"Consultants are parasites" — Will Robinson on why Democratic campaigns can't adapt
[00:00:00] Will Robinson He/Him: and, you know, I, I kid that, you know, consultants are parasites. Um, and the number one rule of being a parasite is don't kill the host. Well, guess what?
I'm afraid that may be the lead, that may be the lead of the interview now. Will Robinson says consultants are parasites
Hi, welcome back to The Campaign Strategist, where we dive into the art and science of advocacy and campaigns with the experts who plan and run them. Today's guest is Will Robinson, one of the most innovative political strategists in the Democratic Party, and someone who's spent decades helping progressives adapt to a changing political and media environment.
Will is the co-founder of the New Media firm and has built a reputation for seeing around corners. Long before digital campaigning became standard practice, he was experimenting with data, technology, and voter targeting. In fact, I've heard that while still in [00:01:00] high school, he helped develop one of the earliest computerized precinct targeting systems for a congressional campaign.
Since then, he's been at the forefront of nearly every major shift in political communications from cable television targeting to digital persuasion and voter mobilization. What makes Will especially interesting is that he's never viewed campaigns simply as elections to be won. He spent his career thinking about how political organizations adapt, how people build trust, and how to communicate in a rapidly changing world.
While many practitioners focus on the next race, Will has focused on what the next generation of campaigning should look like. He's also been a mentor to countless strategists, organizers, and campaign professionals, helping build not just winning campaigns, but the infrastructure that makes those victories possible.
Today we're gonna talk about innovation, communications, organizing, technology, and what Democrats and progressives need to do differently if they're gonna compete effectively in the years ahead. If you like conversations like this, please like, share, and subscribe so [00:02:00] that more people have a chance to hear them.
Now, let's get into it
[00:02:04] Peter: (INSERT: standard intro voiceover + theme music sting) Will, thank you so much for taking time to join me
[00:02:08] Will Robinson He/Him: Thank you for having me
, I wanna jump right in 'cause I think this is the thing that people are least ready for. Walk me through what AI is doing to politics right now
[00:02:17] Will Robinson He/Him: AI has changed politics in the most incredibly dramatic way. Um, and it is snowballing at a pace that no one really understands. And this is since third quarter 2025. So I go in Chat, Claude, whatever. I type in... What I get isn't a list of links.
What I get now is this, is a paragraph.
[00:02:44] Peter: Mhm.
[00:02:44] Will Robinson He/Him: And sh- AI doesn't know what's true. It just knows what exists. So it pulls information, and it combines. So I, I searched myself on Chat, and you may not know [00:03:00] this, I'm a Republican state rep from Florida. I'm on the Republican executive committee. I'm a faith partner 2025, um, and I'm a conservative activist who also lives in Maine with my wife, my dog, and my daughter.
So it just like-
[00:03:17] Peter: consulting is just on the side.
[00:03:18] Will Robinson He/Him: Just on the side, it's probably my, you know, alter ego alternative Spider-Man universe, you know, thing. Right, but it just glued it together, and then at the bottom it's like, "ChatGPT makes mistakes." So on issue positions or whatever, but people get that and they look at it, and about 7% look at a link in it, and 1% will go to a link.
So, you know, it-- We're seeing now Scottish election just happened a couple months ago, thirty-eight, fifty-six percent of the content was wrong. Um, and there's this thing called AI hallucinations, where it just makes stuff up. So there was a [00:04:00] sex scandal that never happened in Scotland that got bounced around from all the AI platforms.
So
[00:04:09] Peter: So
[00:04:10] Will Robinson He/Him: we need to, we need to start dealing with how we do communication differently. And, you know, part of it is, um, progressives, we tend to lock down our f- our, our websites and our... You know, we don't want anybody crawling around and get... But, like, that's how AI gets that information.
[00:04:28] Peter: Right
[00:04:29] Will Robinson He/Him: And Wikipedia pages, Reddit, that sort of thing is-- And that we're not, we're not on those, the right is
[00:04:37] Peter: It's, um, I, uh, so well, I was at a conference recently, um, where they talked a lot about this and generative engine optimization, which is basically the version of search engine optimization, but for the large language models. Um, and, uh, it is, it is... I mean, the nerd [00:05:00] and sort of, y- you know, and, and not an engineer, but I sort of have a little bit of that brain 'cause I love just to understand how things work.
On one hand, it's totally fascinating. On the other hand, um, the fact that increasingly people are just getting the answers from the AI-generated response, like if you Google, Gemini always gets the first dibs, um, un- unless you find the setting to turn that off. And yeah, people increasingly are just stopping there. Um, there was actually another study showing that, um, people put as much in what the AI bot tells them as they do a friend, and so is rapidly emerging an entirely new battleground or battlescape, which is getting your information there in ways the LLMs will pick it up, consider it credible, so they'll spit it back out.
And what I'm curious about is [00:06:00] do you think, uh, Democrats will have a harder time or easier time adapt- like th- this is, is like the next huge f- front, e- e- while we're still struggling with the whole social media thing. What do you think about are we gonna adapt? Are we gonna, you know, pivot quickly enough on this one or, or remain
[00:06:23] Will Robinson He/Him: I hope so, but, uh, you know, if you could tell, I'm like a curmudgeon. Um, and I'm a, you know, you know, "There's a secret AI alien base on the dark side of the moon, and they're gonna attack us." And people are like, "Really?" I'm like, "No, I just made that up." Um, but you know, the thing is, it's like, um, I, I was on a call this morning, and it was the head of a major statewide organization.
And, and he's like, "What? They just make stuff up?" We're like, "Well, it doesn't make stuff up. It just pulls stuff from anywhere, and it doesn't tell whether it's the truth or not." "Well, what do we need to do?" "Well, [00:07:00] we need to get our side of the story in that search, which means that, you know, do, does your organization have a Wikipedia page?"
"I don't know." "That, that's a problem. Um, are you ever on Reddit?" "What's Reddit?" Um, and the other thing is there are some things, um, about this that are totally counterintuitive and a violation of what we've been taught for 30 years. So, you know, I do campaign training. Never repeat the attack. Never repeat the attack.
