Welcome to 2023. Without the midterms to occupy the mind and feed the bank account, what’s a political professional to do? For one thing, go down-ballot. If you do, I suspect you’ll have a lot of company this year.
Off-Off Year Elections Can Keep the Motor Running
A couple of decades ago, American politics didn’t look like it does now. Sure, we had party committees, PACs and consultants, but most of the vast array of organizations and companies that focus on elections today were still a long way from their birth. Nowadays, the political machine includes tech companies, data vendors, ad platforms, ad buyers, creative agencies and independent expenditure orgs aplenty, plus the staff and consultants who’ve grown up professionally trying to run them all.
But for some, 2023 could be the first lean year in a while. Trump cranked up political energy and political donations in this country while he was in office, with a lingering effect through last year’s “most important election in our lives” midterms. Only Virginia, New Jersey and Kentucky will elect state legislators time around, though, and only a handful of judges and other statewide candidates will be on the ballot anywhere. Vendors and consultancies grown fat on national campaign money will largely have to look elsewhere, at least until congressional, gubernatorial and presidential primary races start rolling.
In fact, if groups want to hold on to staff and keep their donors involved, they may have to turn to state-level political fights, from state legislatures to ballot initiatives, whether they’d planned to or not. Likewise for the vast turnout, organizing and messaging machine that independent groups have created over the past few years. After all, we’ve built this car and we’re damn sure going to drive it somewhere. And if we don’t take it for a spin regularly, the battery will run down and the tires may rot, as our Russian friends found out north of Kyiv last year.
At some level, a political ecosystem this robust and varied is going to look for ways to be useful. Virginia’s already a crowded environment and will remain so, but I’ll predict that New Jersey and Kentucky legislative races see much more attention than usual for an off-off year, as will ballot initiatives everywhere. In part, that’ll be because of the scare NJ Republicans gave Democrats two years ago, plus the vote in Kentucky last year in favor of abortion rights.
But the political machine will also find ways to put itself to work, for its own survival and for the causes its various components believe in. Pro tip: helping the machine spend its money might not be a bad idea.
From a Metaphorical Device to a Digital One
If one machine will help consultants this year, could another one hurt them? I’m thinking about ChatGPT, the new AI-driven chatbot that’ll churn out just about any piece of text one could ask for, from poetry to your writing homework. The system has “learned” from a vast selection of human writing, and some people have naturally worried about our possible replacement by machines of our own creation. Along with call-center workers, could it put email and ad copywriters out of business?
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords, so I created an Open AI account and asked ChatGPT to write some fundraising emails and Facebook posts. I’ll highlight two sample emails, the first in response to the query: “Please write a fundraising email for an organization that wants to cut taxes for the wealthy.” Here’s what it came back with:
We are an organization dedicated to advocating for lower taxes on the wealthy. We believe that high taxes stifle economic growth and prevent people from achieving their full potential.
That’s why we are working tirelessly to lower taxes on the wealthy, so that they can invest in their businesses, create jobs, and drive economic growth. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support to spread the word and raise the funds necessary to achieve our goals.
Please consider making a donation to our organization today and help us make a difference. Together, we can create a brighter, more prosperous future for all.
Thank you for your support.
Not exactly the most subtle of approaches. That first sentence doesn’t beat around the proverbial bush, and the last line brings back high school memories of Bartles & James. But you could crib from the rest of the message here and there, at least if you were completely stuck for ideas and perhaps drunk. Let’s look at another example, this one for an organization that advocates lowering taxes for everyone:
We are an organization dedicated to advocating for lower tax rates for all taxpayers. We believe that high taxes place an undue burden on hardworking Americans and prevent them from achieving their financial goals.
That’s why we are working tirelessly to lower tax rates for all taxpayers, so that they can keep more of their hard-earned money and use it to invest in their future. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support to spread the word and raise the funds necessary to achieve our goals.
Please consider making a donation to our organization today and help us make a difference. Together, we can create a brighter, more prosperous future for all.
Again, not the most scintillating of prose, and probably even less effective an A/B variant than the first one. But the bot did come up with somewhat different messaging points, though packaged with the same formulaic ask as in the first. Right about the level of a brand-new staffer’s first draft, I’d say.
ChatGPT doesn’t seem likely to put writers out of business any time soon, but what about its successors? I’d suggest that automation’s biggest promise lies in performing repetitive tasks more efficiently, particularly when it comes to data management and analysis, but also things like image/video processing.
Creative directors’ jobs seem safe for now, particularly if they involve AI-created fake-video disinformation. THAT’S got a REAL future.
Colin Delany is founder and editor of the award-winning website Epolitics.com, author of “How to Use the Internet to Change the World – and Win Elections,” a twenty-six-year veteran of online politics and a perpetual skeptic. See something interesting? Send him a pitch at cpd@epolitics.com.
