”
And this month, as I was flipping through the news channels watching the coverage of the first Harris-Walz rally, I was sweating in the suffocating patio room of my non-air-conditioned home in Colorado while the temperature outside soared to near 100 degrees in yet one more summer of climate change and record heat – not to mention the smoke-tinged air from forest fires about 20 miles away. Nevertheless, I could not pull myself away from the mesmerizing live coverage of the Pennsylvania rally, not even to watch the TV in my slightly cooler and less smoke-scented basement.
This onslaught of news coverage in the past few weeks – mostly positive for the barnstorming Democrats – is surely to continue through this week, with the coronation of the first Black and South Asian American woman leading a major party’s presidential ticket.
Overwhelmed voters could perhaps be left wondering, “Donald Who?”
Struggling with how to respond to the new race, the obviously miffed Trump-Vance ticket has been pulling out all the old tricks of the Republican playbook – accusing Harris and Walz of a being “far left,” “dangerously liberal,” radical,” “communist.” “There’s never been a ticket like this,” Trump told Fox News after the selection of Walz. “This is a ticket that would want this country to go communist immediately, if not sooner.” Within a day of Walz being placed on the ticket, Vance and other Republicans were deriding aspects of Walz’ 24 years of military service, including whether he had been in combat and why he left the Army National Guard to run for Congress. The Harris-Walz campaign didn’t engage at first, and a spokesperson said, “Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country — in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way.” The Democratic campaign later clarified that Walz had indeed “misspoke” in a 2018 video where he talked about weapons of war that he “carried in war.”
Republicans also brought up the governor’s response to the 2020 riots in Minneapolis following the police killing of George Floyd. “He allowed rioters to burn down the streets of Minneapolis,” Vance said. But then a recording of then-President Trump telling Governor Walz at the time that he was “very happy” with Walz’ handling of the protests, telling governors that Walz had “dominated” and said other states could follow his example.
Yes, Republicans are slinging whatever slop they can dig up and see if anything can stick. Democrats knew this would come – remember the “Swift Boat” attack by one group against Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 race for president? So wouldn’t it be smart for Democrats to take the Republicans by surprise with a new candidate just three months from the election? Then overwhelm the media with interesting positive news that would crowd out anything negative? At least until after the DNC in Chicago.
When did they know it?
Now, I’m no conspiracy theorist who thinks this was all carefully and pin-pointedly designed. For one, I genuinely believe that Biden, even after the debate debacle, was fully convinced he could beat Trump despite all the evidence and trends to the contrary. Also, there’s no way he deliberately tanked the debate. There’s no way Biden pretended to try so hard afterward to prove himself up to the task of mounting an energetic campaign. And there’s no way other than a groundswell of Democratic support for Harris that she was selected as the exciting, new candidate. I firmly believe it took all the efforts of Democratic leaders to convince Biden he had to leave. But when did they know this had to be done? Of course, even if they did have this at the back of their mind months earlier, they would never say so.
Nevertheless, it’s not unfathomable to think that parts of this were in the works for months. What better way to fight the bombastic Republican candidate and ex-president and ex-reality TV show host who has flooded the airwaves with crazy for nearly a decade, than with a strategy to send a bit of chaos Trump’s way – by pulling the old switcheroo at the last minute.
In the end, does it really matter how planned out this was?
The effect is the same. Trump and his campaign were caught totally off guard. With less than three months to go before the November 5 election, much obviously can change in the race. But for a few intense and seemingly overwhelming weeks this summer, politics all of a sudden became greatly interesting again – it’s no longer a lopsided race between two old white men who may be a bit out of touch with their own realities.
Kris Kodrich is an associate professor of journalism and media communication at Colorado State University. A Milwaukee native, he also is a former longtime journalist in Wisconsin, having worked at the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, the La Crosse Tribune, and the Wausau Daily Herald, in addition to a few radio stations in La Crosse when he was a mass communication student at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
