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Getting the media to put its ass on the scale to help you is part of what it means to have an expertly-run campaign. Of course, the media in general leans Democratic, but that shouldn't necessarily be an excuse if you're a political strategist who is getting paid millions of dollars to help the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign strategists have done nothing to grab the narrative away from the Harris campaign ever since she replaced Biden as the Democrats' chosen candidate. It's been several weeks of nothing from them, meanwhile the Harris campaign is full steam ahead. What are the Trump campaign people even doing? What is their strategy?
I think that Trump has a problem in that compared to Harris he just seems old and he has been in people's political attention for nine years straight except for a brief interruption in Biden's first couple of years in office. Trump is still entertaining, but he's no longer the novel maverick, and probably a lot of people are just tired of hearing about him. Harris, on the other hand, is shiny, new, and relatively young for a recent Presidential candidate. There is an element in the voting population that loves shiny and new optics. Bill Clinton playing the sax, Obama flashing his pearly-white grin and talking about hope and change, etc. The Trump campaign hasn't managed to do anything to seize the national narrative away from Harris. I feel like they need to come up with something if they want to win.
Let's not be ridiculous. She was immediately benefiting from media hagiography right after her President - whose acuity she herself defended - was drummed out of the race for being unable to do the job.
The fact that it instantly went into K-Fever instead of serious questions about Biden's fitness and what Kamala knew about it had more to do with media partisans finally being glad they could go back to business as usual without Biden dragging them down and making their usual work look silly.
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She inherited that media. It took literally zero effort on her or her campaign's end to spin up the gaslighting machine in her favor. If you're able to show me a throughline between an action she took or a message she broadcasted and the ridiculously fawning coverage she has received (between bouts of imitating ostriches), please do.
If this is what qualifies as 'expertly-run' under your definition - which is to be understood as third parties doing all the heavy lifting for you -then it means nothing to me.
I am not saying that Harris' campaign is necessarily expertly run, but I am surprised by their adroitness. Even though they have much of the media's help, they still have been doing a great job of avoiding making any mistakes. So far the Harris campaign has been a slick, fine-tuned machine that has managed to hide all of her weaknesses and accentuate some of the Republicans' weaknesses.
The media leans Democratic, but that did not stop Trump from getting elected in 2016 and then only narrowly losing in 2020 (and that only after the pandemic). We clearly see that it is possible for a Republican president to get elected even despite the hostile media environment. So I think that Trump campaign strategists who are getting paid millions of dollars should not get to use the Democrats' media domination as an excuse for not doing a better job of marketing Trump's campaign.
She's basically barely running a campaign and only going to friendly media. There is no adroitness there, its just banking on the partisan media being partisan. And the other thing is Trump surrogates have been making the rounds and they aren't getting viral clips because everytime they are on something other than Fox the host doesn't let them speak.
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People make mistakes when the spotlight is on them. Kamala parachuted into the race near the end and the media is disinclined to question her. Has she done a single adversarial interview?
Trump going to the NABJ may have been a mistake (especially after Biden dropped out). But it's a mistake because he had to go somewhere and be accountable to someone.
The media leans strongly Democratic and they had endless struggle sessions about their role in electing Trump and vowed to never let it happen again.
Sure, but that's because they took the money knowing the landscape. Doesn't mean the landscape isn't skewed or that skew isn't problematic.
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