That's nu- rule number one. But the thing is, if we don't put, um, "Bob Blowdry is not a cannibal, and let me tell you why," on the website so people can... you know, LMs can pull it up, then the fact that he's not a cannibal won't be reported. And so it's like, you know, we need to now include that kind of information on what we're doing, and [00:08:00] then we need to put it in 20 different places, not just, you know, "I al- I already said that, Will."
"Well, okay, great," but, you know, it needs to go all these other places.
[00:08:09] Peter: Yeah. And it's gotta be absolutely ubiquitous. Um, and well, and of the organizations that was talking about this has basically created a shadow website. So they basically have a website for the humans and a website for the LLMs, and, uh, you can access the site for the LLMs, but they don't link to that from the sort of human website 'cause it's... Nobody would wanna read what used to be a colorful, nicely formatted, eye-pleasing te- font report in just, like, plain text no breaks and no, like, imagery.
[00:08:45] Will Robinson He/Him: Right. But, or you can, you can put the study on your regular website, but not make it a PDF, make it searchable.
[00:08:51] Peter: We could do that too.
[00:08:52] Will Robinson He/Him: Right. So there's-- So it's, you know... And that, you know, literally I was teaching a session on this a couple weeks ago, and [00:09:00] someone said, "Is there a book on this?" And I'm like, "Book? Are you kidding?
This stuff is moving so quickly." Um, you know, every morning I have to search this stuff and like, what's happening now? Um, and you know, the Scottish stuff, nobody here was talking about that. Um, I saw an article in The Guardian, um, and I'm like, oh my God, you know, 35, 52%, it's a national election and all this disinformation and, you know, the European community's like, we have a real problem with this.
So, you know, we need to be aware of this, but it's like changing so quickly that, you know, it is, there isn't just one fix. I think what it needs to be is an entire reorientation about how we think about things.
[00:09:46] Peter: Yep.
[00:09:46] Will Robinson He/Him: need to communicate broadly. It's not just one and done as far as communicating. We need to share more broadly.
Um, and then, you know, things like Q&As about stuff that we normally wouldn't do [00:10:00] Q&As. So, um, these LLMs can pull them up. Or here's an idea, real people can look at them too and learn something. You know, maybe that might be interesting as well
[00:10:10] Peter: you, uh, posted, uh, in your Substack, which we'll put a link to, um, that a modern electoral campaign should begin with two questions: do we need to reach, when will they begin voting? It seems like a lot of campaigns don't start anywhere near those questions. me through what that actually exposes
[00:10:35] Will Robinson He/Him: So we are in a situation right now in American politics where we are being confronted with incredible change, and a political campaign in twenty twenty-six, um, is not like a political campaign in twenty twenty, and certainly not like a campaign from the nineteen nineties. And I think there's three things about that.
One is that people don't consume information the way they used [00:11:00] to. Um, I think in the Substack I talked about that only nineteen percent of, uh, video viewing is on broadcast television, and most of that is seniors. Um, and that, you know, late at night, nine o'clock, very few people are watching broadcast television, and I'm seeing that with political ratings where, um, a NBC program at nine o'clock, which may have gotten a twenty-three or a twenty-eight rating twenty years ago, is getting point three or point five.
So the audience has moved, and w-we haven't. Um, the second thing is that, um- People voting differently. Um, you're just as likely in some states to have someone vote by mail, and many states like Washington, everyone gets a ballot. Um, and sometimes they get the ballot, they vote it right away, sometimes they don't vote right [00:12:00] away.
But we're in a situation where forty percent, uh, in some states of the vote means that, um, they vote before election day. So if you're waiting to the end to communicate with people,
[00:12:16] Peter: Mhm.
[00:12:16] Will Robinson He/Him: not reaching them when they're making a decision. Um, and then the final piece, and, you know, I'm, I'm doing this from a Democratic point of view.
I'm a Democratic consultant, so I apologize for anybody that offends, but you're getting my, my point of view. Um, there is on the right-wing Republican side, a twenty-four/seven organic right-wing network, um, and extends from Fox and their whole digital presence to Breitbart to the Rogans of the world to a local Christian radio station having an online presence, and it's twenty-four/seven.
And the Democrats, they don't have that. Progressives don't have that. And in fact, we [00:13:00] still experience politics with a campaign timeline, where we really start communicating in earnest in September and through November, and we're missing the ball, um, as far as communicating with people when they're paying attention.
[00:13:18] Peter: You know, um, thank you for that. A- and I've heard, uh, well, I guess the changes you're outlining I feel like are pretty apparent. Um, not to take away from your insight, but I, I mean, I, I think people know that we're not really watching TV the way we used to, and we vote earlier than we used to, and, you know, there's a 24/7 conversation going on, um, uh, where people are being persuaded. Why is it, do you think, the Democratic establishment is having such a hard time adapting [00:14:00] its approach to this? Like, I've have heard a lot of people complain even just about the timing and holding onto TV until September and October, but years ago. is preventing this party from catching up with modern times?
[00:14:18] Will Robinson He/Him: So I think there's two things. Um, there's a thing called the innovator's dilemma, where an organization or a group, a company that does well, tries to improve themselves doing what they do better. So Blockbuster Video wanted to be a better video store. Railroads wanted to be better railroads. Steel companies wanted to be better steel companies.
Sears and Roebuck wanted to be a better department store. And that works until they're hit with disruptive change. And then it gets to a point with a lot of those organizations or companies that they keep on trying to get better until that doesn't work anymore. So railroads went away 'cause of [00:15:00] airplanes, Blockbuster Video because of streaming.
Um, Netflix did make that transition, which is kind of really rare, and Sears and Roebuck at one point-- You know, everybody got the Sears catalog. That was my Christmas, you know, circling the catalog. The Sears Tower, gone. Um, and then unfortunately, that's where the Democratic Party is, is that we do things a certain way, and this is the way we do it.
So, you know, I'm a media consultant. I'm still having arguments now about no-- not waiting until October and November, uh, to do TV. Um, and one of the consultants on a team last week was like, "Well, TV's universal." And I'm like, "TV is universal, but not broadcast television." And like nineteen percent, they, they're arguing with me, and I'm like, "This isn't my opinion.
This is a fact." So we still canvas, um, and, you know, with doorbell cams. Um, I had a [00:16:00] canvas connect rate in New Jersey with some campaigns of thirteen, eleven percent, um, which means you go out for an afternoon, you talk to ten people. That's really not very efficient, and the same thing with phone calls. Um, so we're very traditional campaign.
