The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Power Of And The Money Behind Political Advertising - The Race Next Door (#14) With Bruce Anderson

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

We've got a week of specials for you in this the final week of the US election. This one focuses on the race to impact voter's minds through advertising. Joining Bruce and me special guest Perry Tsergas the president and CEO of Ottawa based Spark Advocacy.

and here we are again with the uh race next door the podcast within a podcast you know part of what did i say the other day the worldwide network of the bridge daily well you know i was joking i did get a few notes from some of you saying, really? It's a worldwide network? Well, we are actually listened to in a couple of places around the world. But here's the important news. Coming up this week, I'd say probably tomorrow or Wednesday, we're going to hit 1 million downloads since we started the bridge. That's a big number. That's very impressive. And the race next door in many ways has kind of pushed us over the edge.

It's done really well. And you are all clearly enjoying the race next door. We've got a special one today because we want to focus on this day on the television ads that we've been witnessing. And partly the reason we're doing that is because, well, one, we have a great guest, but two, remember last week Jerry Butts told us that his work with the Eurasia Group out of New York, has shown that the expenditures this year on just television campaigns for the various candidates, not just presidential, but right through the tickets, is, what was it, Bruce, what did he say? Around $7 billion is being spent. I mean, it's like a humongous number, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on, mainly on the TV campaign.

So we're going to try and break it down. We've got some examples. We're going to talk about it a little bit, but Bruce, why don't you, before I introduce our special guest, why don't you give me your kind of sense in general about the role that TV campaigning does the ad campaigns do in campaigns and this one, especially. Yeah, I think that, uh, for as long as I can remember the gold standard in election campaigns, especially in the United States, Peter has been, if you had a dollar, spend it on a TV ad. And now I just want to kind of check our lexicon here because I think we're talking about advertisements now, not TV so much, because really what's going on in the last several years is that blend of digital versus TV has been increasing substantially over time. I think it's because the campaigns know that those ads do two things for them, which TV ads aren't as good at doing. One is it allows them to really

target a message at a specific subgroup in the population that they're concerned with in a way that a kind of a broadcast network or even a cable network can't quite do. And second, maybe this is even more important these days. When people see an ad on a website or on their mobile device, they can click on it, they can give money, they can give some response, they can sign up for some other kind of campaign activity. So the engagement levels with digital ads are off the chart. Now, I do think the numbers that you quoted, Peter, were for campaign spending overall. I was looking this morning.

You're right. You're right. I was right. This is the old TV guy in me, right? Like, I think everything's still TV. I mean, I get it. I understand. We're talking everything.

Rolling it all. So here are some numbers to anchor our conversation. And I thought that they were really, these were as of, I think, a couple of weeks ago. So they're probably pretty good still. $1 billion has been spent by the campaigns on paid advertising in this cycle. $600 million of the $1 billion has been spent by the Biden campaign, $400 by the Trump campaign. Now, here's the most interesting thing from my standpoint. Nine out of every $10 of that $1 billion sum has been spent in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, in five states, nine out of every $10. That's just a massive amount

of ordinance, advertising ordinance directed at a really small number of people, relatively speaking. I took a look at the math for Wisconsin, for example, and I think $101 million has been spent there. And 2.7 million people voted in the last presidential race in Wisconsin. So that gives you an idea. I think they're spending about $30 a person on advertising in Wisconsin. Perry has worked in federal campaigns more recently. Perry, our guest that you're about to introduce, more recently than I have. But to put that in some kind of context,

you could spend about a dollar a voter in Canadian election campaigns for everything, including advertising. And these presidential campaigns are spending about 30 a voter in Wisconsin alone. So massive amounts of money put into advertising this year, and we can only expect that that number will go up in Wisconsin alone. So massive amounts of money put into advertising this year. And we can only expect that that number will go up in the future. And we're obviously in the wrong business. We should be advertising business in Wisconsin and stuff.

