Both Biden and Trump, Trump more than Biden by the numbers, are hitting tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of voters with streams of produced, coordinated campaign events—delivered totally online. Biden is hosting a readily available podcast and having split-screen conversations with big-name current and former elected leaders and attempting to approximate the one-on-one interactions that he craves. And the Trump machine—quite apart from Trump’s briefings or news conferences, which the president increasingly has treated as de facto campaign appearances—is pumping out a relentless schedule of spin-off shows of sorts, every night at 8, starring characters familiar by now to Trump fans and detractors alike (Donald Trump Jr., Corey Lewandowski, Diamond and Silk …).
“These,” longtime Democrat strategist Hank Sheinkopf told me, “are the new campaign set pieces.”
What does this new campaign trail look like? Without getting on a single flight, or driving a single mile in a rental car, or spending a single night in a hotel room, I spent seven days consuming close to every bit of digital content offered by these campaigns.
For anyone willing to tune in and follow along, it’s personal, revealing and sometimes kind of bonkers. I saw Don Jr. call Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib “the Hamas caucus” and talk about people in China eating bats—after he had, he said, guzzled six Red Bulls. I saw people in little boxes in a Zoom wearing masks chant, “Let’s go, Joe! Let’s go, Joe! Let’s go, Joe!” I saw lots of ads for Trump—and not as many for Biden. I saw commenters roil and rail in a constant on-screen churn that I came to view as the internet equivalent of a red MAGA-capped crowd. I watched Senator Amy Klobuchar sit in her house and praise Biden’s deep-seated empathy but not before noting she had forced her husband and daughter to shut off their devices to try to make her feed less choppy. (It worked!) I saw a member of Congress champion the healing properties of the sun. I saw Vice President Mike Pence’s wife say he was relaxing late at night by watching “Patton” and playing Trivial Pursuit. I saw a pastor pray at length to God to give the president the “wisdom” “to rule and to reign in the times we’re living in.” I saw Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, point to his Hillary Clinton toilet paper.
The virtual campaign trail is also, to be sure, missing some important elements—most notably the accountability that comes from face-to-face encounters with the press. Nobody is able to even shout at Biden questions about, say, Tara Reade as he hustles from a side door to a waiting black Suburban. At this point, only Trump, to his credit, is engaging in any regular jousting with the Fourth Estate.
There’s some bad news for Biden, too: Though it’s hard to put a fine point on the number of the aggregate views of the two campaigns’ videos on Facebook, YouTube, Mixer, Twitter and Twitch, suffice it to say Trump is swamping Biden when it comes to exposure—a function of, among other things, the fact that Trump has 79 million followers on Twitter, more than 29 million followers on Facebook and 382,000 subscribers on YouTube, while Biden has a little more than 5 million, a little shy of 2 million and some 48,000, respectively. Biden, for what it’s worth, isn’t even on Mixer and Twitch. His campaign, only recently consolidating party support, is playing catch-up. The Trump campaign, which launched years ago in essence its own television programming hosted on social media, is in this space savvy, energetic and unabashed. The backdrops of the ad-hoc in-home studios in the Trump content, I noticed, compared to Biden’s frequently (although not always) have less of a DIY look, and not by accident. The Trump campaign sent to surrogates, I learned, kits of lights and Trump-branded objects to try for a tad more visual quality and consistency.
“Right now, everything is virtual,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Erin Perrine told me, “and we’re exceedingly good at it.”
It’s not just those on Trump’s payroll saying so. “There is no denying—no denying—that Brad Parscale is an evil genius,” said Jennifer Holdsworth, a Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor. “He absolutely has the Trump campaign on a much more advanced digital footing than I think any other presidential campaign in history.”
It’s not clear how much this chasm will matter to the outcome on November 3. Could slick production values really turn an election that likely will be a referendum on the response by Trump and his administration to a once-in-a-century pandemic—and when so many people are crammed obstinately into their partisan corners, ready to vote the way they’re going to vote almost regardless of what transpires between now and Election Day? Looking at polling showing Trump sinking and Biden inching up overall, and in key states, too, in almost inverse proportion to their respective exposure, many analysts and operatives believe the latter’s lower profile is actually for now the smartest play. Biden, in other words, might be able to win not in spite of the fact that he’s stuck in his basement but because of it. However this shakes out, it’s difficult not to wonder how much of these all-digital efforts will survive the pandemic and change how candidates campaign period. There’s plenty of reason to think that what we’re seeing here is more than just Biden vs. Trump online but also an early window into the future of politics.
“There’s not many other ways to contact voters—right?—other than virtually right now,” Rob Flaherty, the digital director of the Biden campaign, told me. “In the same way that it’s sort of like a battle for the soul of the nation”—one of Biden’s favorite pitches—“in a lot of ways, it’s sort of a battle for the soul of the internet.”
Not up for debate, though, is that this year’s campaign, as radically different as it is from its antecedents, is as real as it’s ever been for anybody who wants it to be.
On the traditional campaign trail, there’s a lot of getting up early and staying up late, a lot of driving and then … waiting. Listening to warmup songs before finally hearing the walkup song. It’s different on this trail. The Biden campaign announces events and times in emails to reporters or supporters or posts on Facebook or Twitter. It’s even easier with the Trump campaign. Every night. Always 8. Click and watch.
“BUCKLE UP!” That’s what it said on my screen now. The imagery mimicked a roller-coaster ride. It felt like a trailer before a movie. Earlier in the day, I had listened to Biden’s 20-minute podcast with Minnesota’s Klobuchar, who is considered a top contender to become his running mate. No real news, fairly soft stuff: She extolled his empathy borne from awful experience, and he thanked her for her endorsement, suggesting he wouldn’t have won her state without it. And I had just finished watching a 50-minute town hall about gun violence, anchored by Biden supporter Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was murdered in the school shooting in 2018 in Parkland, Florida. I was, I suppose, ready for something somewhat lighter.
“Welcome to Team Trump Online!” Set to a fast-paced, foot-tapping tune, the digital roller coaster jerked up, down and around, past a Space Force sign and iPhone-shaped billboards showing hats for sale, and shirts, and Christmas gifts. “ENJOY THE SHOW!”
Source: politico.com
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