This is the way you do it. Um, and
[00:16:18] Peter: what, what were the contact rates for, say, door-to-door in the past?
[00:16:22] Will Robinson He/Him: 43%, 38%, 50%. You know,
[00:16:27] Peter: Okay.
[00:16:28] Will Robinson He/Him: people don't, people don't answer their door, and then, you know, if they don't know who you are... And also, we're just in a culture now where, you know, you knock on someone's door just to--
[00:16:38] Peter: Yeah.
[00:16:39] Will Robinson He/Him: not so much anymore.
[00:16:41] Peter: Yeah
[00:16:41] Will Robinson He/Him: you know, and that, you know, I believe that we need to evolve with how people communicate. So I've got two hundred and seventy-three people I know on this phone, and I can text them. I can go on Facebook. They know who I am. I have [00:17:00] credibility. I'm not saying don't canvass, but I'm also saying that it's not the most efficient way to do it, going in numerical order down a street where people I don't know.
Um, the other thing is profit. Um, I'm an evil media consultant. Um, you know, I make money, um, and that a lot of other consultants still put a priority on television, and so there's a profit motive of holding television, you know, and making money on it. Um, I'm a media consultant who spends a huge percentage of our budgets now on digital because that's where people are.
But for a digital campaign, I may have to produce 175 pieces of creative, when for the, you know, television campaign, it was ten. Um, so we're in a situation now where in 2024, for broadcast, 70% of [00:18:00] communication was reaching twenty percent of the audience. Um, and that's not very efficient. Um, and then if you hold your, your, your, your videos till the end, people have already voted.
You know, sixty some percent of people already made up their mind. A lot of people already voted, and then you're not able to target anybody. With digital, I can target specific audiences with ads one-to-one. Can't do that with TV. Or I grew up in a Philadelphia media market. If I do a New Jersey campaign, half the ads that I put up on the air go to Delaware and Pennsylvania.
I do a Pennsylvania campaign, New Jersey and Delaware, and the same thing. So, like, that's not efficient. But still, you know, it's money. Um, and, you know, I, I kid that, you know, consultants are parasites. Um, and the number one rule of being a parasite is don't kill the host. Well, guess what?
I'm afraid that may be the lead, that may be the lead of the interview now. Will [00:19:00] Robinson says consultants are parasites
[00:19:03] Peter: So, but I wanna push back a little bit. So i- isn't the fix just to shift the money from TV late in the game to streaming earlier in the game?
[00:19:14] Will Robinson He/Him: Yeah, yeah. That's st- that's a start. But the other thing is that if I buy streaming like I buy television, that doesn't make sense either. Um, so you can buy, you know, all the households on streaming in New Jersey, but that's just like treating it like television. Instead, it's taking a list of people, matching them to people who are watching streaming.
There's a thing called programmatic advertising where you have your voter list, you go on the internet, and the people on your voter list go on a website, a shoe website, a news website. When they go on the site, there's literally an auction that takes place in three one-thousandths of a second, and if you win that auction, they see [00:20:00] your video.
Um, and literally, you're communicating with these people as they move around, and that's much, much more efficient than just buying television. Uh, but the other thing is that, um, you just can't put TV ads on digital. Um, you know, TV ads, 30 seconds. We're seeing more and more, um, 15-second ads or six, six-second TV ads.
You know, someone said, um, "A six-second ad? What can you say in six seconds?" Well, here's a six-second ad: "Insulin used to be $40 a vial. Now it's 300. What's up with that?" That's a six-second ad. And on a digital platform where, um, I can, um- Uh, put that up, people will click on it and say, "What is up with that?" Um, so one point I wanna make, um, is the problem with this just isn't the consultant's profit [00:21:00] motive.
Some. There are, there are some like me that are really trying to change. It's the people that are running the campaigns don't have the organizing experience to push back against the consultants. So I talked to a young-- I, I talked to a young campaign manager, 24 years old, they've run one congressional race, and I'm like, "This is what I think we should do," and they go, "Okay."
And I'm like, "No, not okay. You know, you're the manager. What do you think?" "Well, you're the consultant, you're the expert." "No, I'm not. You know, you're, you're sitting in this district, you're sitting in Smallville. What do you think?" And we're not training these young staffers, at least on the progressive Democratic side, to understand how this works.
Um, and I think one of the major problems we have on the Democratic side is we don't have incredible training programs, so the people who are managing these [00:22:00] races have the knowledge to say, "I'm sorry, consultant, I don't think spending seventy percent of our budget on TV really makes sense, and I want my candidate to do some digital, um, you know, online advertising and perhaps do some online discussions or do podcasts or, or whatever, um, because that's where people are," and be able to push back against the consultants.
Um, and consultants are often not a, um, uh, an easy breed to push back against
[00:22:34] Peter: Well, yeah, I guess they make their living essentially by pitching clients that they're the smart ones who have the right answers and have to be confident, um,
[00:22:42] Will Robinson He/Him: And,
[00:22:42] Peter: in order to, uh,
[00:22:44] Will Robinson He/Him: and good, and good looking like myself, you know, fashion plate. So, yeah
[00:22:49] Peter: So I, one, I wanna go back to one of the things you mentioned because, um, I think it's really striking when you talked about the difference in the number of ads that have to be cut if you're [00:23:00] doing like a TV campaign versus online, which, uh, g- obviously is because we've got highly fractured audiences that, um
A- and we can, which we can actually identify, you know, in clusters or cohorts of, this set of people with these values and demographics, you know, tend to think this, and so gotta have different messengers, messages. Like, um, and I get that, that ties back to that first question that you're saying campaigns should be asking, which is who are you trying to reach?
[00:23:36] Will Robinson He/Him: So I wanna reach non-col-- I wanna reach college-educated women. And on the Democratic side, we tend to carve out things by demographics. So college-educated women, all the same, right? So is a college-educated woman who went to Bryn Mawr the same as a college-educated woman who went to the Ohio State University [00:24:00] or a college-educated woman who went to Liberty University?