No, exactly. That's, uh, so let me tell you a little bit about more about Perry other than just his first name. Okay. So Perry Sergis is, uh, as Bruce says, he's been involved on the active political side and now he runs a company, very successful company. He's president and CEO of an advertising firm that's based in Ottawa called Spark Advocacy. And it, you know, I guess it specializes in, uh, in issue and reputation work. And really, issues and reputations are, in this case,

what this is all about in terms of the presidential campaign in the United States. So, Perry, as I said, first of all, welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Thank you. As I said earlier, we've got some examples. But before I get to those, just in general terms, the way Bruce kind of set the scene there, do you want to add anything to that in terms of the overall picture that we're going to try and talk about here? Yeah.

So thanks for having me on. I'll use the longtime listener, first-time caller reference. Pete, I appreciate that. Kind of building on a few key points that Bruce raised in his table setting. So the projection from even have anything even approaching that kind of corollary. In the last federal campaign, Elections Canada tracked a good number of third party advertisers, but they're bound to some pretty strict spending feelings in a way that in the U.S., because of First Amendment freedom of speech rights, it's the Wild West. way that in the US, because of First Amendment, freedom of speech rights, it's the Wild West. So that's the first thing. The second thing, coming out of the Clinton,

Trump election several years ago, when we ran the numbers, when we crunched the numbers, interesting finding that when you put all the ad dollars into the blender, it worked out that Hillary Clinton spent about $10 to get every vote, and Trump spent $5. Hillary far outspent Trump on television advertising, and Trump absolutely walloped her in digital spend as a good bellwether of where the trend line is going in political advertising, just like it is in B2C traditional consumer marketing and advertising efforts. And, you know, the point that Bruce raised about the nine out of ten dollars in the battleground, just really important to remember

that even though Hillary Clinton won the last election by three million votes, in the popular vote, she lost something in the quantum. Bruce, you'll tell me if I'm right or wrong about this. There's 77,000 votes in key battleground states that made the difference in America's winner-take-all electoral college, which again, is just completely foreign to most Canadian voters, unless you're a race- door listener and an American news and politics junkie. Well, of course, they're all that, both of those. I want to run an ad here. First of all, it's not from this campaign, but it's a great one to run. It's almost 40 years old, from 1984, from the Reagan campaign against Walter Mondale.

And if you remember that, he was in kind of the same situation as Trump in the sense he was looking for re-election. So this is the incumbent running. He'd come in in 1980, promising he was going to make things better, and use that killer line against Jimmy Carter, are you better off than you were four years ago? So in fact, he was going to have to deliver something after four years himself. It had been a difficult campaign going into it, and the Reagan people were running behind Mondale,

and he had a terrible first debate and everything. Then this ad came out, which was in many ways to try and counter the tone that he'd said in 80 about you've had a bad four years. So he's been in power now for four years. And this is the ad that the Republican campaign ran for Ronald Reagan. So think of this in television terms.

There are pictures going with this, but you can imagine what they are. But it was the voiceover of this one-minute ad that really had an impact. And here it is. It's morning again in America. Today, more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country's history. With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years. This afternoon, 6,500 young men and women will be married. And with inflation at less

than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future. It's morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago? All right. The famous Morning in America ad that the Republicans ran in 1984,

and the last, if you can imagine the images, the last kind of 10 or 15 seconds was all, you know, a nicely waving, slowly in the breeze American flag. This had a real impact, and it led to a huge, and not solely because of this, but not, it certainly contributed something in terms of what ended up being a pretty much a landslide victory for Reagan against Mondale in 84. But it, in many ways, it started to redefine, for a while anyway, because 88 was a brutal campaign, TV ads, but it made people think about another route towards going after a vote. Much softer tone, much nicer tone, and a very positive tone. Perry, why don't you talk about that ad for a minute, the impact it had? Yeah, so I guess I would start by saying, full disclosure,

I was born that year. Thanks, we needed that. So you remember it well then. You know what, vividly. No, I can appreciate it as a student of history and a fan of political marketing and communications, young and old. It's got a very sunny wave, 2015 type of feel to it. Now, the difference being that this was an incumbent message versus the new entrant trying to supplant an incumbent. But to use like a modern example that would be familiar in the rear view of most Canadians, it does have that positive, upbeat vibe and tonality that we saw from Trudeau in the 2015 campaign. I really like that particular ad. It's obviously in the pantheon of the most famous political ads. And I know that part of the reason you're showing it or played it for our listeners is you're eventually going to segue into a new version of it.

