Crockettship ready for launch — will Texans board?
An exploration of how politicians, like Rep. Jasmine Crockett, took their messages to the masses this week
I remain committed to being honest with all of you and clear about any influences or biases that may affect my work. So, let me address this first:
I like to think of myself as fairly unfazed as far as encountering public figures goes. I spent the five minutes leading up to interviewing Biden in 2024 calming the nerves of my wonderful camera op — a good piece of my lore. On a couple of occasions I’ve been betrayed by excitement and blacked out. One of those times was running into perennial candidate from Texas, Beto O’Rourke, in the security line at Reagan National Airport in 2018.1
23-year-old me was deadly serious about Beto. Both times. At that age, you believe breaking enough rules, bucking enough conventional wisdom, and sticking it to enough old men can deliver the future sooner than it’s scheduled to arrive. Just like everything else, that lesson is bigger in Texas.
So, dark I went on the idea of a blue Texas. Rep. Jasmine Crockett is flying past the caution tape and warning signs to try to flip that still-calcified switch back on. The job requires a unique person, check, with a unique approach, question mark.
She’s got the national profile. She’s got the fundraising juice. She’s got one of the most clearly established, yet controversial brands in all of politics. First impressions are hard when nobody knows you. I’d argue they’re harder when everybody does. That’s why her media rollout was of supreme interest to me. And I gotta say, reader, I am … confused.
The announcement video — well, maybe it’s more of a trailer — is a one-shot closeup of Crockett on a plain background featuring nothing but 44 seconds of Trump insulting her. MAGA creators had an absolute field day with it, saying she’s released an opposition ad on herself. As I was writing this, she dropped her second ad-spot which included lines like:
“I’m not running just to run, this is about winning.”
“I’m done with politics as usual, with going along to get along.”
“The gloves have been off, I’m jumping into the ring.”
Motivational cat poster sloganry is a part of any campaign, but is it what people vote for? Phrases they’d like on their morning coffee mug? There are a lot of liberals who move this way, but Crockett already has the handful of them who live in Texas in the bag. How will her bare-knuckle boxing sway the 1.6M voters she’d need to pick up to overcome Harris’ loss?
Contrast that first impression with her primary opponent, relative nobody, James Talarico’s. His three minute announcement video opens with this:
“The biggest divide in our country is not left versus right, it’s top versus bottom. Billionaires want us looking left and right at each other so that we’re not looking up at them. The people at the top work so hard to keep us angry and divided because our unity is a threat to their wealth and their power. So their social media algorithms and their cable news networks tear us apart. They divide us by party, by race, by gender, by religion, so that we don’t notice that they’re defunding our schools, gutting our healthcare, and cutting taxes for themselves and their rich friends. It is the oldest strategy in the world, divide and conquer. But we will not be conquered.”
The primary between these two is in just under three months. There is literally no time to waste raising voter awareness of how hated you are. Constituents are impatiently waiting to hear what you’ll do for them, their kids, their wallets, their future. But go right ahead, post an AI rendering of you as a baby going after Trump (also a baby). I’m sure it’ll have the same effect.
VPEEZ IN THE TRAP
I feel like I still don’t have a good sense of how VP JD fills his days — and I’m saying that as someone who is, more or less, employed to have a sense of that. But I think that’s really more about his job description than mine. All this to say, we both spent A LOT of time online this week. Only his internetscapades unleashed the Barbz.
Intro: Photo goes viral of “Vance” “yelling” at his “wife” at a “restaurant.” It had immediate red flags to me, the most obvious of which JD pointed out himself in the only time he’s made me laugh on social media: “I always wear an undershirt when I go out in public to have a fight loudly with my wife.”
I’ve seen him wear quarter zips and a hoodie (once), but don’t recall ever seeing him in a t-shirt ever. If that’s not evidentiary enough, the photo’s origins being a random slop-posting Facebook account should do the trick.
Verse 1: Pull up in the monster, automobile gangster — here comes Nicki Minaj who has recently been posted up with Trump’s inner circle.2 A lot of her fans (the Barbz) were speculating that she’s trying to secure a pardon for her husband … but based on her Twitter activity, I think she’s just found a new bestie in the unlikeliest of places.
She tweeted and deleted “Vance > rants” to which the VP replied “Nicki > Cardi”
