SocraticGadfly: Dear #WendyDavis and Texas Democrats: It's called "newspapers"

July 21, 2014

Dear #WendyDavis and Texas Democrats: It's called "newspapers"

So far, the general election season seems to be emulating the primary season in Texas — Texas Democratic candidates, at least the top statewide ones, have no clue as to what a community newspaper is, whereas Republicans do that quite well.

I get inundated with Abbott emails, while getting a moderate amount from The Stinking Anglo Formerly Known as Danny Goeb™, a modest amount from John Cornyn and a few from others.

From Democrats? Nada? Nothing from Wendy Davis, Leticia Van de Putte, David Alameel.

Look, it ain't hard to get a directory of newspapers that are members of the Texas Press Association and said newspapers' contact email addresses. I know that most community newspapers are in rural, even more reddish areas, but some are in suburban ring counties and exurban second ring counties of the major purple and blue metro areas.

And, Davis has semi-regularly "tacked right" during the campaign so far, so I would think she'd really want to chase votes out in the hinterlands.

Besides, counties aren't like U.S. states in presidential elections; there's no electoral college.

I was a copy editor at a seven-day daily during the 2010 and 2012 elections, so I would have been out of the loop, but I don't recall Dems doing much with email blasts in 2006 or 2008, either.

And, it wouldn't cost that much, or take that much work, to do mass-blast emails to rural newspapers. Or, in today's day and age, find their Facebook pages.

2 comments:

PDiddie said...

Dude, I get ten e-mails a day from her, the Lone Star Project, BGTX, and a few others (sort of like her campaign finance reporting).

I get your point about her needing to include some rural and exurban media in the mix, however. Especially when many of her messages contain excerpts and references to what the urban media are writing and broadcasting.

Gadfly said...

Oh, I get personal emails from her, too, along with LSP, BGTX, and national Democratic alphabet soup, and, unlike you, I don't even have a history of party activism, or even party donations!

So, again, why aren't you targeting at least selected smaller media, Wendy Davis?