You know, why don't we do that actually right now? And then Bruce can talk about the two of them together, because what we've seen, you kind of hinted at it earlier that we've seen, you know, an enormous move into this campaign on the part of third parties that don't seem to have any restrictions on what they can do in terms of raising money and using it for effective advertising campaigns. But a group of Republicans, and there are a number of these different groups of former Republicans or still Republicans but anti-Trumpers, who came up with their own series of ads.

It's the Lincoln Project. They've spent millions and millions of dollars, and they still are very actively in their campaign. So they took the theme. Some of these guys actually had worked on the Reagan campaign back in 84. So they took this mourning in America idea, and they applied it in a very different way. So I'm going to play that ad first, then we'll bring Bruce back in. Here it is. There's mourning in Pennsylvania. Today,

hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from a deadly virus Donald Trump ignored, praising China's response instead of heeding the warnings. Then blaming them to cover his own failures. With the economy in shambles, people across Pennsylvania are still out of work. One of the worst economies in decades. This afternoon, millions of Americans will apply for unemployment. And with their savings run out, many are giving up hope. Millions worry that a loved one won't survive COVID-19. There's mourning in Pennsylvania.

And under the leadership of Donald Trump, our state is weaker and sicker and poorer. And now, Americans are asking, if we have another four years like this, will there even be an America? Well, there you go. The Lincoln Project's version of Morning in America focused on morning in Pennsylvania. Morning, obviously, spelled a very different way. Pennsylvania, one of those key battleground states that everybody's going to be watching. Bruce, your thoughts on those two combined? Well, I find that the Lincoln Project, Peter, has probably been one of the most interesting

things that I've seen happen in a presidential campaign in a long time. We've got this really remarkable scenario where it's almost like you took the all-stars of the Republican consulting firmament and said, let's imagine that all of them are going to come together and work against the Republican nominee and use their finely honed skills to produce ads to what they say basically is they're designed to irk Trump. They want to make him mad. They want to make him respond. Their basic business model, if I can put it that way, is to turn $1 in spending into $4 in donations because every ad that they put out, they want Trump to respond to with tweets and anger, and that will drive fundraising. And of course, they've raised more than $41 million for this effort run by Republicans against the Republican

candidate. I can't recall seeing anything even remotely like that. And it's having an impact. I don't think there's any doubt whatsoever when I compare. So I love the fact that one of the things that these folks decided to do was to go back to that legendary ad that was written and produced by a legendary advertising person, a man named Hal Reine out of California. And one of the things about that ad that was really interesting, I think Perry touched on it, is that it really spoke to optimism. And sometimes incumbents need to run on the fear of what will happen if you don't elect me. And sometimes they like to run on that. Look at all the great things that have happened. And here's what we know is that most elections and most polls will tell us that about two-thirds of the public are a little bit more oriented towards an optimistic message and one-third towards a more pessimistic message. And we're used to people these days, I think, that kind of the simplest vernacular of political advertising is hit people over the head with

a negative message. And so when I think about what that original one was, it wasn't hitting people over the head. Mourning in America was about reaching them through the heart. It was about optimism, not pessimism. And now these conservative Republican or these Republican strategists have come up with this mourning, spelt with the U in Pennsylvania, and they've also got a morning in Iowa and a couple of other states as well. It, too, trades on emotion. It's less about let's do the math of the policy choices and more about let's feel the feelings together that Trump has made us feel for these last several years. And the contrast between the words in the original morning in America, which were prouder, stronger, better,

and the three words that they used to cap this ad this year, weaker, sicker, poorer, are pretty well designed as a piece of political symmetry. And I found it one of the most interesting things that I've seen in this election cycle. You know, the irony, of course, is that the Republicans, and Trump especially, must have been thinking, you know, a year ago now, pre-pandemic, that they were going to be able to recreate in some fashion that 1984 ad to be running right now in the midst of this campaign. Without the pandemic, the whole issue of mourning would have been different. There were lots of reasons to be upset with Trump and to go after Trump, mainly on Russia,

on corruption within his cabinet, and so on and so on. However, he probably would have had, or at least he was assuming he would have had a year ago right now, he would have had the economy going for him. And he might have been able to create some kind of, you know, we're back. You know, we made America great again, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that. But obviously that's not the way things panned out for him. And he was left in the situation he's left with now.

