What in the Noem is going on
Doomscroll 3.17.2024
Hello and welcome to another edition of Doomscroll, your favorite newsletter covering all things digital on the right! Hopefully you’ve kept those Irish car bombs to a minimum today! No? Well let’s jump in anyway!
One Question
Thanks to everyone who answered last week’s One Question about Katie Britt’s SOTU response. Out of everyone who responded, 82% said it was “real, real bad.” Woof. Hey, at least we’re an honest bunch. That said, about 54% said she could still be a rising star. I like the optimism! When it comes to who else should have been tapped to give the response, answers were all over the place. I got Nikki Haley, Vivek, John Kennedy, JD Vance, Wesley Hunt…and then someone suggested Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and I have to say - he gets my vote! Here’s this person’s reasoning
…the border crisis is Americans' top issue right now, and Texas is on the front lines. Abbott should have given the response to the SOTU and delivered the truth straight to Americans. Texas is also an economic success story even in the face of national economic headwinds. The contrast couldn't be more clear. I realize they wanted to go with youthful, suburban mom, but Katie clearly wasn't ready.
I like it. Some of you left some other interesting comments about the response that got me thinking. Here they are:
The worst part about it is she shared a story about the border that happened when Bush was President. Gives the lib media an easy layup to say everything the GOP is saying about the border is false.
Katie Britt crashed the Exxon Valdez. Total disaster. Exasperated, breathless, quavering, phony. Crocodile tears spoken with a weird staccato. Felt like I was a watching a bad first-year acting class. R's deservedly make fun of Biden for vacillating between whispering and weird anger, but Britt's performance (with a little help from SNL) has the rest of America making fun of Republicans. Biden administration so dysfunctional all Britt had to do was not step on any rakes and she went ahead and stepped on 30.Why even have a SOTU response? Seems like a lot of these just end up becoming a mock-fest...
We should consider pre-recording the responses going forward. I know we’ve taken that option before with the Spanish response.
I wonder if it’s only the “politicalatti” that thought it was awful. Republicans are freaking out about the Biden speech because it was so good. As political “experts” - maybe we are freaking out because WE thought it was bad, but what about generic Joe Six Pack. True, he and she weren’t watching it, but the few that were, or heard about it… was it effective?
Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?
Ok, now let’s move on to our BONUS One question: Everyone’s thoughts on Nikki Haley’s digital operation. Now, even though about 70% of you gave her digital presence an A, there are clearly quite a few haters out there - which is fine! I like a little friendly inter-party squabbling now and then. Someone even called ME out for giving Haley too much credit and I like to think I’m man enough to take it, so no hard feelings, mi amigo! But I think overall, my assessment stands, mistakes notwithstanding. Her operation was clean, tight and effective. Anyway, here are those comments:
Treating your donors with respect works.
I know you like her, but you give her too much credit. No candidate had a cringier social media presence than Nikki Haley. Some bloopers: here, here, here, here
Overall not bad. Definitely missed out on connecting with voters via personable face-to-camera videos al la Vivek. The authenticity that brings to a campaign is priceless. Also worth noting that the faux pas that are more memorable than the positive things she did (
1. The auto scheduling of X posts that all went out at the same time.
2. This: https://twitter.com/NikkiHaley/status/1759342263740629487
3. And this: https://x.com/NikkiHaley/status/1764488309428945267?s=20
A- . The copy was always spot on— especially longer email pieces, which was nice in this era of texting/ p2p dominance. Longer pieces always raise more, but with fewer donations in my experience than the <300 word pieces that raise small sums but many donations. Their long form copy archieved both, which is something few people other than DJT manage. The team over there could have raised even more money than the impressive sum they hauled had they had more content & been more aggressive with external list owners & agencies. Overall, the numbers speak for themselves. Had they acquired the number of bodies of Team DeSantis, they would have crushed. My only regret is that they didn’t send around more of it.
Trash
John Hall and Apex Strategies are building something truly, truly special.
excellent and hard working team
This week’s One Question is super freaking simple and needs to wind-up (although I do get into it more below). Why did South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem post those weird videos on social media this week? If you don’t know what I’m talking about…scroll down. Please, let’s all figure this out together!
Who’s Doing What
—New Chairs, Who Dis?
New leadership, new look. The RNC didn’t waste ANY time using new RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and C-Chair Lara Trump in their email program. Nice. Honestly, I didn’t even know what Whatley looked like before I saw this email banner.
