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Notes -
In the wake of her
weaknessincredible historic strength among young men, Kamala has a new ad out on IG and SC, "Don't Get Popped":https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1847720298335948932
For those who don't want to view it, I'll transcribe the ad and set the scene: a speed dating scenario where women rate the man.
On the face of it, this seems entirely tone-deaf. The theory seems to be "vote Democratic, or we'll Lysistrata you" but I can't imagine a single man who would react in the way the campaign would want them to. Most would just roll their eyes, and, if you're a young man frustrated with dating, it would probably provoke outright hostility. So you might write it off as a clueless campaign hiring a couple of rich white women and gay men trying to imagine a way to make young men vote Harris and failing, just another example of the empathetic gap between who the campaign gets ideological inspiration from and the voters she needs to win.
The surprising bit is that the Harris campaign isn't targeting men with this but women, as indicated by ad targeting spend. My theory here is that Kamala is not offering a threat here, but selling a power fantasy. If you're a woman, vote for Harris, and you'll have a parade of men approaching you, who you can reject at will.
Lots of liberal men would react the way the campaign wants them to.
The ad is targeted at men who already support Kamala. The goal is to remind them to go out and vote. It's not supposed to win new converts to the cause.
A lot of advertising works that way. McDonald's commercials aren't designed to get vegans to eat at McDonald's. They're designed to get people who already like McDonald's to think "oh hey, I should get McDonald's for lunch today".
EDIT: I missed the part about the ad spending being targeted at women. That's utterly bizarre and I don't know what the play is there. I watched the ad itself, it says "Don't get popped." at the end. The man is the one who got popped. Men are at risk of being popped, not women. There is no possible coherent way for this ad to be targeted at women.
Right. I note that they don't ask the man who he's going to vote for - they ask whether he's going to vote. They ask him if he "has a plan" to vote (which sounds weird to me, because you shouldn't need a plan beyond "rock up to a polling place", but maybe it's playing on ideas about voter suppression?). It's turning out the base, not persuading unsure voters.
You need a plan to vote if you're an hourly worker who needs to put in for time off in order to get to a polling place at a time when you can vote. Or wake up early. Or go immediately to get in line after you get off work.
That makes sense in the US context - I'm Australian, so here voting is always on Saturday and legally compulsory, so if you work on Saturday, it is very likely that your workplace will make arrangements for everybody to go and vote. Or failing that, early voting is relatively easy here. I understand that voting is usually more of a hassle in America?
Depends on your state--it's all very decentralized in the US. I received an absentee ballot, and the only real difficult part was getting through the annoyance at having to vote for over a dozen different offices and two dozen different propositions.
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