Now they had bags of money. They had, as we know already, they blew a billion dollars before Labor Day on preparing for this campaign. And I bet you sitting on the shelves of some of those Republican advertising firms are ads that would have been talking about a much different tone in the campaign right now.

But they've never been able to run them. And then they had the entry of groups like the Lincoln Project. And I want Perry's thought on this now too when you watch them because what struck me most about them, other than the fact that the ads are really powerful, they're really good, they're such a quick turnaround. A lot of political ads go through stages of approval right up to the candidate before they get sign-off.

Here, these guys turn them around in a matter of hours. I mean, I think they had one out last week before the debate ended about the debate. So it's quite remarkable what they've been doing, and I guess in many ways it too is changing the face of the way political parties and their friends determine how they're going to advertise during a campaign. Absolutely. I think these folks have set the new high watermark for political marketing, political communications. I mean, they're obviously unencumbered from the kind of approvals that you're talking about, Peter, because there is no candidate sign off.

There is no campaign manager or campaign chair sign off. So that's very liberating for any organization, but their ability to understand social media and have a keen grasp of what will go viral, what will be shareable, what people will want to spread widely across their network, their ability to do that kind of rapid reaction, rapid response. And you've seen it in both debates, including the Veep debate, including the two town halls from the presidential candidates and also their lack of shyness for going negative. I mean, these these folks have sort of their reputation is that they're overtly savage. Their their icon, their emoji that they proudly use is a pirate flag. So I think people are going to be studying the Lincoln Project for many, many months and years to come, coming out of this cycle, win, lose, or draw for Trump or Biden. And it's quite amazing what they've been able to do. And the money they raised that Bruce pointed out, almost 40% of it come from small donors,

which sets them apart from a lot of other super PACs that typically get their money from big contributors, millionaires and billionaires. Going back to this ad just for one moment, you know, you don't have to be familiar with that 1984 Reagan re-election ad to appreciate this. I think that's an added Easter egg, if I can put it that way, that I think is clever. And that's the kind of cleverness that gets people talking about it and sharing it. But if you're a, you know, millennial voter in Pennsylvania, or maybe you didn't vote last cycle, and you're reading the news, you're unemployed or in precarious work, you don't have healthcare coverage, the question that you raised earlier, Peter, the are you better off than you were four years ago, the way I think this ad goes about asking that question is in that really powerful, solemn close.

Will there even be an America? And I think you could take COVID out of this and the kind of polarization, the kind of social fraying that you're seeing in America. I think that beyond COVID, that is what this ad, I think, is trying to get to when it's trying to reach those voters in swing states like Pennsylvania, like Iowa. I just want to pick up on one thing that Perry mentioned, the Easter egg concept of, can you do an ad that gets people talking about it so that the value proposition of the ad is exponentially greater than the amount of money that you had to pay to run it. And I think the Lincoln Project has been doing an exceptional job of that. And one of the best examples I've seen in the last little while is this. I think there are two billboards that the Lincoln Project are running on Times Square. Now, New York is a

very solidly democratic state. There is no reason to run ads about Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner criticizing them in Times Square in New York City, other than to generate buzz and reaction. And these two digital ads are quite powerful in terms of presenting the idea that both of those two individuals, well-known to New Yorkers, are really indifferent to the suffering that people in America have been going through with the COVID crisis that we've all been living through. And the best thing probably that could have happened for the Lincoln Project, if it relates to that ad in a state that's completely safe democratically, in a city that Donald Trump didn't even win the zip code in which he lived, that's how bad his

prospects are there, is that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner hired lawyers to send a letter threatening to sue the Lincoln Project, which has now created another two or three news cycles where there is national attention drawn by people who are interested in politics to this argument that has been made through these billboards and the reaction of Kushner and Trump basically saying, well, we didn't say exactly those things, which isn't really the point of the ad. The point of the ad is maybe they felt those feelings of indifference. And I think it's been a very powerful tactic.

