2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe Ad That Moved People the Most: Bernie Sanders America
The Ad That Moved People the Most: Bernie Sanders’s ‘America’
Lynn Vavreck - DEC. 30, 2016
They may be difficult to recall, but there were some things about the 2016 presidential election that made people happy and hopeful. Perhaps even harder to believe is that some of those things were campaign advertisements.
A few 2016 campaign ads stand out for how happy and hopeful they made people feel, and one ad in particular dominated. That ad was Bernie Sanders’s minute-long spot called “America.”
~Snip~
It was one of many ads that John Geer, a Vanderbilt University political scientist, and I showed to panels of people throughout the campaign. We ran a weekly experiment called SpotCheck in which we randomly assigned a representative sample of 1,000 people to see one of two campaign ads. We evaluated the ads’ persuasive effects and asked people to evaluate the ads on such criteria as whether the ad made them happy, hopeful, angry or worried.
By far, Mr. Sanders’s “America” was the ad from 2016 that made SpotCheck’s raters the happiest and the most hopeful. Nearly 80 percent of viewers said the ad made them at least a little bit happy and hopeful in the week it debuted — including over half of the Republicans who saw it.
Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/upshot/the-campaign-ads-that-moved-people-the-most.html?_r=0
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boston bean
(36,491 posts)power and who are always right weren't able to help Hillary to win.
Ron Green
(9,842 posts)
NWCorona
(8,541 posts)boston bean
(36,491 posts)sfwriter
(3,032 posts)I think it's time to move on. Figure out what worked and do more of it. Figure out what didn't work and do less of it.
George II
(67,782 posts)
Magoo48
(5,346 posts)I'm still concerned about the collusion between the DNC and the mainstream media to defeat Senator Sanders in the democratic primary...
I saw the Media as very biased against HRC while giving Sanders and Trump a pass.
Gothmog
(154,470 posts)I wonder why the GOP ran many ads designed to help Sanders.http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/anti-sanders-attack-ad-isnt-quite-what-it-seems-be
At first blush, the move may seem encouraging to Sanders supporters. After all, if Republicans have gone from defending Sanders to attacking him, maybe it means GOP insiders are getting scared of the Vermont independent?
It’s a nice idea, but that’s not what’s going on here. In fact, far from an attack ad, this commercial, backed by a prominent Republican mega-donor, is the latest evidence of the GOP trying to help Sanders, not hurt him.
Indeed, in this case, it’s hardly even subtle. This commercial touts Sanders’ support for tuition-free college, single-payer health care, and higher taxes on the “super-rich.” It concludes that the senator is “too liberal,” which isn’t much of an insult in an ad directed towards liberal voters in Iowa.
In other words, we’re talking about a Republican mega-donor investing in a faux attack ad to help Sanders win because he sees Sanders as easy to beat in November.
It’s the mirror image of the tactic Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) used in the 2012 U.S. Senate race in Missouri, when she invested in ads intended to boost then-Rep. Todd Akin (R) in his primary race, with commercials touting his far-right positions and calling him “too conservative.” The point was to make Akin look better in the eyes of Missouri Republicans so he’d win the primary, making it easier for the incumbent Democrat to defeat him on Election Day.
This ad is just another example of the GOP trying to help Sanders become the nominee because the GOP knows that Sanders is the weaker candidate.
Response to Me. (Reply #27)
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SaschaHM
(2,897 posts)You can't claim that Bernie Sanders received "literally seconds" of media coverage as a fact. That's just bullshit. Hell, Jeff Weaver and Jane Sanders alone gave hours worth of interviews and segments for Bernie.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,544 posts)Me.
(35,454 posts)
SaschaHM
(2,897 posts)Hell, Jane Sanders practically had a cot in the lobby of MSNBC. I saw her on T.V. and heard about Bernie daily.
Not to mention Turner & Weaver
Gothmog
(154,470 posts)The DNC did not fix the nomination process That claim was false http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044
Start with this: The DNC, just like the Republican National Committee, is an impotent organization with very little power. It is composed of the chair and vice chair of the Democratic parties of each state, along with over 200 members elected by Democrats. What it does is fundraise, organize the Democratic National Convention and put together the party platform. It handles some organizational activity but tries to hold down its expenditures during the primaries; it has no authority to coordinate spending with any candidate until the party’s nominee is selected. This was why then-President Richard Nixon reacted with incredulity when he heard that some of his people had ordered a break-in at the DNC offices at the Watergate; he couldn’t figure out what information anyone would want out of such a toothless organization.....