And I would posit that perhaps those college-educated women who went to those three institutions might have a different life outlook. Um, and yet we still treat college-educated women, blue-collar men and whatever, and, like, people are not, you know... But if you go into clusters where someone is an enterprising conservative, a moderate Republican, uh, I don't like taxes, but I believe in institutions, and I get upset when, um, someone goes into a school board meeting like Moms for Liberty and busts it up because I'm a rules follower.
And I'm not abortion on demand, but I also think we shouldn't outlaw all abortion. And, like, my particular cluster, I'm a different cut of Republican than MAGA or, you know, religious extremist or whatever, and that I can communicate with that person with [00:25:00] the values that they believe, um, with language they believe.
And I think that part of it is, um, is it's an audience-first approach to messaging rather than, "I have this message." And, you know, one of the problems with the Democratic Party, one of many, is that we're run by former high school debaters. And we think that--
um, you know, sixty-five-word closing language, if I read this, people are gonna go, "Oh, wow, I thought that you were a big-spending commie liberal Democrat, but now that you've read those sixty-five words, I know I'm wrong, and I agree with you."
Um, and really what it is, is we need to learn with an audience-first approach how we communicate with people, that we connect with them, and that we will respect people's culture because culture crushes credentials every day. Um, and I think that a lot of the Republicans understand that, and [00:26:00] some things that we think are ridiculous as Democrats like, you know, ultimate fight on the White House lawn or NASCAR or, you know, Trump standing in the McDonald's takeout window, that's-- people relate to that stuff.
Um, and we don't, you know, we don't necessarily understand that So it really is important that we think about who our audience member is, respect who that audience member is, and communicate in a way to them that shows that respect and shows that understanding. And a lot of the messaging that takes place with Democrats, you know, we're, y- you know, lecturing and they think we're talking down to them, um, and that we really need to move to everyday language.
Um, and everyday language that's respectful for the people that we're talking to.
[00:26:51] Peter: Is culture king really? Like, s- um, figuring out how to channel that or m- [00:27:00] match it, reflect it, that matters more than facts and numbers
[00:27:07] Will Robinson He/Him: Fa- facts, facts are a part of it, but culture is really important. And I think part of our problem is that we view, um, politics through ideological lenses, and people don't think of themselves in that way. So it's possible for someone to support their Democratic member of Congress and also vote for Donald Trump, and they won't see any inconsistency in that.
And we're like, you know, "One's a progressive Democrat and Donald Trump..." But it's like people don't see that. Um, and so, you know, people wanna know three things about a candidate. Who are you? What do you stand for? Where are you gonna take me? And can I trust you? And that a lot of the things about that are cues and things that are going on with you as a candidate [00:28:00] that have nothing to do with ideology.
So Governor Sherrill, Governor Spanberger, intelligence officer, military officer, prosecutor, mom of teenage girls. And, you know, mom of teenage girls was as important with them talking about culture war stuff as the fact that they were a prosecutor. Um, and people can view that that way and understand. In Maine, um, uh, Troy Jackson, you know, seventh generation logger, um, he bowls, not as some ironic statement.
He actually bowls, you know, and, like, he's a real person, drinks beer out of a bottle.
[00:28:46] Peter: He
[00:28:47] Will Robinson He/Him: and it-- Right. No, it's not, it's not something that's, you know, let's, let's, let's put the candidate in a position where he can, you know, be a-- wear a bowling shirt and drink beer out of a long neck, you know, you know?
[00:28:57] Peter: a regular person.
[00:28:58] Will Robinson He/Him: Right, it's who he is. Um, [00:29:00] and that I think that's important to, to do that. And when you try to get the candidate to be something they're not, you know, authenticity is really important. Um, the other thing is, um, we have been sitting around fires telling each other stories for fifty thousand years, sixty thousand years, and our brains are wired for narrative.
And if you think about some of the most effective communicators on the Democratic side, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, FDR, were all incredible storytellers. And stories allow you to process information, draw your own conclusion, and say, like, "That's a good guy. He understands. He doesn't understand." And that, you know, a, a story will trump a f- a bag full of facts any day.
Now, a story that can prove a fact is even more powerful. [00:30:00] But, you know, our brain is wired, "Can I trust this person? Is this person a threat to me?" Um, you know, "Is this person going to help me?" And that's just not, you know, their position papers, but it's also, you know, visual cues or background. You know, he's with children.
Um, dogs like him. Dogs don't like him. I've always, like, you know-- How come Donald Trump's never with dogs? That's, you know, a major question that voters should ask, right? Um, but it's just that, you know, and that we as Democrats need to learn to be better storytellers. And we have some incredibly powerful stories to tell, but it's like move away from the position papers and tell the story about the mom who has to drive an hour and a half to a delivery room to give birth, or a veteran that can't get healthcare.
[00:30:54] Peter: So instead of a candidate going, [00:31:00] "Trump administration cut $80 billion health, healthcare for Maine, so we've gone from three trauma centers down to one." I mean, that's pretty fact-oriented. You tell a story about Joe Bob or whoever, you
[00:31:16] Will Robinson He/Him: Right.
[00:31:17] Peter: yeah,
[00:31:17] Will Robinson He/Him: people never...
[00:31:18] Peter: needed care, and,
[00:31:20] Will Robinson He/Him: Right
[00:31:20] Peter: know, he was only, he only lived because the
[00:31:23] Will Robinson He/Him: Like people don't believe 17.8% of anything, okay? That if you need to, if you need to, you know, lift your, your, your narrative with, with statistics, um, it's, you know... And people can be- And it's true. People can believe that a trauma center shut down and now I am in peril if I'm in an accident.
Just like, um, you know, the veteran who can't get the healthcare they need. Um, you know, these are real things, and they impact real people's lives.
[00:31:57] Peter: I guess with stories, it gives the listener the opportunity to [00:32:00] put themselves in the subject's place and
[00:32:03] Will Robinson He/Him: Right
[00:32:04] Peter: how would I feel if, which I, y- yeah, you just don't get with a recitation of statistics and facts
[00:32:10] Will Robinson He/Him: Right. And when I do media training, a lot of times they'll be like, "Just the other day And then almost all the time it's like, "I met a woman who... I came across... I paid," you know, whatever. And, like, that's a way for us to relate to that. Um, and, you know, that's something that we need to train people how to be better storytellers, but also be a good storyteller also means being a better listener, of hearing those stories, seeing what's going on.