And they've used it all the way through because they are essentially not an ad agency but a political consultancy a rag tag i shouldn't say rag tag a group of all-stars basically that came together all this has left obviously the republicans kind of scrambling if they had this earlier plan which i believe they did and spent a lot of money on which they had to shelf uh they have yet to come up with something that's grabbing any attention. They've had, or at least not the attention they wanted. They've had a few, well, more than a few, they've had ads on the air. It's not like they haven't been seen.

But they're not the kind of attention getters that the Democrats and the third parties, third party groups have had, the attention they've been getting, like the Lincoln Project. In fact, Bruce, you went kind of searching through some stuff to try and find a couple of Republican ads, Trump ads, and they had created their own controversy, not the kind that they were looking for. Absolutely.

There are a couple of ads that they've run now that, one, which is an ad about supporting our troops, the American troops, obviously. And in the ad, there's a piece of video that you're meant to think are American fighter jets, but they're actually Russian fighter jets. And this, as Perry well knows, this happens sometimes if people aren't really paying attention and they're maybe not completely the creme de la creme of advertising experts

and they pull a piece of video off a stock footage service. And in this instance, in that particular ad and another one more recently where they were showing a scene of a wheat field and wheat kind of blowing magically in the wind i guess the wheat fields that they used were in slovenia or russia and of course the irony of that relative to the conversation that the country the world really has been having about Trump and his relationship with Russia for the last several years isn't really lost on anyone. I think it's fair to say that in addition to those gaffes, there really hasn't been an ad that Trump has put into the marketplace that has really kind of stood out, that has captured the sense of why people should reelect him. He's done an awful lot of

stuff that is negative about Biden and Biden's family and calling to mind these old grievances and kept on doing it despite the fact that it wasn't raising more money, that it was basically emptying his coffers. And now he's found himself in a situation where he's had to pull advertising out of many of these swing states. He's only spending more money than Biden in North Carolina, among those swing states that I mentioned. He's spending less by a lot in Florida, in Pennsylvania, in Michigan and Wisconsin. And the reason is that he's having to put some of his money into defending Georgia, Ohio, and Iowa, states that he won last time and is afraid of losing this time. So it's been a terrible outing, I think, for the Trump campaign from an advertising

standpoint. And I think after this is over, if he loses, one of the things that people will really dig into is where did the money go and who did the work and why was it not more noteworthy? I notice that you just said if he loses, which is a major change from where you've been for the last three weeks. We're into the stretch run anyway you count it. Not really. We're into the stretch run anyway you count it. Not really. We're into the stretch run any way you count it now. And the Republicans must be trying to come up with a closing argument ad. If they have, I haven't seen it yet, but I imagine we are going to see a lot of it in the next week or so. The Democrats, at least the first of their closing argument ads, started running over this weekend.

I'm going to run it here for you. Listen closely to the voiceover. I know you're going to think it's me, but it isn't. I mean, the guy looks like me a little bit, but here it is. Isaac, good to see you. How are you, man? Me, Mr. Vice President. God love you.

I just wanted to say hi. But I can't preach like you guys. America is a place for everyone. Those who chose this country. Those who fought for it. Some Republicans. Some Democrats. And most, just somewhere in between.

All looking for the same thing. Someone who understands. Their hopes. Their dreams. Their pain. To listen. To bring people together. To get up every day and work to make life better for families like yours.

To look you in the eye, treat you with respect, and tell you the truth. To work just as hard for the people who voted for him as those who didn't. To be a president for all Americans. I'm Joe Biden and I approve this message. Alright. So, I know. You know who that was, right?

It was Brad Pitt was the voiceover. And... It was uncanny how much it sounded like you. Yeah, right. It was more that he you know he looks like me the two of us it looks like we're twins right boy to be reborn as brad pitt or tom cruise i mean the list goes on anyway back to the reality of what we're discussing uh perry you really really like this ad and i'm sure it's not just because of Brad Pitt.

