Now that the Democratic National Convention is over, the next major battleground in the 2024 election is the media.
The Harris-Walz campaign needs to be ready.
Although former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has struggled to respond to the new Democratic ticket, Republicans will likely get in line with a unified media strategy. The message they will seek to promote is that Democrats are running the most radical, leftist candidates in U.S. history.
In recent elections, Democrats have had difficulty with the new turbocharged, fast-moving and unfiltered media landscape. In 2016, Trump beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, harping on the investigation into her emails. In 2020, President Joe Biden defeated Trump, but under unusual pandemic circumstances that put much of the conventional campaign processes on hold. As campaign conditions returned to normal this year, things did not go as well for Biden. One televised debate, noted New York Times columnist James Poniewozik, brought his candidacy to an end: “There was simply a horrendous TV outing—less than two hours that changed history.” But even before Biden stepped onstage, his poll numbers were lagging after a conservative media onslaught about his age and alleged corruption.
To sustain the energy that boosted Vice President Kamala Harris through the convention in Chicago, Harris’s campaign needs to devise an effective media strategy tailored to the current era. To do so, her team should look back to 1992, when then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s savvy war room figured out how Democrats could thrive in another new age—of cable television, investigative journalism, and state-of-the-art political advertising. While the news media has evolved significantly in terms of form and content since Clinton won the presidency, Harris will need to achieve a mastery similar to that of Clinton’s historic campaign team.
The early 1990s seem like simpler times. In January 1994, NBC Today Show’s Bryant Gumbel asked his cohost Katie Couric: “What is the internet anyway?” Email was a novelty. Surfing was done in the ocean. Cable news played by the traditional rules of objective reporting. Smartphones were in development, and cell phones remained a luxury. Social media meant going to the movies with friends.
Yet the 1992 presidential campaign—which pitted Clinton, then-incumbent President George H.W. Bush, and independent candidate Ross Perot against each other in a race for the White House—took place across a media landscape that had changed dramatically since the 1960s. Cable had created a 24-hour news cycle where stories came out quickly. These stations, as well as the increasingly popular one-hour network news zine-style shows (Nightline, for example), depended on a healthy audience share for their livelihood, in contrast to the public service ethos of the half-hour nightly news programs from earlier times. This shift meant that sensationalism became a hot commodity. Investigative journalism born from Watergate had given rise to a generation of reporters who were constantly on the hunt for wrongdoing. Moreover, conservative talk radio had exploded after the Federal Communications Commission abandoned the fairness doctrine in 1987. Syndicated hosts such as Rush Limbaugh commanded between millions of listeners on over 600 stations. Daily tabloid newspapers and comedic shows, too, were having a greater impact on politics.
And in advertising, the “Morning in America” campaign that helped then-incumbent President Ronald Reagan win reelection in 1984 set a new standard for sophisticated production techniques. Television spots became like short films, capable of seducing and devastating all at once.
Starting with the 1980 election, and as a party felt to be on the outs from the mainstream culture, the GOP saw an opportunity to shape the national conversation through an aggressive media strategy that defined the way the public perceived its opponents and itself. As they built a new conservative majority, Republicans made huge investments which very often paid off.
In 1980 and 1984, Reagan’s campaign team managed its message to transform the one-time conservative extremist into the nation’s savior. Then, in 1988, Bush pulled together one of the most brutal campaigns of modern history under the direction of South Carolina campaign consultant Lee Atwater. Atwater tore down all the guardrails as to what was permissible, institutionalizing an anything-goes philosophy. Playing on themes of patriotism, religious nationalism, and a racial backlash, Bush and Atwater redefined the promising Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis—an intelligent technocratic reformer—into a heartless left-wing radical who looked terrible in a tank.
In 1992, from its perch in Little Rock, Arkansas, Clinton’s inner circle was determined not to repeat these experiences. It had been hardened during the primaries when its candidate barely survived a sex scandal involving Arkansas state employee Gennifer Flowers. James “the Ragin’ Cajun” Carville had guided Clinton through the crisis and emerged as the central figure behind the “comeback kid.” In a scene captured in the 1993 documentary The War Room, which provides the best look into this critical campaign, Carville warned his staff that Democrats needed to step up or conservatives such as Fox News chairman Roger Ailes would destroy them. With Carville leading the way, Clinton’s war room also included George Stephanopoulos (communications), Paul Begala (chief strategist), Stanley Greenberg (polling), and Mandy Grunwald (advertising).
Several principles guided Carville’s army. Speed was essential. In the cable era, sitting out of stories was no longer an option. Being patient could leave a candidate in the dust. The war room deployed a rapid response style that left no charge unanswered for long and aimed to provide counterarguments before allegations could set in the public mind. When reporters raised an accusation, Clinton’s team rejected the claims with resolve and force. At the same time, whenever Carville and Stephanopoulos got hold of any potentially damaging information about Bush or Perot, they released it to the media immediately rather than trying to think up the best spin.
