Did the republicans just have a better ground game than democrats?

[JHB]

29. You counter them by undermining them

I'm not talking about dramatically popping their bubbles, I'm talking about sanding holes in theirs so that it starts leaking and sagging and they eventually have to notice that (a good chunk of them, anyway).

In vast sections of the country, the local media amounts to conservative radio and conservative newspapers, with varying degrees of conservative religious radio & tv thrown in. There's nobody local talking in liberal terms.

Nobody swatting away terms like "socialism" and framing more progressive economic policies in terms of applying checks & balances and separation of powers to economic power, not just political power.

Nobody giving concrete examples of conservative media lying to you to get you all hot and bothered and stampeding in a particular direction.

Nobody talking about local issues from a non-conservative viewpoint.

This is the 50-state strategy applied to media. Not just existing media, but finding ways to make ourselves part of the media environment all across the country, in ways that are easy to find and don't require someone seeking them out.