That's correct. Yeah, I mean, my personal bias is, to go back to what Bruce was saying earlier, I'm one of the two-thirds majority of folks who say that a more optimistic, positive message is appealing to them. And this is all in on optimism and positivity, has shades of President Barack Obama in the tonality, in the language that's being used here. One line in particular, or one of my favorite lines anyway, in this ad, some Republicans, some Democrats, and most just somewhere in between, all looking for the same thing. And I think at this particular moment that America finds itself in, where it kind of feels like people have gravitated to two extreme polls, I think there's

a whole whack of people in the middle who don't believe that and who don't consider themselves on on those extremes. And I think a message like this delivered by the smooth dulcet tones of Brad Pitt is is incredibly appealing to those folks. And that Biden message, which is, again, echoing Barack Obama's message from years and years and years ago. I will be a president for all of you. I think it's an incredibly powerful spot in this final week and a bit stretch to election day. You know, I just have to insert this because I know there's some people out there going, Jesus Mansbridge, really? Tom Cruise? Let me tell you this very quick anecdote. It's got nothing to do with our podcast today, but about Tom Cruise.

There was a period about 15 years ago that my voicemail that answered, you know, if I didn't pick up my cell phone, the voicemail was Tom Cruise saying, I'm sorry, Peter's, you know, I'm not here right now. This is Tom Cruise saying, I'm sorry, Peter's, you know, I'm not here right now. Um, this is Tom Cruise. I'm I'll, I'll be taking his messages. If you want to, to let him know something, just, just leave it after the beep. And it really was Tom Cruise. I had nothing to do with it. George Strombolopoulos did. Strombo. He had been with Tom Cruise somewhere in LA or in Toronto, or he'd done something with him.

And he said, you got to do this for me. George and I are friends. You got to do this for him because he's a big fan of your movie work. So I did that. I still have it somewhere, but I, I don't have it on my cell phone anymore.

Anyway, sorry, Bruce, you were about to say something far more important than that. Well, I'm still digesting that news about your relationship with Tom Cruise. Here's what I thought about this Brad Pitt thing. I've had a little bit of experience in testing ads that were narrated by very well-known people, actors. And it's been striking to me how easily people can identify those voices. We tend to think of somebody like Brad Pitt as being somebody who's really known kind of his visual appearance

is so unique, very handsome man. And, you know, maybe people would know his voice, but it's remarkable to me how the best known movie and TV stars, their voices really are quite recognizable. I think one of the things that's happened in recent years in the development of the animated pictures is the use of these celebrity or star voices to give life to characters. And people immediately know and respond to these voices. They don't necessarily associate them with the actor behind them, but there's a quality to the acting that these voice actors basically have, which I probably wasn't really that sure of until I tried something and found people going, no, no, I love the way that was said. And so when I was listening to Brad Pitt's voice, I had that feeling of listening to a trained acting voice, but it wasn't making me feel as though it was very active. It was just making me feel that kind of reassurance and power behind it.

So I think that's a really important thing. I also think that using Brad Pitt, and I think Perry's got another example he's going to bring up in a minute, but really well-known people to provide a form of endorsement to a campaign. I think people, you know, there's some people who are skeptical about the value of that, but I do think that it matters. I do think that it creates buzz. I think it creates a sense of reassurance or interest, depending on the audience, depending on the individual. get his own endorsements. And I don't know if you remember in 2016, his effort to do that. I kind of recall that it failed somewhat miserably, that the people that he was able to kind of get who were well-known-ish on his side were kind of C-list celebrities. It didn't look like anything other than that kind of, well, I guess it was Celebrity Apprentice. Was that the show where these were these people that we used to know,

that used to be more successful, that used to have a big kind of, a big audience and maybe didn't anymore. And I haven't seen Trump really develop that this year. And I do think Biden has an abundance of opportunities to work with really well-known people or to have those people endorse his campaign, Brad Pitt being one. And Perry, did you want to add a quick name to that list? Well, yeah. So one super quick thing, and then the other point I intended to raise, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, Peter, but there's a service called Cameo where you can get celebrities like Anthony Scaramucci to record messages for you. And the called Cameo where you can get celebrities like Anthony Scaramucci

