Communication Breakdown

Lis Smith from Majority Democrats sat down with the Times’ John Guida for a really interesting conversation on changes in the Democratic Party and the type of communication strategies they have. Let’s remember as well–Kamala Harris was terrified of the media, especially anything outside of traditional outlets and part of her loss comes down to the fact that she wouldn’t even let people get to know her at the very time they needed to and shut Tim Walz down from doing the one thing he was good at, which was communication.

A couple of points here. First, leaving out the unfortunate issues in the Maine Senate primary, Janet Mills, being older than the hills, very much represents the older way of communicating and thinking about Republicans.

John Guida: We just learned that the Pentagon has requested $200 billion to fund the war in Iran. I’d like to get your sense of how, or if, Democrats are successfully responding to the war.

Here are two brief examples of how Democratic Senate candidates in Maine have opposed the war: One (Graham Platner) has talked on behalf of “the people who are going to see their friends and families maimed and killed in combat” and “going to have to pay for all of this instead of getting health care.” Another (Janet Mills) says that President Trump “can’t simply go out on his own and engage in a dangerous, reckless, unilateral war,” and “without at least consulting and getting authorization from Congress.”

Those are just two examples (and, to be clear, don’t represent the entirety of their responses). But what good or bad or other practices are you seeing among Democrats in their responses to the war?

Lis Smith: This is exhibit A of why we don’t need more lawyers in Congress and need people who bring different life experiences to Washington. Too many Democrats, when something like this happens, default to playing legalistic hall monitor and complaining about how Donald Trump didn’t fill out the right paperwork before launching strikes. That’s technically true and important, but that is not at all a persuasive argument.

The best messaging we’ve seen on this issue, by far, has come from post-9/11 war veterans like Platner [Graham Platner, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Maine]. They don’t sound like lawyers, but like people who actually understand what’s at stake because they’ve lived it.

Right–the soft moderate legalise of so many Democrats who can’t just respond to something by saying it is bullshit but instead start whining that it against the norms or the law needed to end years ago. It doesn’t even matter if it’s true–truth is nearly irrelevant in politics. It’s terrible communication and one of the reasons Platner is doing well despite his, er, significant issues is that he simply communicates with people much better. I’d prefer not to have this conversation go down the road of everyone having an opinion on Platner, unless you are a Maine voter anyway. Perhaps its inevitable, but the nationalization of every campaign is really negative.

Anyway, what’s worth noting here is how newer, direct communication strategies that realize we are in the 21st century is not about party ideology. Abigail Spanberger and Zohran Mamdani don’t agree on certain things and come from different parts of the party but they were both extremely effective at communicating to the people they needed to communicate with.

Ideology in this context matters less than, say, age. Older generations of politicians were taught to always stick to a script, never have a hair out of place, never show any vulnerability and avoid controversial topics at all costs. Younger politicians like Pete Buttigieg and Mamdani, who certainly come from different wings of the Democratic Party, have really thrived in the new media environment. They are incredibly disciplined communicators, but it’s not because someone handed them a script — it’s because they know who they are, they’re comfortable in their own skin, they have very defined values and worldviews.

They’re also willing to let their guards down and have conversations that would give most old-school political consultants heart attacks. Think about Pete on the Flagrant podcast — in between serious conversations about transportation policy and income inequality, he fielded questions from the hosts about whether the food in Afghanistan turned him gay.

Then there’s this:

Smith: We definitely need to change the culture of our party. We can do that by, first, elevating people who’ve won tough races and shown broad appeal, know how to communicate and break through in today’s media ecosystem, and who are willing to challenge the Democratic establishment. The last part is really important, because voters are pretty dissatisfied with the status quo.

Second, we need to recruit better candidates. People who can compete everywhere — that will mean looking for nontraditional candidates who don’t necessarily check every national Democratic litmus test box.

Guida: That makes me think of Bobby Pulido, who is a Latin Grammy Award-winning Tejano singer. Earlier this month, he won the Democratic primary in the 15th Congressional District of Texas. This week he has also been, through some deft political footwork, a special guest at several quinceañeras — a coming-of-age celebration in Latino cultures — for young women in his district.

And like the other candidates in the Bench organization, which also includes a Lutheran minister in Iowa, a farmer in North Carolina, a firefighter in Pennsylvania and a smokejumper in Montana. Is this the start of an emerging new Democratic Party?

Smith: A dirty secret of political recruitment is that the first question a lot of political committees ask potential candidates is: “How much money can you raise?” At the Bench, our first questions are: Who are you? How do you reflect your community? What’s the unique story you have to tell? We need people who will bring really different experiences to Washington. The lived experiences these candidates bring to the table are just so different from what we have in Congress right now and gives them much more credibility as leaders and messengers.

Guida: Maybe you can give an example or two.

Smith: When Jamie Ager, the farmer in North Carolina, talks about FEMA and natural-disaster aid, it’s not from the perspective of someone who’s looked at a lot of spreadsheets; it’s because his farm and community were absolutely pummeled by Hurricane Helene. When Pulido talks about immigration, it’s not based on things he’s read in the news. He’s someone who knows people who are employed by Customs and Border Protection as well as businesses that have been decimated by ICE raids in his district.

One thing that is true at this point–almost everyone in the online liberal media is now pretty old and out of touch and that very much includes the people in their 20s two plus decades ago when the blogosphere started. People are too into their own talking points and when they pontificate about various campaigns, whether from the left or the center or even the right, they rarely have any real understanding the details of a district or election area, which is only the single most important that you have to understand to know the first thing about anything. We probably do need very different candidates in very different places. Again, this is not about ideology. It’s about approach and communication. One reason Donald Trump won is that he absolutely understood (not mentally since he’s stupid but intuitively from whatever weird genius he has in him), how people hate everything that the nation has become and barely care what the change looks like, so long as it is change. So you have to adjust to that.

Finally, I think there’s a fantastic point about money here:

Guida: For the 2026 midterms, in a shift, Republicans are positioned to outspend — and perhaps by lots of money — Democrats. Do you worry about that, is it a warning for Democrats, or are the new rules of politics — as you suggested, money can’t buy viral attention — more critical?

Smith: We should always be concerned about the influence of big money in these races. But we’ve seen in recent elections — like the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race, where Elon Musk dropped in $25 million to support the Republican candidate who lost, or the New York mayoral race, in where Andrew Cuomo’s allies spent $55 million and still lost to Mamdani — money can buy you a lot of negative ads, but it won’t necessarily buy you voters’ affections.

That’s exactly right. Not only are there those examples, but there’s the flood of money back in 2020 to defeat Susan Collins, more than the Democrats could possibly spend. It doesn’t matter. Money is important…but only up to a point. Phil Knight just gave former Shaq fouling expert Chris Dudley $1 million to run for governor of Oregon, with more likely to come. Dudley probably won’t even win the primary and he effectively zero chance to win the general. If people want to throw away their money, they can do that, but it’s not to good effect and that can include liberal small donors as well as billionaire scum. Oh by the way, when I discovered that Dudley was Brett Kavanaugh’s running partner at Yale and they got in a bar fight after a UB40 show, I was like, how perfect could this be? Of course these guys got into a bar fight after a UB40 show, everything about this is very on the nose.

This ought to provide plenty of material for folks on a Friday evening! But in case we need more, I am writing this from O’Hare, which has to be the worst airport in human existence. Is there any single category where O’Hare is not rock bottom? Overcrowded, old, falling apart infrastructure, horrible food options, even the seats are uncomfortable in a way that seems impossible. So we can throw this into the kitchen sink of conversation too.