According to a Western European intelligence source, Russian hackers, using a series of go-betweens, transmitted the DNC emails to WikiLeaks with the intent of having them released on the verge of the Democratic Convention in hopes of sowing chaos. And that’s what happened—just a couple of days before Democrats gathered in Philadelphia, the emails came out, and suddenly the media was loaded with stories about trauma in the party. Crews of Russian propagandists—working through an array of Twitter accounts and websites, started spreading the story that the DNC had stolen the election from Sanders. (An analysis provided to Newsweek by independent internet and computer specialists using a series of algorithms show that this kind of propaganda, using the same words, went from Russian disinformation sources to comment sections on more than 200 sites catering to liberals, conservatives, white supremacists, nutritionists and an amazing assortment of other interest groups.) The fact that the dates of the most controversial emails—May 3, May 4, May 5, May 9, May 16, May 17, May 18, May 21—were after it was impossible for Sanders to win was almost never mentioned, and was certainly ignored by the propagandists trying to sell the “primaries were rigged” narrative. (Yes, one of them said something inappropriate about his religious beliefs. So a guy inside the DNC was a jerk; that didn’t change the outcome.) Two other emails—one from April 24 and May 1—were statements of fact. In the first, responding to Sanders saying he would push for a contested convention (even though he would not have the delegates to do so), a DNC official wrote, “So much for a traditional presumptive nominee.” Yeah, no kidding. The second stated that Sanders didn’t know what the DNC’s job actually was—which he didn’t, apparently because he had not ever been a Democrat before his run.
Bottom line: The “scandalous” DNC emails were hacked by people working with the Kremlin, then misrepresented online by Russian propagandists to gullible fools who never checked the dates of the documents. And the media, which in the flurry of breathless stories about the emails would occasionally mention that they were all dated after any rational person knew the nomination was Clinton’s, fed into the misinformation.
In the real world, here is what happened: Clinton got 16.9 million votes in the primaries, compared with 13.2 million for Sanders. The rules were never changed to stop him, even though Sanders supporters started calling for them to be changed as his losses piled up.
I was a delegate to the national convention and I saw much of this silliness first hand. This election was winnable but the sanders campaign did a great deal of damage that is the subject of valid commentary
Magoo48
(5,346 posts)We may enjoy different flavors, but, to a certain extent, we're all drinking the cool aid. The Russian angle can, and has been, warped to fit just about everyone's pov at this juncture. Also, "a Western European intelligence source" is somewhat vague, and exactly whose commentary are you referencing as valid on the subject of internal campaign damage in the Sanders camp? I didn't need Russians or anyone else to school me on DNC bias; I saw it played out upon the national stage, and the same is true for media attention. This is how I saw it. Perhaps you saw it differently. And, that leads us back to my Reply Title.
Gothmog
(154,470 posts)voters. Sanders was a very weak candidate who made silly promises that he could never deliver on. Sanders misled his followers by promising that he could win the nomination and force the GOP to agree to unrealistic proposals based on a non-existent revolution. That revolution exists only in a fantasy world and has not been evident in the real world http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/articles/2016-04-15/bernie-sanders-bad-delegate-math-and-fantasy-revolution
There's a lot wrong with this formulation, as Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times this morning. It suggests a world view redolent of former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's toxic pandering to "real America." In Sanders' case, he's saying that red-state Democrats should be discounted because they're too conservative. But that's simply wrong, Krugman notes: Clinton isn't "riding a wave of support from old-fashioned Confederate-flag-waving Dixiecrats," she ran up the score by scoring lopsided victories among black voters ("let's be blunt, the descendants of slaves," he writes).
And the fact that the Deep South is conservative should be irrelevant, given that Sanders argues the principle obstacle to his super progressive agenda is campaign finance corruption rather than, say, ideology. Either he's leading a national movement, as he claims, or he's not.
Thus more broadly, his attempt to delegitimize a swath of voters lays bare a fundamental inconsistency of the Sanders campaign: One of his basic answers about how he's going to accomplish his aims – whether winning the Democratic nod, winning the general election or enacting his agenda – is the forthcoming revolution. His super-ambitious agenda will prove to be achievable substance rather than unicorns-and-rainbows fantasy, he said Thursday night, "when millions of people stand up, fight back and create a government that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent. That is what the political revolution is about. That is what this campaign is about."
