The New (Old) Ground Game

Pollsters, consultants, and data-crunchers: if you want to find the biggest losers from last night, go look in the mirror.

The “ground game” is not what you thought it was.

Data is not king. Polls do not win elections. Numbers do not deliver the White House. For better or worse, we are back to a style of campaigning that predates all of that.

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Author: David Wolf

An adviser to corporations and organizations on strategy, communications, and public affairs, David Wolf has been working and living in Beijing since 1995, and now divides his time between China and California. He also serves as a policy and industry analyst focused on innovative and creative industries, a futurist, and an amateur historian. View all posts by David Wolf

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required) (Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Google+ account. ( Log Out / Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Alt-Right & Antifa - A Plague on Both Their Houses August 18, 2017
Alt-Right & Antifa – A Plague on Both Their Houses Fighting Nazis is a good thing, but fighting Nazis doesn’t necessarily make you or your cause good. By my lights this is simply an obvious fact. Source: Alt-Right & Antifa — Both Bad Groups & Ideology | National Review View On WordPress
Right vs. Left in Charlottesville Let’s get something out of... August 17, 2017
Right vs. Left in Charlottesville Let’s get something out of the way: Charlottesville is not about Confederate statues or Robert E. Lee or the Civil War or American history.
Silicon Valley's Political Culture of Fear August 16, 2017
Silicon Valley’s Political Culture of Fear Blind, an anonymous chat app, surveyed over 4,000 employees of Silicon Valley companies in the wake of Damore’s firing to see where they stood on it. Fifty-six percent of the Google employees who participated in the survey oppose Damore’s firing. True, this survey was voluntary, and is therefore scientifically meani […]
Airbnb's Pandora's Box August 15, 2017
Airbnb’s Pandora’s BoxFor the record, I believe Airbnb has the right to decide who gets to use their service. I would never open my home or property as an Airbnb place precisely because there are all kinds of people I would not want staying in my home (like, for example, neo-Nazis, but also no doubt some people who would pass muster with Airbnb corporate). T […]
The Upside to the Chaos at 1600 July 31, 2017
The Upside to the Chaos at 1600 An unnoticed reason for cheerfulness is that in one, if only one, particular, Trump is something the nation did not know it needed — a feeble president whose manner can cure the nation’s excessive fixation with the presidency. Source: Donald Trump’s Diminishing of the Presidency Is Good | National Review Are we reaching the po […]
What is the West? Broadly speaking, what we call the West are... July 9, 2017
What is the West? Broadly speaking, what we call the West are the countries and peoples formed by the meeting of Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Hebrew religion.
Dances with Soviets May 24, 2017
The president was boasting of the “great intel” he receives when he discussed intelligence provided by a U.S. partner. Source: Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador – The Washington Post I cannot help but think about the Gipper at moments like this. Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave with such speed that […]
Salon and the Political Ad Hominem May 23, 2017
Salon and the Political Ad Hominem Sure, Mike Rogers and Trey Gowdy are low-grade partisan hacks. But John Cornyn stands out for sheer shamelessness Source: Who will be the next FBI director? Trump has many bad choices, but Sen. John Cornyn stands out as the worst – Salon.com I’m (almost) nobody’s idea of a liberal,* but I recognize that no political ethos h […]
This is No Longer about Trump, or Congress May 22, 2017
This is No Longer about Trump, or Congress I believe that many of them are deeply conflicted. That in the leather chairs of Capitol Hill at the end of each of these long Spring days, there is no shortage of Republican legislators sitting alone in their offices or committee rooms, drinking scotch, and cogitating on their futures. I suspect that there may be a […]
The (Bad) Liar in the White House May 15, 2017
The (Bad) Liar in the White HouseMaybe the White House is telling the truth here, but I don’t believe it. How can anybody believe it?The thing to keep in mind is that this Dumpster fire is entirely of Trump’s own making. Maybe Comey deserved to be fired. If so, you don’t fire him in the middle of this Russia investigation, you don’t fire him in a dirty way g […]