—Here’s a Story…
…about a little-known Congressional candidate in South Carolina’s 4th District who’s looking to make a splash online! Ok here’s the background: Rep. William Timmons won his seat in 2018 after running to replace outgoing Rep. Trey Gowdy. It was a HUGELY contested primary - like 13 candidates were on the ballot. Anyway, in summer 2019, he got married on the Speaker’s balcony in a ceremony officiated by none other than Sen. Tim Scott. Sadly, the marriage didn’t last and in 2022 the two filed for divorce. Here’s the thing: if there’s one thing you DON’T do in the super-religious, ruby-red enclaves in the upstate of South Carolina, it’s have a messy personal life while claiming to be a Bible-believing, born-again Christian (See also: Jeff Duncan). We southerners just don’t like that kind of thing, and ever since the divorce was announced, the local rumor mills have been a’swirling about why the two REALLY separated.
In light of all of that, the only question leading up to 2024 was who was going to step up to challenge Timmons in the Republican primary? Surely toppling Timmons would be a piece of cake, right? Maybe, maybe not! South Carolina has a DEEP, DEEP bench of Republican politician wannabe’s - but who’s the only guy who stepped up to the plate? South Carolina State Rep. Adam Morgan, who also happens to chair the House Freedom Caucus. Now, why is ANY of this relevant for Doomscroll? Stay with me!
For a while, things were pretty quiet. And then on March 1, President Trump endorsed Timmons for re-election. Woof - game over for Morgan. The only thing upstate Republicans love more than Sunday supper or peach milkshakes at Chick-fil-A is Donald J. Trump. Except… About a week after the endorsement broke, Timmons got hit with a devastating piece of oppo: a video, published in Fox News, showing the congressman talking positively about using DEI in hiring practices on the Hill. Oops!
And then…the influencer campaign took off. You may know what I’m talking about. Suddenly, like literally overnight, Adam Morgan went viral…with a video from the floor of the State House that’s almost a year old.
I mean, this guy went from being an absolute nobody, to being tweeted about ALL WEEK LONG by social media influencers like Benny Johnson, Charlie Kirk, Greg Price, Tracy Beanz, Matt Gaetz and many many more who have millions of followers. He appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast and NewsMax TV. The dude was everywhere.
I don’t think I’m shocking anyone here when I say…in no way was this organic. There’s just no way. This kind of thing doesn’t just happen out of nowhere. Maybe he used a center-right influencer ad agency to pay these people to post the now “viral” video. Maybe it was mostly orchestrated by Price, who himself has a cool 350K twitter followers and does comms for the State Freedom Caucus Network, which would like to see a guy like Morgan topple Timmons.
Obviously, the campaign was executed flawlessly in that it catapulted Morgan into mini-internet conservative celebrity status. Lots and lots of people posted his video and he got some good press to up his credentials with Republican voters after Trump picked the other guy. It was the perfect one-two punch: plant the oppo about Timmons and DEI, then make Morgan a rightwing star!
Maybe we’ll never know who paid for it or how exactly it was executed, but like Morgan or not - this week was a master class in how to spin conservative influencer world in your favor. Will it work in the long run? Who freaking knows. Obviously you can’t win an election just by winning the Twitterverse, but if Morgan puts in the work on the ground as well…maybe it’ll be enough for Timmons to get a LITTLE nervous. The primary is June 11, and I’ll be curious to see if the Adam Morgan drumbeat continues or if this was just a one-time thing.
—Influencer Culture Strikes Again
Pardon my french, but WTF is going on in South Dakota? I know I’m not asking something we all haven’t said a million times this week, but seriously. What is Gov. Kristi Noem doing? It all started on Monday when she posted a bizarre infomercial style video on twitter promoting…::checks notes:: a dentist in Texas. Mmmmkk. Then a few days later, she followed up with another video promoting what appears to be some random shoe company. So what’s her end game here? Is she posting them for money? Out of the goodness of her own heart? Was she just looking for a creative way to break into the news cycle? Who the heck knows. It would be nice if her team helped solved the mystery by providing some answers. Alas, we are left to speculate. And look, you all know I love it when politicians post creative content. Folks: This isn’t it.
2024 Roundup
This is where I make note of a few other things that caught my eye this week.