to record messages for you. And the Mooch is, you can get the Mooch for 59 bucks. So that might be something that Peter Moosebridge wants to consider to sort of juice, you know, the annual revenues. So the example that I wanted to raise about this idea of celebrity and influencers, which has always been an important aspect of politics, but I think it's growing in importance and prominence and digital and social is a big part of the reason why. And specifically, Kylie Jenner in a September 28 Instagram post of her in a bikini. And this post to her 198 million followers on that, just that one platform, encouraged people to vote for change. So tacit sort of approval endorsement of Joe Biden. And it also encouraged them to register to vote. You know, this weird extra element that us Canadians don't really have to contend. And as a result of that post, over 90,000 new registrants went to a vote.org website and said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to do this. Thanks, Kylie. You know, where's the form I fill out? And that's kind of amazing when you think

about it, that one post in the hours that would follow would lead to 90,000 people registering. And that's just one example. I mean, you've got, you've got celebrities like Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, who are no slouches either. Right. And they've been undertaking massive voter registration and get out the vote messages, primarily almost all of these celebrities as Bruce described for, for Biden, whereas it kind of feels like the C-list is coming out to bat for, for Mr. Trump. That's on a good day the C-list is coming out to bat for Mr. Trump.

That's on a good day, C-list. Yeah, exactly. I mean, at all levels, whether it's celebrities or whether it's other politicians, I mean, I don't see any other former Republican presidents or major figures within the Republican Party standing up, introducing him at a rally or doing spots for him or doing anything along those lines. I mean, he's out there all on his own. That's right. That's right. And I think the you know, why the celebrity endorsement, the influencer endorsement is is outsized in this election cycle and will continue to grow in importance is just the fact

that whereas these people used to have big, shiny, marquee name recognition in news dailies or being referenced on a television program, they now have access to a pipeline of tens of millions of their followers on YouTube, on Instagram, on Facebook, that they can light up and engage and activate at a moment's notice. And they do that for free. And that, to me, is the really, really, really important takeaway here. Yes, this is going to end up being the most expensive presidential and Senate and congressional election cycle in ever in history. But beyond that is the endorsement, the reach, the engagement that social media allows a candidate to get now for no dollars spent.

And that's a pretty powerful idea when you stop and think about just one Kylie Jenner post being able to reach 198 million people. Incredible. Okay, we're going to wrap this up, but we're going to wrap it up on a note that we actually started talking about the other night with Lisa Wright when she joined the race next door. And it's about this also amazing thing that appeared on social media that was done by two gubernatorial candidates in Utah opposing, right, a Democrat and a Republican. But they did this ad together. So I'm going to play it and then get each of you to tell me the significance of this. Is this just sort of a one-off in the middle of a highly contentious campaign that we'll tend to

think or forget about once the campaign's over? Or could this actually lead somewhere? Here it is right now. I'm Spencer Cox, your Republican candidate for Utah governor, and I'm Chris Peterson, your Democratic candidate for governor. We are currently in the final days of campaigning against each other, but our common values transcend our political differences, and the strength of our nation rests on our ability to see that. We are both equally dedicated to the American values of democracy, liberty, and justice for all people. We just have different opinions on how to achieve those ideals. But today, we are setting aside those differences to deliver a message that is critical for the health of our nation.

That whether you vote by mail or in person, we will fully support the results of the upcoming presidential election regardless of the outcome. Although we sit on different sides of the aisle, we are both committed to American civility and a peaceful transition of power. And we hope Utah will be an example to the nation because that is what our country is built on. Please stand with us on behalf of our great state and nation. My name is Spencer Cox. And I'm Chris Peterson. And we approve this message. You know, I tell you, will Utah send a message to the rest of that nation and to other nations like us next door? Because when I first saw that, I thought it was a takeoff. You know, I thought it would come from The Onion or one of those kind of media sites. But no, it's the real deal. And I know Utah has a different tone in its politics and the way people get along. But still, it's quite remarkable. It's had a lot of play and, you know, tens of thousands of likes for whatever that really means.

But does it mean something else beyond that? Is it a hint of the direction that perhaps, you know, people want to see our politics and our engagement, social engagement head towards? Perry first, then Bruce to close it off. Perry? Yeah, I love this ad. You know, I find it, first of all, incredibly novel. I've never personally seen anything quite like it. Two candidates coming together in one ad, one video to set aside policy differences and appeal to people's better angels.