Um, and you know, I, I started out very young doing organizing, and then I became a media consultant. And I had the good fortune to meet Tony Schwartz, um, who's the guy who did the Daisy [00:33:00] ad, um, against Johnson. And I worked for Joe Slade White. He was, uh, Tony's mentee, and Tony helped me for a while.
[00:33:10] Peter: wasn't that Johnson's ad against, um,
[00:33:12] Will Robinson He/Him: Goldwater.
[00:33:12] Peter: his name?
[00:33:13] Will Robinson He/Him: Goldwater, yeah. And it, you know, it only played once, but it was incredibly emotionally impactful. But, you know, Tony's like, "Stop doing facts. Stop doing this. Tell stories, and do it visually." Um, and it was some of the best advice I ever got. But he's like, "Communicating with someone is an emotional reaction.
It's an emotional interaction, and you want to involve them of what's going on." And if you watch a person giving a speech and you see the audience not looking at their phones and engaged in that, then you know that's communicating.
[00:33:47] Peter: Yeah
[00:33:48] Will Robinson He/Him: But, you know, you have someone who's telling a story, people will look up and they'll understand that
[00:33:54] Peter: But don't people need to know some facts that are rele- don't you have to know some [00:34:00] facts about something in order to actually make a decision between which candidate you wanna vote for?
[00:34:08] Will Robinson He/Him: So-and-so voted for the big, beautiful bill, and... Oh, I-- let me tell you a story. Um, I grew up in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, okay? Outside of Philadelphia.
[00:34:19] Peter: uh-hunh
[00:34:20] Will Robinson He/Him: big, beautiful bill votes. Um, my hometown, um, two hospital emergency rooms, two hospitals closed down within a couple weeks of each other, Chester Crozer and Taylor Hospital.
Um, they're about four miles apart from each other. Um, they didn't even wait for the Medicaid cuts to come down. They're like, "We're not making money." They shut it down. So, high school friend of mine, kid breaks his arm, takes the kid to Chester Crozer emergency room, pulls up in the driveway, hospital's closed.
George is like, "But the light was on in the building. What's going on [00:35:00] here?" Right, 'cause they didn't turn it-- You know, so he's like, "What do you mean the hospital's closed?" So he drives to Taylor Hospital. It's closed. He's like, "Am I in some kind of a post-apocalyptic..." You know. But, like, in that part of the county, there is no emergency room.
"So do I have to drive into Philadelphia?" Um, my brother, um, who's a little bit older than I am, I'm like, "Rob, you may need to drive down to Wilmington if you're in an emergency room situation, 'cause it's gonna be faster to get down to Wilmington, Delaware, than it is to drive into a hospital closer to Philadelphia."
Now, did I just mention st-statistics in that? No.
[00:35:41] Peter: No
[00:35:42] Will Robinson He/Him: that illustrative of what's going on? You know, the very fact that the bill passed, these venture capitalists were like, "We're not gonna make money in these hospitals." Gone. Um, and that's happening everywhere in this country, and I don't think you need a statistic for people to believe that healthcare companies will put [00:36:00] profit before people.
Everybody's dealing with it every day. Um, I was, um, at GW Hospital's pharmacy, um, waiting in line for my outrageously expensive pharmac-pharmaceuticals. Woman in front of me is sobbing. Um, "I need this money, my kid, asthma," whatever. Um, there's a hundred and forty-five dollar copay. "I can't pay for that," and she just starts sobbing.
[00:36:28] Peter: Yeah
[00:36:29] Will Robinson He/Him: I'm like, "Oh, God." So I make eye contact with the pharmacist. I pull out my credit card. I hand him the credit card. He ch-ch, you know, or whatever they do now, touch. And I'm like, "Ma'am, I'm paying for your drug." "What about next month?" "I understand, ma'am. You know, talk to your-- Give me your name. Let me talk to my doctor.
I'm sure we can figure out something." But, like, that's what's going on with people right now, and it isn't just her. It was her son, and when her son didn't get this f- this [00:37:00] drug, he can't breathe. And that's what's going on. Everyone has something like that going on in their family.
[00:37:07] Peter: That was an incredibly generous and caring thing that you did, Will.
[00:37:12] Will Robinson He/Him: Well, I'm an evil media consultant, so I need to build up as much positive karma as I can. Okay? So it's self-serving
[00:37:20] Peter: Um, so, oh, at least at the time we're recording this, last night, um, Abdul... Or was it last night or the day before? Anyway, this week, Abdul El-Sayed won the Michigan primary, um, over Haley Stevens. And I'm just wondering what you make of that race, 'cause she- There was a ton of money poured into it, which I, um, uh, for Haley Stevens, um, um, way more than, uh, Abdul El-Sayed had on hand. Um, but he won by a, a slim margin, and what I've read is, um, he actually, he did do a lot of door-to-door, [00:38:00] um, canvassing. He had a massive volunteer base. I'm not entirely sh- clear on what the social sort of strategy was. But does that, does that race tell us something important
[00:38:13] Will Robinson He/Him: Yeah.
[00:38:13] Peter: the time that we're in?
[00:38:14] Will Robinson He/Him: Yeah, that you can't buy a, an election with TV. Um, it's fragmented, um, and that it's like that's not connecting. Um, and I was in New Hampshire a few cycles ago, and I was in one of the diners, and there was, like, all these TV ads blasting three days before the primary, and nobody's paying attention to it, and nobody was in it, but it was just like this stuff kinda like, you know, raining down on top of you.
I hear that this candidate is a terrorist, um, and hates America and apple pie and whatever, um, but my best friend says, "That's bullshit. [00:39:00] Um, that's not true. Let me tell you why." And the fact that my friend told me that or my friend posted on their social media page, "Here's what's really going on," it's not just the refut- r- you know, refuting it, but it's the fact it's someone I trust.
Um, and that's what's really going on, and so these campaigns that make these connections with people, um, that have those connections, um, it, it can trump, you know, tens of millions of dollars of TV ads. And what we need to do as Democrats is move money that we're putting on television and put it in the institutional structures that give us the ability for people to talk to people.
