As the finger-pointing begins, and the autopsy of the Kamala Harris campaign continues, financial details are being released on how the Harris campaign managed to blow more than $1 billion in war-chest funds — and not only lose, but get wiped off the electoral map by Donald Trump, who ended his campaign with roughly $488 million. That’s not a Dr. Evil typo: Kamala Harris not only blew a billion dollars, but actually ended up $20 million in debt.

As it turns out, the Harris campaign wasn’t run much differently. As reported in the Washington Examiner, the Harris campaign spent upwards of six figures to build a custom set for her appearance on the Call Me Daddy podcast, which only netted about 800,000 downloads.

There were seven swing-state concerts that involved high-priced performers — Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Jon Bon Jovi, Ricky Martin and more — who seemingly ended up costing the Harris campaign more than $20 million on event production alone, and reportedly even more on paying the celebrities to appear. Even Oprah Winfrey charged the campaign $1 million to show up. The campaign went so far into debt that the campaign was reportedly forced to scrap Canadian Nineties indie-pop singer Alanis Morissette to save money. The pop concert campaign strategy is said to have been the brainchild of former Obama advisors on the campaign.

Of course it was lmao. I saw approximately one million ads of the Democratic politicians begging for donations, and I'm not even on their email and phone lists. Thinking about all the regular working people who donated their hard-earned money for it to be lit on fire by a PodJohn

https://thespectator.com/newsletter/kamala-harris-ran-the-fyre-festival-of-campaigns-bad-press-11-11-2024/

Edit: I had almost forgotten about the Kamala Fashion Week party

  • huf [he/him]
    ·
    15 days ago

    gotta respect the grifters for fleecing the kamala campaign of absurd amounts of money...

  • Dingus_Khan [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    15 days ago

    I can't believe famous popstars all demanded their regular fees and didn't volunteer their time for a candidate they were enthusiastic about. Absolutely shocked and stunned I say

  • ElChapoDeChapo [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    15 days ago

    As it turns out, the Harris campaign wasn’t run much differently. As reported in the Washington Examiner, the Harris campaign spent upwards of six figures to build a custom set for her appearance on the Call Me Daddy podcast, which only netted about 800,000 downloads.

    The weirdest fucking thing about this is that it's a podcast, most people are just listening to it

    This is like building a custom set for a radio appearance, it makes no sense on any level

  • WestBromwich@feddit.uk
    ·
    15 days ago

    During the campaign I thought the celebrity appearances were a really bad move... making the Democrats look completely out of touch when average Americans have rising living costs.

    • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      15 days ago

      Yeah I also thought that as a non American. It was probably one of the worst moves to make when running against Trump. Trump's major appeal to a lot of people is that he's an outsider running against the "liberal elite". Harris being endorsed by most major celebrities just reinforces that idea.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    15 days ago

    Celebrity endorsements are actively detrimental to a campaign in the UK. People get PISSED at celebrities and tell them to fuck off out of politics. It aggravates people considerably.

    I don't know whether this is also detrimental in the US but judging by spending multi millions on these people and achieving NOTHING it clearly seems like a wasteful approach. It's all show. Ok you did concerts? What's that gonna do for people's lives?

    • ChaosMaterialist [he/him]
      ·
      15 days ago

      Counterpoint: taylor-commie

      Celebrity is a link between Elites and the Masses as a deliberately crafted parasocial relationship created by Old Media for advertising. These days celebrity is giving way to influencers as the old media system gives way to new media, but using that parasocial relationship for advertising is still the same.

  • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    15 days ago

    As it turns out, the Harris campaign wasn’t run much differently. As reported in the Washington Examiner, the Harris campaign spent upwards of six figures to build a custom set for her appearance on the Call Me Daddy podcast, which only netted about 800,000 downloads.

    Apparently it was because she didn't want to travel to where the podcast is usually hosted, so they had to build the set where Harris was at the time. Also a really inefficient way to spend money compared to what the Trump campaign did, in regards to going on Joe Rogan. Trump and Vance spent almost nothing in comparison, and got a lot more outreach and views that made them appear "normal" from the short clips I've seen.

  • Grownbravy [they/them]
    ·
    15 days ago

    Someone was about to suck dick for water for the festival, you cant call it the fyre festival of campaigns if it wasnt about to resort to that to get some B list pop star

  • PKMKII [none/use name]
    ·
    15 days ago

    While Harris was going broke paying movie stars and pop singers, Trump got more campaign leverage out of three hours on Joe Rogan and thirty minutes at McDonald’s.

    Once again the Democrats run their campaign like it’s thirty years ago.

  • Dolores [love/loves]
    ·
    15 days ago

    reportedly even more on paying the celebrities to appear

    rich lib celebrities are supposed to give YOU money how do you enter a political bribery contest and fail to be bribed i-cant