And that's fine: If he can summon the revolution, then more power to him, literally and figuratively. But the Sanders revolution is breaking on the hard realities of math. The revolution will not be televised, the old song goes; but it can be fantasized – and it can be measured, in votes and delegates. And in every calculable respect, it's coming up short. That leaves Sanders to bank on an anti-democratic sleight of hand to secure the nomination. That's not a broad-based revolution; that's a palace coup.
Here's why: Despite Sanders' recent string of victories, there is no sense in which he is winning this race. As The Washington Post's Philip Bump wrote earlier this week:
In fact, by every possible democratic measure, Clinton is winning. She's winning in states (and territories) won, which isn't a meaningful margin of victory anyway. She's winning in the popular vote by 2.4 million votes – more than a third more than Sanders has in total. In part that's because Sanders is winning lower-turnout caucuses, but it's mostly because he's winning smaller states. And she's winning with both types of delegates.
Sanders' revolution was not real which is why he lost the race in the real world. I and many other Democratic voters never took Sanders seriously because I never accepted the premise of his so-called revolution. There was simply no way for Sanders to come close to delivering on his promises in the real world. Sanders never generated his promised revolution and could not deliver on his promises in the real world
The DNC had nothing to do with the fact that Sanders was soundly rejected by Jewish, African American and Latino voters. These voters were smart enough to reject the concept of a silly revolution.
Demsrule86
(71,021 posts)That ad also reminds me of one more pinprick Hillary had to endure. They actually ran the entire ad during a debate and then asked her what she thought of it! Of course, being Hillary, she smiled and said she thought it was great (and I agree; it's a good ad).
But have you ever, ever, ever seen a "debate" (the term gets used very loosely now) where the moderators actually played an entire campaign ad for one of the participants? EVER?????
TCJ70
(4,387 posts)
LisaM
(28,598 posts)I'll see if I can dig that up.
TCJ70
(4,387 posts)...from the Drake University town hall (which for some reason isn't on a schedule anywhere):
http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2016/01/26/cnn-iowa-democratic-presidential-town-hall-rush-transcript/
You can find the relevant portions of both their section by searching for "let's take a look at" (to find Clinton's ad play) and "same for" (to find Sander's ad play).
I still think it's a very odd technique at a "debate", though I guess this was the town hall format (which I don't like).
lapucelle
(19,532 posts)Who could have guessed that the BoBs would be so instrumental in turning Bedford Falls into Pottersville?
karynnj
(59,938 posts)general. On a local level, many Vermonters went to NH, a state that was completely not enthusiastic for Clinton in the primary. I know people who spoke of speaking to people they spoke to in the primaries and won for Bernie, who they persuaded to vote for Clinton in the general election. In some cases, it was not an easy sell and they leveraged the fact that they were Bernie supporters to win the votes for HRC. This was, of course, in addition to working to get out reliable Democratic voters who were with Clinton.
On the west coast, my youngest daughter, who caucused for Bernie, worked very hard to convince people of the many areas where HRC's positions - some over a life time - were closer to Bernie's and that Trump would work against everything Bernie was ever for. She won people over - many connected to her via the internet were in swing states.
I realize that for you this might sound upside down, but the fact is that Bernie and his supporters were essentially ambassadors trying to reach many people who - for the most part - had written Clinton off as someone they could support. As many noted, there was a large group of anti establishment people, very soured on the government and both parties. Bernie won a portion of these people in the primaries. They NEVER were people the Democratic party had as sure votes.
As to the ad, it was brilliant and as noted it was incredibly positive -- especially for babyboomers. It was a return to the optimism of the 1960s, a time period that politically was as dark as it is now. The incredible music of that time was not just the song track of our life, but something that pushed us to hope. I think HRC should have ended her campaign with ads like that and a few other Sanders ads.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,544 posts)Left to her own devices, perhaps, Hillary would have lost by a MUCH larger margin.
We'll, of course, never know how much Bernie contributed to the success of Hillary's campaign... so, don't pretend like you do.
Suffice it to say, Bennie worked tirelessly to elect Hillary... show some appreciation.
DonCoquixote
(13,711 posts)yet for some reason, actually voted trump. The good old "Reagan Democrats"/Independent votes who we have been wooing for years, only to see them vote GOP.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)we might have actually done better in that state, and ended up winning those 29 electoral college votes.
California_Republic
(1,826 posts)I liked it.
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)ALL of us, no nitpicking now. ALL of us. We NEED this stuff, no mocking/blaming allowed. Carrie Fisher's first husband sings a mean tune.
HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)Much like Obama in 2004
Demsrule86
(71,021 posts)Obama won the primary and the general election. And I will always believe that if Bernie had not run, we would have elected President Clinton. The lesson for me is this...never allow non-Democrats to run in a Democratic primary period.
sfwriter
(3,032 posts)2004, not 2008.
LisaM
(28,598 posts)Bernie's been around for a very long time - anyone who listened to Thom Hartmann is very familiar with him; he's been in office for 30 years.
He's also in his mid-70s. Obama was in his early 40s!
SaschaHM
(2,897 posts)I don't see Bernie's "arrival" in 2016 helping him out at all in 2020. Maybe with name recognition, but I'm not sure it has done anything to endear the millions more that voted for Hillary Clinton.
Demsrule86
(71,021 posts)Gothmog
(154,470 posts)liquid diamond
(1,917 posts)by Bernie's followers. I hope the DNC changes the rules before the next primary, preventing an outsider from dividing our ranks. Want to run on the democratic ticket? Be a fucking democrat. It's that simple.
Demsrule86
(71,021 posts)
CentralMass
(15,537 posts)If yiu want to keep losing, just bring back DWS.
Sanders didn't cause Hillary to lose this election. Her high negatives and own baggage did, and yes i did vote for her in the GE and also voted for her in the 2008 Primary.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)instead of someone like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who supports putting medical marijuana users in prison.
lapucelle
(19,532 posts)The first woman presidential nominee of a major party sees her candidacy sabotaged by a hostile foreign power and derailed by a politicized FBI, yet manages to win the popular vote by a very wide margin, but loses the electoral college largely due to voter suppression and bitter third party voters bent on vengeance because their male candidate wasn't given a nomination that he didn't win in a party of which he was only nominally a member.
History will not be kind to many of the players. Hillary is not one of them.
NWCorona
(8,541 posts)Demsrule86
(71,021 posts)Sorry...I never want to think about this shit show of a primary or election again...I want all new faces in 2020.
Cal33
(7,018 posts)Cal33
(7,018 posts)Demsrule86
(71,021 posts)I like her, but I want to win. I don't know if she will...I am not convinced that an anti-bank message will move votes. We need fresh ideas.
Cal33
(7,018 posts)Last edited Fri Dec 30, 2016, 07:16 PM - Edit history (1)
are chronologically younger than she is. The dirty tricks of the banking industry are
only one of the corrupt practices she is fighting against. Like Sanders, she is for ALL the
American people - not just the 1/10th of 1% of the wealthy. I hope she will run. Her
ideas have rarely been applied -- the corporations are doing their best to see that they
are not applied. As president she will have a better chance to see that they are.
O'Malley's pretty good, too.
Vinca
(51,033 posts)I grew up in. If I could have one wish it would be Bernie 20 years younger so we would see him run for POTUS again.
Bayard
(24,145 posts)More of this, please.
Tatiana
(14,167 posts)It motivated my daughter to vote for him in the primaries. She and her friends were huge Bernie supporters.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)The smidge of "diversity" seemed really forced the two seconds of some small city and hugging a black woman.
But let's pander to that white working class, eh?
think
(11,641 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)greatauntoftriplets
(176,840 posts)My America looks diverse.
NWCorona
(8,541 posts)While conveniently forgetting that a Hillary ad released the same week had even less minorities in it.
You can't please everyone.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)But yeah it was jarring how few dark skin people were in those crowds too.
NWCorona
(8,541 posts)I also feel you on the "real America" comment.
karynnj
(59,938 posts)- yes it is small, but it is diverse enough to have been a refugee resettlement center since the 1980s. One benefit - more interesting food with Nepalese, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Turkish, and even Somali refugees opening restaurants.
The fact is that NO set of places shown in a short ad could have represented everyone's view of America. Many of bernie's ads used parts of Vermont, a state he is proud to represent. Why not? It is a beautiful travel destination! My favorite ad other than this one, was a Bernie ad where a VT dairy farmer talked about Bernie. Here was an articulate, intelligent man from a very rural area of VT speaking of how Bernie would listen to people like him. These ads helped explain why a man that all the pundits considered to be as likely as Dennis Kuchinich to win won about 46% of the pledged delegates to the convention.
I wonder if HRC would have won if she hired the Sanders team that designed these ads. So many people speak of the private HRC being a warm, witty caring person. A team like this could have found a way to get that side out. Instead, the ads most remembered were several that skewered Trump. I thought they did an excellent job of that and, if asked before the election, I would have thought they were damning for Trump.