Um, and people are really busy, so sometimes the only time I can reach a, a working mom is at 11 o'clock at night when she's looking at her social media, waiting for the laundry to come out of the washing machine and put in the [00:40:00] dryer. And if her best friend sends her something, then that, that makes a connection
[00:40:05] Peter: What do you mean by the institutional structures? What, what does that like?
[00:40:10] Will Robinson He/Him: Training organizations that would get people to canvas, um, voter registration drives, sh- communication structures that exist beyond a campaign structure. So when I do a, a registration campaign or I do a campaign, we win. Yay. It still continues forward. So the right, Moms for Liberty, Turning Point, all these organizations exist twenty-four seven.
Um, and we tend to put things that are cyclical, um, not ongoing
[00:40:49] Peter: Why they always seem to have some kind of cultural beef with somebody or something, is that [00:41:00] just so they have a 24/7 something to talk about and rant about
[00:41:04] Will Robinson He/Him: Yeah.
[00:41:05] Peter: people with?
[00:41:06] Will Robinson He/Him: Yeah. This is propaganda. Um, and that, um, gonna say something else controversial, um, this doesn't come from the Russians, it comes from Goebbels. Um, and the idea of creating something, you know, that we don't love some- we don't like somebody, we feel disgruntled, these are all techniques. And like, you know, nobody gave a damn that f- or some transgender eight-year-old was playing baseball or whatever, but they made it so.
Um, and that they are plucking on people's fears and that sort of thing as a manufactured thing to get people upset. Um, and both suppress the other side and pump up their side. You know, what I always said is that they, um, attack their opponents, they befuddle the [00:42:00] middle, and whip up their base, and that's their strategy.
And they do it online, they do it organizationally, and it's something that's going on 24/7. Um, if you do post my Substack, there's a guy named Rob Stein,
[00:42:15] Peter: Mhm
[00:42:15] Will Robinson He/Him: who, um, was a, a Democratic activist. He just passed away. He had done a considerable amount of work on the right-wing organic network, and there's a Substack I did where I recorded Rob, um, talking about this right before he passed away.
Um, and he wanted to do one final-- And it was four years ago, but it's still what's going on right now. And he takes it literally from the 1960s to the people that were involved in that were out of the mainstream to now the right wing is in the mainstream. Um, and it's, it's 20 minutes. It's really long content, but if someone's really interested in it, it's one of the best, um, kind of one sit [00:43:00] watch, um, on, uh, the right wing, how they do it, how they use propaganda.
Um, I call it the fire hose of falsehood. Um, flood the zone with falsehood.
[00:43:09] Peter: it.
[00:43:10] Will Robinson He/Him: Right.
[00:43:11] Peter: I'll put a link to that in the, in the show notes. Um, so who do you think is adapting well to the, you know, the modern communications landscape? who's adapting well?
[00:43:26] Will Robinson He/Him: So, you know, I said about this innovator's dilemma that
[00:43:30] Peter: Yep
[00:43:31] Will Robinson He/Him: that are doing well, so steel mills and that sort of thing, you know, we make steel, we're making profits. Okay, you know, we need to change a little bit. We'll keep on making steel until they don't make steel anymore. Um, so the democratic institutions, the, um, you know, established candidates, they're doing things the way they always were doing them.
Um, it's the insurgents that I think are understanding this because desperation [00:44:00] breeds innovation. Um, so a lot of the people, a lot of the people I work with, it's like we're just a bunch of crazy enviros. How in hell are we gonna take on this, you know, whatever? How are we gonna take on Johnson & Johnson?
How are we gonna take on the insurance companies? All we have is people. We don't have money. So then it's like people, time, and money. So we don't have money. Let's put the time together and organize people and have them do that. Um, and that we can take advantage of the digital infrastructure if we have the people to do it.
So it's the insurgents that are doing it. So in a lot of ways, the people on the left are using these techniques, A, 'cause they work, but also because they're organizers and they're out in the community already and they're talking to people, and that's what really makes a difference.
[00:44:50] Peter: So that sounds like in the advocacy space. Um, w- what about in the electoral space? Like, I guess Mamdani is, you know, currently a, a favorite example of someone who gets social [00:45:00] media and used it really effectively to be a, a, a more recognized and known
[00:45:07] Will Robinson He/Him: Right. And I think, I--
[00:45:08] Peter: that who would win
[00:45:09] Will Robinson He/Him: Right, and I think we're gonna be in a situation where we're gonna have 20 people running for president, um, on the Democratic side. And someone like Pete, who is really facile with social media, I think is gonna have an advantage with that, because you can't do a TV campaign for the next year and a half.
And especially if you're dealing with South Carolina, New Hampshire, you know, those early elections, it's making those connections. And I think people that understand that, I think will do well. And the people that come into that campaign with, "We're just gonna run a traditional campaign," aren't gonna do well.
you recently wrote, uh, or put a post, "If I had $100 million, I wouldn't spend it on campaigns." So I thought this was really
Said, said the media consultant, you know
[00:45:59] Peter: the media [00:46:00] consultant. So the check clears tomorrow, you got your 100 mil, what do you build first?
[00:46:05] Will Robinson He/Him: I build civic organization, um, and I build infrastructure, um, progressive infrastructure, and I train, I train, I train. Um, and going the way back machine, um, a million years ago, I was just out of college. I started a thing called Project 500, which was the Democratic Party's redistricting operation in the '80s.
Um, and we spent 60% of our budget training people. Um, and I did these campaign manuals, and a lot of people who are now in senior positions were-- went through that training and went through the Democratic National Committee training, and there isn't a lot of training going on right now. Um, one of my colleagues, Amy Pritchard, um, uh, who runs Global Gain, does a lot of progressive work.
She's gonna start a thing called Democracy University. Um, if you go on my substack, there's a link. [00:47:00] We, we haven't-- It's not live yet, but we're going to do training. And we-- she did a, um, a survey on people who applied for jobs through Global Gain. Um, and she's got a hundred and thirty thousand people that have applied for jobs through that, through-- since 2020, right?
The number one thing they want training on: leadership Not technical stuff. And I think a lot of it is people don't know how to be leaders. They don't know how to be organizers. They can learn a lot of the technical skills. Some of it, we need to teach people how to deal with AI, but a lot of it's like, "How do I be a leader?"
