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politics and politicians See other politics and politicians Articles Title: Joe Biden’s Campaign Tried to Shut Down Rudy Giuliani Last Weekend and They Had a Very Good Reason
Source:
RedState
URL Source: https://www.redstate.com/streiff/20 ... iani-last-weekend-good-reason/
Published: Sep 30, 2019
Author: streiff
Post Date: 2019-09-30 14:57:46 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None Views: 1079
Comments: 5
Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani was just about everywhere. The fact that he was everywhere is a testimony to the lack of clout Joe Bidens campaign has with the media. Joseph R. Biden Jr.s presidential campaign contacted top television anchors and networks on Sunday to demand that Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trumps personal lawyer, be kept off the air because of what they called his misleading comments about the Biden family and Ukraine. We are writing today with grave concern that you continue to book Rudy Giuliani on your air to spread false, debunked conspiracy theories on behalf of Donald Trump, a pair of top Biden campaign advisers, Anita Dunn and Kate Bedingfield, wrote in the letter. Giving Rudy Giuliani valuable time on your air to push these lies in the first place is a disservice to your audience and a disservice to journalism, the advisers wrote. The note, which was obtained by The New York Times, was sent to executives and top political anchors at ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC, including star interviewers like Jake Tapper, Chuck Todd and Chris Wallace. |
This is what it looked like: Now there are two reasons why Bidens campaign would do this. The first is that they are playing multidimensional chess and they want to draw as much attention to Giuliani as possible because they know Giuliani is hurting Trump. That view has a lot of agreement from some people on the right. Not to take a shot at Steve or anything but just to illustrate the point of view that Giuliani was harmful to Trump. Personally, I think this is wrong. The Democrats in the House have essentially locked themselves into voting to impeach President Trump. Despite Jeff Flake publicly masturbating to the idea of 35 GOP senators voting to convict Trump, that isnt going to happen. The more important fact is that the Democrats have two choices: fight the 2020 presidential campaign on the subject of impeachment or risk alienating their most loyal voters. There is zero evidence that impeaching Trump is a political winner and a lot to indicate it is a loser. More to the point, the alleged scandal that has generated the current hair-on-fire hysteria is difficult to understand. Where does it say that a President cant tell a foreign country to investigate misconduct as a condition of getting foreign aid? Was a law passed since 2016 that says a political campaign cant use foreign actors to gather oppo on their electoral opposition? Is there a law that says the son of a Democrat presidential candidate CANT be investigated for fairly blatant involvement in influence peddling in another country? When did we pass that law? What is easy to understand is the underlying allegation. You have a monumentally undisciplined son of a prominent US politiciana guy who was tossed out of the Navy Reserve for cocaine use and whose ex-wife complained of his blowing the family budget on blow and hookerslanding a $50,000/month gig and, when the locals get onto him, his Daddy threatens to pull the plug on $1 billion in aid unless they fire the prosecutor and make it all go away. And it does. I guarantee you that every single American who doesnt work for The Bulwark and even many of those who work for National Review understands that narrative without any kind of a Vox.com explainer. What Giuliani did was a masterclass in what Obama staffer David Plouffe called stray voltage: This is the White House theory of Stray Voltage. It is the brainchild of former White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe, whose methods loom large long after his departure. The theory goes like this: Controversy sparks attention, attention provokes conversation, and conversation embeds previously unknown or marginalized ideas in the public consciousness. This happens, Plouffe theorizes, even whenand sometimes especially whenthe White House appears defensive, besieged, or off-guard. I first discovered and wrote about this in July of 2012.
As a theory, stray voltage exists in a kind of strategic void. It cant be dismissed or embraced as workable because creating controversy for the sake of controversy is, well, achievable. Like getting soup from the White House mess. Its also self-reinforcing and internally didactic. Everyone looks around and says, See. Theres controversy. Its working. But its also revealing when the emphasis has shifted to a pen and phone strategy that elevates executive action over messy legislative haggling. The pen-and-phone approach has become a low-level White House fetish, with efforts to sidestep Congress and place Obama at the center of the action all-consuming. |
Giuliani said a lot of things over the weekend. If you dont like Trump youre probably shaking your head in amazement. But if you arent suffering from Stage 5 TDS you heard a lot about Bidens corruption. Some of it may even be true but what hasnt happened is any of it being investigated by law enforcement. And because of that lack of investigation and because of the ease of understanding of the narrative, the Biden campaign realized that this was going to play into the hands of Republicans, but, more importantly his Democrat opponents are going to start pushing these stories as well. And absent and investigation, no one is going to pay any attention to the people running around screaming that this or that has been debunked. What is more, is that nearly all of Giulianis claims are going to be discussed. Some of those claims will fall away. Some will stick like epoxy to the Biden campaign. And at the center of it all is Donald Trump who can tweet the claims to his hearts content and, because he didnt make them, never has to justify a single one of them. Biden knows this. His campaign knows this. His donors know this. And thats why they didnt want Giuliani roaming the networks yesterday. |
Poster Comment: I'm not certain that Giuliani is using Plouffe's Stray Voltage media strategy here but it does go a long way toward explaining his behavior and remarks the last few years.
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