Speaking of “precious broadcast time”—Nikki Haley had a zillion hours of it.
Every talk show on every network had her on constantly.
It did nothing for her.
Why?
1. The ratings really do suck. Not that many people watch the shows.
2. She was a challenger and true challengers have to play by different rules. It took her forever just to get name recognition. In that mode you try to stay positive. However DeSantis, V and others saw her as a threat and started running adds and other attacks on her. That put her on defense right out of the blocks. In one debate she got very angry at V—lost control of the situation.
3. By the time she finally found her message (anti Trump hate once everybody else had dropped out) she was stuck with it—she had no positive message at all—at least not one that anyone heard—all the headlines were anti-Trump hate.
4. That angered the Republican grass roots for obvious reasons—and she was done. All the TV time in the world and $100 million of advertising could not save her.
Bottom line: The message is the most critical. President Trump is well known and everybody has an opinion about him. All he needs to do is stay on message. He does not need standard TV talk shows or debates—and they probably are a net negative to the extent they distract him and get him off message.
Good post. The message is the most critical!
Word is Biden will start to goad Trump into nasty responses which he is well known for. Mean tweets helped Biden immensely. People tire quickly from negativity. I hope Trump hires a comedy team to mock Biden instead of winging it.
My advice. “Act like you’ve been there before!”