Um, and, you know, one of the interesting things about politics, it's one of the few professions where you can be in a major leader, leadership position in your twenties. You know, World War II, you could be flying a B-17 at age twenty-two. Um, I was twenty-four years old, and I'm sitting in a hotel, um, [00:48:00] uh, room in s- the Savory Hotel in Des Moines, Iowa, briefing Vice President Mondale.
And I look around the room, and most of us were in our twenties and thirties.
Um, and I had mentors who were like, you know, "He's not gonna... Well, he might-- Mondale wouldn't bite your head off. There might be some others,
[00:48:19] Peter: Mhm.
[00:48:19] Will Robinson He/Him: like, you need to speak authoritatively. You need to be comfortable in these rooms." Um, and you know, uh, my mentor sat through my first couple meetings with Mondale and made sure I was okay, but it's like, I got the-- I got this training to, like, how to be, um, an advocate for myself and my position and be comfortable in that and that in the, you know, digital world, we don't necessarily train that.
So I think it's going to be, you know, how to be a leader, how to be an organizer, um, how to put together a plan, how to, how to put together a strategy, not just how to write a press release or how to put together a [00:49:00] video or whatever, but it's, like, more, um, leadership skills that we need to teach people.
And, you know, we're gonna have a national election in two years, um, Democratic conventions over ninety days before the election starts, before election day, ninety days from the end of the convention, so we better have an institutional structure, right? And voting starts on some states September eighteenth.
So now's the time for us to start building this. And, you know, one of the reasons why I'm being such a curmudgeon and writing so much of these annoying Substacks is that I think we need to start this now, um, and I'm trying to get some of this stuff going in '26, so we have proof of concept on it. But if people are interested in being a co-conspirator, you know, they have my Substack, and I'm willing to co-conspire with, with m- with many, many people, especially people that are, that are desperate 'cause desperation breeds innovation.[00:50:00]
[00:50:01] Peter: One of the things I'm desperate about is, uh, sort of along these lines, a, a, a parallel thing, which is, um, we are so far behind the right in, uh, terms of reach and audience and engagement, um, even though there's recent stories of maybe the right's starting to fracture a little bit, but it's still over, you know, really outnumbers and can bury us, is when there are Democrats in charge, what happens to the policy agenda that, know, all of the, the different groups want to propel forward? Um, y- you know, environmental, health, financial. do you protect a policy agenda from a machine like the right has with the communications tools that we currently have?
[00:50:57] Will Robinson He/Him: Well, A, we need to start building the communication [00:51:00] tools. Um, and B, we need leadership. So, um, I'm a bit of a freak. Um, I started working campaigns at a very, very young age. Um, and I lived in my congressman's basement when I was in high school, um, and worked in his congressional office. Like I said, I'm a freak, okay?
And, um, this was like the 1975, back in the days of the Old Republic. And, um, my congressman, Bob Edgar, was one of the freshman bomb throwers, and he was trying to get rid of the pork barrel bill. And, you know, we weren't gonna win. Tip O'Neill, this is how long-- was the majority-- ma- majority whip, and he came up and he's like, "Bob, um, I'm counting right now, and we don't have enough votes on the floor.
Now, if you put it on the floor right now, I'll get them back, and I'll beat you. But I suggest what you do is call for an adjournment and [00:52:00] hold a press conference saying you stopped the pork barrel bill dead in its track because they knew didn't have the votes to stay." And Bob's like, "Okay." He's like, "But Tip, you wanna pass the bill."
And Tip was like, "Yes, I do. But I wanna see you in Congress next year. Do you understand, Bob?" And it was like, "What?" And then I'm thinking like, "Oh, that's what being a party leader is, is helping people." You know, the old Bill Clinton, "Whatever I can do, I'll come in and campaign for you, I'll come in and campaign against you."
Um, and you know, Nancy Pelosi was good at that. And so it's like we, we, you know, we need to have leadership on, we're not gonna be able to get everything you want. We're gonna get what we can get. But, you know, we need to protect Social Security. We need to protect Medicaid. We need to protect public education.
We need to protect our veterans. We need to protect our healthcare. Um, and that, that's what I think we need is [00:53:00] the ability to show leadership, um, and be able to deal with those constituency groups, but also have the knowledge about what's actually going on in the ground. And I think that a lot of people in Washington don't really understand what's going on in the ground.
Um, I had a meeting,
[00:53:21] Peter: What do you mean by what's going on on the ground?
[00:53:23] Will Robinson He/Him: I, um, we're talking about first day of the month and how we wanna go to grocery stores because that's when seniors are going shopping. And person's like, "Why?" I'm like, "Well, that's when the Social Security check gets, gets deposited." "Well, why would they go shopping?" "Because that's when they have money."
"Why wouldn't they have money to grow groceries before that?" "Because they're on Social Security." "You mean they'd have to wait for a Social Security check to be able to go to the grocery store?" And I'm kind of like, "Where are you from?"
[00:53:57] Peter: Got
[00:53:57] Will Robinson He/Him: know? Right. And I'm like, [00:54:00] "Oh, daddy's a donor. Got it." Okay?
But it's like people who understand what's actually going on in people's lives, that I don't care about the reflecting pool. I don't care about the reflecting pool. I don't care where Trump's name's on the Kennedy Center or Disney World or whatever. What I care about is gas is $4.34 a gallon. I care that my kid can't get off the couch and get a job.
I care that my best friend's kids can't afford to go to college. I'm worried about my, you know, real-life things, and I think a lot of people don't understand. People are really... You know, the woman in the pharmacy not being able to afford it. The Uber driver's like, "Can I get my tip in cash? I don't have enough money for gas."
And you know, that's what's going on with people, and it's not just, you know-- These are, like, middle-class people really struggling, and we need to understand that, and [00:55:00] it's not about affordability or any of the other bull language we have in DC. It's what's actually going on in people's lives. Um, and that, that's why I really think that we need to get back to what's going on in people's lives, and part of that is having a presence with people, not just in campaigns.
Um, and some of the most effective elected officials I know, their, their organization is just as concerned about electricity shutoffs in the summer or, um, you know, heat or whatever in the community, not just what's going on in politics.
[00:55:40] Peter: Mhm.
[00:55:41] Will Robinson He/Him: the-- whether we like it or not, the right is much more present, um, in our communities than we are.