In retrospect, I think this was like Corzine vs Christie. NJ is a Democratic state, but Corzine had a very low favorable score. His campaign decided that the way to win was to run a very negative election. Looking back, while Clinton did have position papers on everything, in the debates and in the ads, she spent at least half her time defining Trump as unacceptable. This and the deplorable gaffe did not help her likability. I know that Comey, Russia etc did not help, but one statistical result from the exit polls showed that of people who disliked both, far over half voted for Trump.
Ads, like the Bernie ones, with their positive, uplifting, happy tone might have made people see HRC is a softer kinder light.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)not really inclusive enough for my tastes.
It was unfortunate the media only wanted to report scandals- and most of them phony shit- while giving Trumps obvious lunacy and racism a total pass.
I think they skipped conversations of policy because they'd have to find some of Trump's somehow to give him equal time and there really weren't anything but slogans there, somit sort of left HRC in a lurch. And the damn email nonsense. Even Dems here pretended they cared about them. Ugh.
karynnj
(59,938 posts)Much of the country is rural.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)It looked like it was harkenjng back to a time I'm glad is over. It just did not look at all like the diverse America I know. I'd feel out of place there.
karynnj
(59,938 posts)in a similar uplifting, UNIFYING, ad. YOU WERE LOOKING TO HATE IT because you were angry that Sanders was running. Not to mention, those places DO exist today -- just a few miles out of Bernie's city and in it. Sorry, that Burlington, which is a real city working hard to be a good, inclusive, well run community seems unreal to you. Incidentally, you do not have to drive far from Chappaqua to find farms and apple orchards. There are rural areas in NJ - very near the biggest cities.
What cities and what type of scene would be ok for you? There is NO reasonable reason to trash Burlington, Vermont. People who live here, love it!
I think a montage of cities - showing good times there - could just as easily be done. It's always been said that optimism wins.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)I didn't hate sanders campaign until the ugliness and lies spread about the Nevada cinvention and his inability to stop the nasty flinging of RW bullshit. Even when the race was statistically impossible he continued to bash Dems and was unable to
Tamp Down The blind hatred he helped stoke. That was egotistical, irresponsible and totally disrespectful of the base of Dem voters. I saw it deom friends, as well here and on TV everyday. Sickening lies.
I would have been happy with either until i saw how it was really about anger and not integrity at all for too many.
I felt the same way. It does not reflect my America in any way.
I have thought it was a good ad. I just did not find my family and our life reflected in it.
portlander23
(2,078 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Some jokes write themselves.
And my America looks much different. Much. It was clear his didn't. That's what seems to be resonating here.
CentralMass
(15,537 posts)estimated networth to be at least 28 million dollars while Bernie is about 206,000..
http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/hillary-clinton-vs-bernie-sanders/
Sticking with thise numbers, Hillary is wealthier than 99.9% of Americans. She is in the top 0.1%. Is her America where you live ?
NWCorona
(8,541 posts)I also don't think it's that clear.
Starry Messenger
(32,375 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)Interesting that they "randomly" chose those who would view ads but they selectively chose two ads of all the many out there throughout the summer and fall.
NeoConsSuck
(2,545 posts)A great ad for a great candidate (and person).
jalan48
(14,393 posts)
SMC22307
(8,090 posts)
renate
(13,776 posts)... that the ad is short on substance, long on feeling good. It's simple and uncomplicated.
And I'm not being snarky when I wonder whether ads like this might have appealed to the rural voters that supported Trump because he made them feel good. I just posted somewhere else that substance apparently did not matter to the voters who supposedly voted for him because they are desperate--they had the chance to make an informed decision about which candidate would benefit them more, but chose not to. Which is fine, I suppose. People are busy and people running farms or working three jobs are super busy, so many of them went for the person who simply made them feel good.
So maybe an ad like this is just what we need for the midterms or for 2020.
mvd
(65,453 posts)You posting it now calms me a little again. With Trump, we are further away from Bernie's America than ever, but in 2020 either a younger Bernie supporter or Bernie himself (if healthy) will try again. That gives me hope.
Yurovsky
(2,064 posts)it certainly resonated more than any other I saw this year from any candidate.
azmom
(5,208 posts)Love everything about it.
PearliePoo2
(7,768 posts)
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Arazi
(6,906 posts)Buckeye_Democrat
(15,042 posts)Great ad!
If it ever aired around here, then I missed it somehow.
