Not Everything Has To Be A Flex
Ads are just ads, actions and engagement speak louder and make more impact.
Because conservatives underserved for years tend to get excited over anything that has a pulse, they were really hot earlier today on the video of this Missouri Secretary of State Candidate named Valentina Gomez, a financial analyst who immigrated to the U.S. with her family as a child, who told voters to stop being “weak and gay.” I don’t think she meant body builder gays on steroids. Some called the ad “controversial” and a couple of Trump gatekeepers said it looked like “MAGA cosplay,” which is up for them to determine, I guess. There were guns in the video so I don't have any complaints.
Gomez makes little videos like this for social apparently and they do the job of sparking conversation. It’s not a bad move to make when you’re building name ID and buzz in a crowded primary race.
One bad move to make, though, is to attack other conservatives online, people who have been conservative longer and spent more time grinding in the movement to eke out victories in a society with short attention spans and memories. They’ve paid the cost to ask provocative questions of people auditioning for government jobs. Case in point:
Damn girl, tap the brakes.
Look, I cut my teeth in grassroots activism in the streets of St. Louis. I infiltrated meetings, wore wires, crashed protests, phone banked, canvassed, raised a lot of money and hell, and with others, accomplished a lot. I started my radio career in my hometown, my entire family and many friends still live in my home state. I’ve heard a lot of discussion from St. Louis folks about the crowded SOS primary and listened to their questions over less-known candidates in the fray with no record, such as Gomez. This is normal politics. And normal politics includes good strategy and good strategists first seek to turn disbelievers into believers before dramatically flexing, which is what this was. Prove Sara wrong then. And again, as someone with the ear to the ground in her home state, people have questions. Quell their concern with better strategy, not this.
This lady is 25 years-old. She’s new. She needs to temper her zeal or she will become a liability to herself. Fiery doesn’t mean reckless, and I say this with some authority won by experience. If she can do this she has promise. If she can’t, well, she’ll relegate herself to the club of failed GOP politicos whose lack of messaging discipline did in their races before they could even get out of the starting blocks. That would be a shame.