We're not one-at-a-timin' here we're mass communicatin'

Retail politics is dead: Nobody goes outside to do any old timey campaigning anymore. Everything is all about buying a bunch of Facebook ads now.

Unless it isn't:  Turns out, John Bel Edwards is going around to all these churches and festivals and doing old timey campaing stuff for months and months.

What's funny about that first article is, despite its premise, there's plenty of reporting in there about candidates doing the regular backslapping with the folks on the festival circuit. But we're told they're doing it less than they used to and instead they, especially the Republicans, are relying more on TV ads and social media than they had in the past.

It's easy to make the mistake that this is all a natural consequence of advancing communications technology.  But I think that needs to be interrogated a bit further.  Yes, social media has changed the delivery system, but the actual leap in emphasis from in-person campaigning to electronic mass propaganda arrived a couple generations ago with the advent of TV and radio.  Pop culture critics have famously been lamenting its effect on politics since at least the Nixon/Kennedy debates.  And, while it is true that internet enabled media reaches more people than it did, say, a decade ago, a lot of people were online back then too.   (This stupid stupid Yellow Blog has been in publication since 2003!) We haven't suddenly woken up to a new era in political media this year.  Something else is going on.

A host of political action committees for various interests are pouring millions of dollars into the state to sway the outcome. Contributions given directly to candidates are limited by law. But Super PACs and political foundations are allowed to raise unlimited sums of money. Though the Super PACs can't coordinate directly with the campaigns, they do advocate, often harshly, on behalf of their favored candidates' causes and against those of their opponents.

Edwards, who is seeking re-election, faces two Republicans – U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham, of Alto, and Baton Rouge millionaire contractor Eddie Rispone – in the Oct. 12 open primary. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the ballots, the top two vote-getters will meet again in a November runoff.

Two major players in the fall campaigns are the Republican Governors Association, through its Right Direction PAC, and the Democratic Governors Association, which has already funneled at least half a million dollars into a Super PAC affiliated with the incumbent governor.

Some of the organizations involved, often called "dark money groups," are not required to disclose their donors — and don't — making it unclear who exactly is paying to influence the election.

This isn't the first Louisiana Governor's race of the post-Citizen's United era.  But this year's contest does seem to be attracting more "dark money" than ever before.  The article referenced above is from qualifying week. It names some PACs that were around last time along with a couple of newer ones. Since then we've learned about a few more. It doesn't give us any numbers on Lane Grigsby's Truth In Politics PAC. We do know Lane is close with Eddie Rispone, though.  Anyway, it's not really how much money is aligned with each candidate we're concerned with right now but rather how it tends to get deployed.

PAC money doesn't help get your candidate out among the folks as easily as it gets a message out over the wires. Which is why it feels to some as though the campaigns have moved off of the fairgrounds and onto Facebook. Which is why when the Republicans "brought out the big guns" a lot of the fire came in the form of tweets from the President and an appearance from his son at an event designed to be amplified over Facebook. Trump Sr. will also appear at a rally on Friday. But, again, even that is really intended for a TV and social media audience.

But, sometimes, as the second story linked at the top of this post indicates, that is not always the case. There we find John Bel the Democratic Governor out and about doing the one-at-a-time business.

For months, just as he did four years ago, Edwards has been making stops throughout Louisiana that are aimed specifically at black voters. In late July, he visited four black churches over two days in Lafayette and attended a banquet celebrating Lloyd Joiner Jr.’s 40th year as the pastor at Progressive Baptist Church also in Lafayette.

“People respected the fact that he was engaged,” said state Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, D-Lafayette, who accompanied him at some of the stops.

On Aug. 11, Edwards visited True Vine Baptist Church in Alexandria, accompanied by Mayor Hall, and then three other black churches.

On Aug. 18, Edwards visited four black churches in Monroe accompanied by state Rep. Katrina Jackson, D-Monroe.

On Aug. 31, he and state Rep. Dustin Miller, D-Opelousas, played the rub-board alongside Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas at the Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival before a large African-American crowd.

Accompanied by state Rep. Kenny Cox, D-Mansfield, Edwards stopped in Natchitoches on Sept. 12 to speak to 25-30 African-American ministers and to a predominately black crowd at the Ben D. Johnson Educational Center.

Two days earlier, he attended a dinner for the NAACP’s Shreveport chapter.

On Sept. 29, Edwards attended Gloryland Baptist Church accompanied by East Baton Rouge Metro Councilwoman Erika Green.

Along the way, Edwards has stopped at popular black-owned restaurants – Laura’s 2 Next Generation in Lafayette, the Legacy Café in Natchitoches, Pamela’s Bayou in a Bowl in Alexandria and Dooky Chase’s in New Orleans.

Meanwhile Lane Grigsby the Republican megadonor is trying to move the same constituency but using a different tactic.

Aside from Truth in Politics’ ad, Grigsby is also looking for other ways to stop Edwards from winning reelection. Last month, he gave $100,000 to a political organization called Movement for Change that is running ads on a host of African American radio stations throughout the state in support of Omar Dantzler, the only black candidate in the race. Dantzler, of Hammond, is also the only other Democrat in the race besides Edwards, though he is far less known and is polling in the low single digits.

One is out pressing flesh to try and counter what the other can do by just pressing a button. Wonder which will be enough? Watch John Bel's margin of 50% vs Dantzler's numbers on Saturday to find out.