Democrats are, once again, meddling in a Republican primary race. This time, it’s to boost Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno. Read about it here.
Mike Pence announced he will not be endorsing Donald Trump. See it here.
As if things in the Ohio Senate Republican primary couldn’t get any uglier, it looked like Bernie Moreno had been hit with an 11th-hour oppo dump. Now, it looks like it’s probably a big nothing-burger. Read more about it here.
Who’s Spending Where
From March 8-14, the top conservative spender on Facebook ads was Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee at $158,477. Americans for Prosperity spent about $138,000 on a bunch of lead gen ads on topics like government-run health care and labor unions. Third place, at $121,000, I’m giving to Metric Media LLC, but not without some speculation on my part. See, Metric Media is running ads on a page called Cleveland Reporter with some news-y headlines attacking Bernie Moreno. My assumption, and I do want to do some more digging into this, is that these ads are being paid for by one of his GOP primary rivals. Rounding out the top five are PragerU at $87,166 and AFP Action at $81,000.
Trump Save America Committee was also the top conservative spender on Google during that same time period, at $288,000. Americans for Prosperity came in a distant second at $84,000, while Blaze Media spent about $32,000. AFP Action spent $28,000 on ads supporting Tim Sheehy and Sam Brown. Coming in fifth place is a newcomer - Chamber for Indiana. He spent about $25,000 on a 30-second spot hyping his bid for governor.
P2P
Industry Watch
Oh boy. Per Marketing Brew:
Your streaming habit might be costing you a pretty penny.
Americans are spending an average of $119.76 a month on streaming video services, more than the average $112.11 per month they spend on gas, according to a new report from Fox Corp.-owned free streamer Tubi and Stagwell’s The Harris Poll.
The report, which detailed new streaming trends, particularly among Gen Zers and millennials, found that that’s just about as high as consumers feel willing to go: 83% of survey respondents would cut ties with a streamer if it upped prices, the survey found.
I’m just lol’ing at all the copy I’ve written in the last couple of years about high gas prices…. No regrets, my friends!
The Grapevine
Congrats to Push Digital, which just launched Drive Public Affairs - a “digital-first public affairs firm”. I like the sound of that! AND, they appear to be hiring.
The RNC digital team is being asked to relocate down to Palm Beach, Florida. Not bad - there are worst places to hole up for campaign season!
Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
Last But Not Least
From the other side of the aisle:
Another day, another glowing piece about how Biden Campaign guy Rob Flaherty is God’s gift to digital campaigning. The latest comes from Politico, which published a long piece this week about how the 2020 Biden campaign crafted an ad strategy to counter falsehoods about Biden (like, he’s mentally unfit - lol!). The tactic? Fund a massive research project to determine which “falsehoods” were actually “market-moving,” and then run ads on Google with search terms that fit the misinformation. Here’s a bit more:
Flaherty’s team aimed its response across Google’s network so the ads appeared on pages including keywords tied to the disinformation narratives (like “Kamala + cop” or “Biden + senile,” for example). In so doing, the campaign turned what Flaherty called the “problematic inventory” into a practical vector for showing a counter-message at exactly the moment when people were being exposed to the disinformation.
Read the rest here. I wouldn’t call it groundbreaking, but it is interesting - especially the part about Team Biden realizing voters didn’t need to see Biden jogging or riding a bike to be reassured that’s he’s fit to be president - they just needed to hear him speaking clearly. Man, the bar is set so, so low for Joe Biden.
From the other side of the tracks:
Elon Musk threw Don Lemon to the curb this week, and if you didn’t find it just a little bit glorious, well…I can’t help you! the Per New York Post:
Don Lemon demanded the sun, the moon and the stars from the SpaceX boss – before being unceremoniously dumped this week, The Post has learned.
The ex-CNN anchor sent over an astronomical wish list to Elon Musk during contract talks to host a show on the billionaire’s social media platform X – including a free Tesla Cybertruck, a $5 million upfront payment on top of an $8 million salary, an equity stake in the multibillion-dollar company, and the right to approve any changes in X policy as it relates to news content, according to a document reviewed by The Post.
Lemon — who was expected to air an interview with Musk for next week’s debut episode on X — had also demanded a private jet flight to Las Vegas, a suite for him and his fiance, and that the company pay for their day drinking and massages, a source with knowledge of the situation said.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading! Did you like it? Consider forwarding to your friends!