So in that sense, quite notable. Whether or not it's a one off, Peter, I don't know. I don't think we can we can fully answer that question. I think maybe in a week and a half time, depending on the outcome of this election, that may shed some light on whether we're going to see more of this type of messaging or if the outcome of the election will make it even more difficult for that kind of bridge building or moderate voices. But I think it is novel, it's refreshing. And I think for a whole chunk of the American public, I think an appealing message. As I said earlier, I think most folks don't necessarily wake up in the morning and want to go to war against the other side. I think most folks wake up and have a mortgage payment they need to make and kids they need to get to soccer practice and a job they got to get to in rush hour. And so I don't think the bombastic negative vitriol

that fills Fox or can sometimes permeate Twitter is the standard operating procedure of most people or most voters. So I think a message like this is an important message. I think it resonates with the vast majority of folks. What is it designed to do ultimately? I mean, it's not designed to persuade voters to vote for one candidate over the other. They're in it together. They're canceling each other out. It's not designed for GOTV, get out the vote. It's not designed for suppression. So it's, you know, which are the

kind of three categories of political marketing and political advertising. This is its own sort of unique message. And I think it's sorely needed in this moment. And I certainly found it refreshing. Bruce? While I really do want to believe that this is going to establish a turn in the direction, new normal, however you want to call it. I'm having trouble feeling as optimistic as I want to be about this. I do think the ad was very much what we needed, what the world needs, what America needs. I was reading this morning, Peter, the op-ed that these two individuals wrote together, I think the consequence of the Trump presidency and the way that people felt about it who didn't agree with him, the combination of

those forces has really put us all in a situation where we're watching America from a distance and saying, are they going to be able to put their country back together again from a unity standpoint? I think we ran a poll at Abacus a little while ago in the United States that asked people whether a civil war, another civil war was a possibility. And it was a shocking number of people who said that it was a possibility. And so I think that these two gubernatorial candidates are doing something really important and they're reflecting the fact that, and nobody else really is in the same way anyway, that there is a new level of disunity in America and the jury's out on whether or not that's

going to be solved. The last thing I will say is that in the op-ed that they write, they touch on something that is a problem. We know it's a problem. We don't really know what the solution is, but it's going to become a bigger problem unless we all figure it out. And that's where they are saying, for us, I'll read the quote, for us, running for elected office is too often meant being on the receiving end of baseless personal

attacks, insults, and occasionally even threats. Politics has never been for the faint of heart, but mean-spiritedness has now reached a disturbing new low. We've seen firsthand with the ascendancy of social media, more and more people algorithmically funded into divided echo chambers. And this is really the central point. They're saying too many Americans now see their political counterparts, not as friends, family and neighbors with whom they have a difference of opinion, but as enemies. And I don't think any party really knows what to do with that phenomena of social media and what it has done to take instincts that really are just differences of opinion and turn them into things that are harder, in some cases more vicious, in some cases even quite dangerous. So I want to be optimistic. I'm happy we see this.

I'm worried about this phenomenon for sure. You don't have to look far to see what an impact this phenomenon is having. I was looking at the most recent trust figures. What professions do you trust out there? Politicians, which used to be relatively high on that scale, not near the top, but relatively high, certainly past the halfway mark, they're down at the bottom now. They're even below what we always used to say was the least trusted professional used car salesperson. They're below that. I thought you were going to say bolsters, below bolsters. Bolsters are pretty far down that list as well.

But it's discouraging. Journalists, of course, aren't much further ahead. But that's a whole topic for another conversation someday, this trust in various professions and institutions, which has been driven down for a lot of different reasons, and social media is part of that. But this, I mean, like Perry, I love this ad. I thought it was great.

It was surprising. It was kind of shocking. But you are left sort of, when it's over, thinking, well, that's great, that's wonderful. But will it, can it make a difference? I guess we're going to find out, as they say. Listen, a great conversation, a lengthy one, but we touched a lot of bases there.

And Perry, it was terrific to have you with us for this. A pleasure. Thank you for having me. And we look forward to having you again at some point because i'm sure there are lots of different things that we can talk about with you bruce as always thank you for your uh always insightful commentary on whatever the issue may be it was lots of fun again peter talk to you soon yep Yep. You got it. And Perry is right. So listen, that's it for the Race Next Door and the Bridge

Daily for this day. We'll be back in 24 hours. © transcript Emily Beynon