Tired of the defensive and despondent outlook of Democrats following the political bloodbath in 1988, Clinton’s war room insisted that Democrats needed to play offense. “Why can’t we attack George Bush?” the documentary shows Carville asking his team. The film portrays an effort that fizzled as the team tried to stir a story about Bush having campaign material made overseas rather than in the United States. Nor was it shy about ripping into the weaknesses of Bush’s record.
In doing so, the Clinton war room also elevated clarity into an artform. Carville’s team grasped how long and complicated arguments did not fly in an age of soundbites. They famously drew on a board: “the economy, stupid.” There were two other punchy slogans to guide them: “Change versus more of the same” and “don’t forget health care.” That reminder to staffers was also an example of how to convey a message with simplicity. According to the Los Angeles Times, the crew in Little Rock “share[d] a belief in the primacy of ‘the message’ as the driving force in a presidential campaign, downplaying the importance of such traditional political tools as precinct organizations, registration drives and Election Day turnout efforts.”
The team also worked to sell the message through the realm of popular culture, traditionally dismissed as undignified. Clinton appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show and MTV, in People, and more. The campaign blitzed talk show hosts with information that made Bush look like an out-of-touch well-to-do who only cared about foreign policy while constantly reminding them of Clinton’s humble origins.
In November 1992, Clinton won with 370 Electoral College votes. Four years later, he defeated Sen. Robert Dole and was reelected
Subsequent Democrats could not replicate his success. In 2000 and 2004, respectively, Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry failed to be as effective on the media stage. Decorated Vietnam veteran Kerry, for instance, was shell-shocked when then-incumbent President George W. Bush’s campaign tagged him as a flip-flopping politician and an independent group invented the concept of “swift-boating” by throwing out false accusations to discredit his military record. Political consultant Chris LaCivita, who is currently co-managing Trump’s campaign, was one of the people who produced the spot for the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” smear campaign.
Barack Obama reset Democratic campaign strategy in 2008. David Axelrod and his band of campaign operatives updated Carville’s model, demonstrating how effective use of social media tools such as Facebook, well-produced television spots with Reagan-like narratives, and not responding to the daily noise from the internet and cable television could provide a recipe for victory. Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, were no match.
Of course, the media campaign was a complement, not an alternative, to an aggressive turnout strategy that focused on driving up total votes in all 50 states.
The media challenges in 2024 have expanded again, even as the old ones remain relevant. One of the most grueling challenges facing Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will be to survive the onslaught of disinformation, deepfakes, and openly partisan news that will hit them from all sides in the months to come. The recent hack by Iran, which Trump claims targeted his campaign, is a reminder that foreign interference will also be a problem.
Harris also needs to compete successfully in what New York Times columnist Ezra Klein has called the “attention field.” News moves at a fast speed and those who consume political news tend to move on very quickly. Attention spans are not easy to maintain. An effective campaign has to figure out how to keep the media focused on its candidate and message for substantial periods of time.
Between now and Election Day, Harris will be facing an opponent who has proven to be effective at working the media. Trump has repeatedly demonstrated an instinctive feel for the rhythm and dynamics of the news cycle. As president, he capitalized on the interconnected relationship between social media, cable news, online newspapers, and podcasts to dominate the national conversation and harden perceptions about opponents. He handled televised debates like a reality show, using body movements, facial expressions, controversial comments, and vicious insults. Most recently, he capitalized on an attempted assassination, standing up with blood dripping down his ear, surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents, defiantly pumping his fist in the air and yelling: “Fight! Fight! Fight!” It was as if he could see how the event looked on a television screen.
Thus far, Harris’s team has been extremely effective on this playing field. It has staged the rollout methodically to generate good feeling, excitement, and constant media attention. Harris’s memes have caught fire on social media. Harris appears to have selected Walz as her running mate in part because of how adroit he has proven to be in this playing field despite being 60 years old. By uttering one word, “weird,” Walz remade the messaging of his entire party. When Republicans lobbed their initial attacks against Walz’s military record, the social media army hit back hard, although some commentators believe it needs to hit back harder.
The fight is only beginning. Democrats should not fool themselves into thinking Trump will simply lay down his gloves and walk away. When backed into a corner, Trump traditionally becomes more brutal.
But as Clinton’s war room demonstrated in the 1992 election, a savvy Democratic campaign updated to suit the modern media environment can take down the fiercest opposition and pave a road that leads to the White House.
The post When Democrats Wrested the News Cycle from Republicans—and How They Can Do It Again appeared first on Foreign Policy.
