OH-Sen 2022: So you’re telling me there’s a chance

[Adam Griffin]

As relevant as ever:

Triage Ohio.

The rest are still winnable by Democrats.

[Adam Griffin]

The only good thing Jimmy Dore ever did was those Haley Barbour impersonator videos [1] [2]. Beyond that, he is a natural elitist masquerading as an everyday person (and would be perceived by most that he'd been preaching to as a natural elitist to boot).

[Adam Griffin]

Loving that (intentionally or not) Ryan's team manages to pull out the anti-semitism card to appeal to "median Ohio independent voter":

[Adam Griffin]

Loving that (intentionally or not) Ryan's team manages to pull out the anti-semitism card to appeal to "median Ohio independent voter":

?

(((top of Vance's head)))

[Adam Griffin]

Imagine actually believing there is anything anti-Semitic about Ryan using that picture

If you think there isn't an entire team whose job description includes collecting images that can be "unflattering" - both consciously and sub-consciously - then guess again. The brain's image processing centers are powerful: a split-second glance across such an image when scrolling through social media or elsewhere is going to tickle a part of certain people's brains that intrinsically invokes the word "Jew" on some level. I'm sure they have many others to invoke other descriptors when targeting on-the-fence voters as well.

I did an experiment with this image, trying to see where and if it showed up in Google images (incognito/neutral search). I couldn't find it (without scrolling forever, at least) with a simple "J.D. Vance" query. When I looked for it as "J.D. Vance TPUSA", I still had to scroll through several dozen images to find it - and not before finding several equally unflattering images (based on posture, facial expression, etc) at the same event. Besides that, there are (I'm sure) hundreds of other "negative" images of Vance from all over that could have been chosen in lieu of that one that would have served any other universally-acknowledged purpose!

No, I definitely believe that this image for this occasion was chosen purposefully from a portfolio of "questionable" images already on file with the campaign, many of which exist to "other" Vance in multiple different ways. And if you really want to get upset with me, then let me make it clear that I endorse such actions, which are both smart and invaluable when used for a wide variety of negative psychological messaging tactics (particularly for a Democratic campaign facing an uphill battle in a Republican state). GOP campaigns have been doing such en masse for ages, and who knows the cumulative impact it has had in their benefit (when true plausible deniability exists & it doesn't overtly cross the line, anyway).

[Adam Griffin]

Reach or not, it is their most favored social media image of the entire campaign. Again, plenty of unflattering Vance images out there - just Google him!

Every time the Ryan campaign makes a pitch online where poll numbers are cited, that is the image used. In fact, it was the first social media image the campaign posted on Twitter and their second overall tweet on the campaign account back in March. Just FYI.

[Adam Griffin]

As of July, Ryan had $3m more cash-on-hand than Vance. Since then, Ryan raised an additional $10m net over Vance. Of course, it seems Vance didn't go live with ads until very recently & Ryan has probably had an extremely high burn rate (explains why their campaign didn't release cash-on-hand figures). Still, I imagine Ryan has several million more on-hand than Vance at this point. We'll see soon enough, I guess.