Um, and we can't rent attention. We can't rent allegiances. We need to earn it, and the first way you earn it is to be there.
[00:55:57] Peter: And that's, so that's why you'd [00:56:00] spend $100 million on infrastructure and on year-round presence instead of just they show up at election time and then gone
[00:56:07] Will Robinson He/Him: Right. Or th- or $30 million of TV ads for a Senate race in Maine, which is just insane
[00:56:15] Peter: I mean, one of the big undercurrents here, and I've talked to Amanda Brink about this just last week, is trust and understanding where trust comes from, how it's built, and doubling down on that.
And I think just some of the basic examples, like people much more prone to believe, you know, something their friend tells them than, you know, whatever this TV ad had to say, uh, 'cause they trust them. They trust people that feel like, look like them, sound like them, share similar backgrounds. Um, I don't actually have a question at the end of that declaration
[00:56:51] Will Robinson He/Him: let me just say this, that it doesn't often take a lot. So I was speaking to a group of teachers, and they're like, "Will Robinson, blah, [00:57:00] blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And I get up and I said, "There's one thing you should know about me. I'm a product of a mixed marriage. My dad was AFT, my mom was NEA, but they made it work."
Okay? And I didn't need to say anything else. They were like, "Right. He got it. He gets it." You know, and, you know, before the internet, I knew what it was like for every dinner, two times a week, the phone would ring and my dad would go off and bail some kid out of jail or, you know, whatever. Um, my mom, you know, uh, spending, you know, Saturday band practice, theater, whatever, um, you know, coming home late for dinner because some kid really needed help and, like, you know, that's the stuff.
So, like, the teachers got it, that I understood that because that one little joke, they're like, "Okay, he got it." And that there are things we have in life where we can give people cues, especially if you do know what the [00:58:00] cue means. And, um, you know, we need to be better. But, like, that's where I think a story just really...
And, like, not a, you know, "I met a guy and he's thirty-seven, and uh, uh," but like, you know, an actual story. And if you're out there in the real world, these stories are happening every day because people are really, really struggling. Um, and, you know, we need to, we need to understand that, um, and really understand that we need to be communicating with them in a way that's meaningful to them, not just reading them a policy agenda or, you know, "I'm gonna-- When I get elected to Congress, I'm gonna introduce a bill, uh, uh," you know, whatever.
[00:58:41] Peter: Right. That's-- Yeah, that fulfills the here today, gone tomorrow kind of impression people have
[00:58:47] Will Robinson He/Him: Yep
[00:58:48] Peter: Well, Will, thank you for taking time from what I'm sure is your busy schedule, trying to, uh, uh, g-get Democratic operatives to [00:59:00] understand things. Um, before we go, uh, I'd like to, uh, the podcast with my usual ending question, which is, what advice did you receive in your early career, and from whom, that, uh, was important to you, that really mattered, and that you'd like to pass on to, uh, uh, the next generation of campaigners and advocates?
[00:59:24] Will Robinson He/Him: So, um, politics is an apprentice profession, um, and that you learn by doing. Now, it doesn't mean you don't-- You know, I was trained to be a pollster. I was trained to do digital, you know, I was trained to do statistics and that sort of thing, um, and that you learn by doing. It's also a very tribal profession, that the people you work with on a campaign in an area party.
And I had the fortunate experience of [01:00:00] working on a bunch of presidential campaigns when I was young. Um, and a lot of the people that I worked with in the Mondale campaign were all twenties. I still know today, I still talk to, you know, forty some years later. Because, you know, like war, we were young people given a lot of responsibility.
So, you know, you could-- You know, I taught at AU Campaign Management Institute, you know, um, there's a great program, um, at Kent State, there's a great program at GW, and you want to go do that, but you need to get the experience, um, to do it. And I had won a couple congressional races, and I was feeling all zippy about myself, and I'm like, "I'm going to become a consultant."
And Mike Ford, who is, uh, now no longer with us, was like, "Robinson, you haven't lost enough elections to be a consultant, so go out and lose some elections and come back after you've lost five or six elections." "Well, I've [01:01:00] never lost an election." "Well, that's the best reason why you should never be a consultant."
And it wasn't-- Fifteen years later is when I became a consultant. Um, and I could have been the brilliant twenty-- And w-we've seen some of the effects of these brilliant twenty-something-year-old consultants, you know, running campaigns. You know, I would have never only spent sixty-five hundred dollars on opposition research in a Senate race.
Are you kidding? Um, but we see the impact of that.
[01:01:29] Peter: critical Senate race,
[01:01:31] Will Robinson He/Him: Right. Right. But, you know, get the experience and that, you know, it, it is one of the more incredible experiences.
Um, and that, you know, I have a better sense of what America's like because I had an opportunity to work in so many places. And this is an amazing country. We are amazing people, and it's one of the reasons why I'm fighting so hard to protect it, is because I had a [01:02:00] career where I was able to meet so many people and see so many places around America.
Um, so it's like if you wanna do politics, go out and do it and get the experience. It's not something you're gonna be able to learn just through a classroom
[01:02:17] Peter: Well, Will, thank you so much. I really appreciate the time. It's great to talk to you. I love your Substack. Uh, I don't find your postings annoying, um, at all. I find them informative and
[01:02:30] Will Robinson He/Him: I can forward some of the people who do, okay? It's like, "Will, you're a traitor to the consulting profession." I'm like, "Wow, that's the nicest thing anyone ever said to me in a while," you know? Um, but let's... I would love to come back. I love this. I love what you're doing here, and maybe at some point we could do a check-in.
Um, and I saw Amanda, I've, I've seen some others, and that it's really important that we have these discussions, uh, because, you know, what they say, [01:03:00] that newspapers are like the first draft of history.
[01:03:03] Peter: Yep
[01:03:03] Will Robinson He/Him: I think people who work on campaigns are also the first draft of history as well.
[01:03:07] Peter: (INSERT: standard outro) Thanks for tuning into the campaign strategist where we dive into the art and science of advocacy. The podcast is produced by Prismatic Strategies to share wisdom and insights from leaders in the field. I'm your host, Pete Altman. Music was written by Andrea Perry and Pete Altman.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please don't forget to like, subscribe, and share with others who care about making a difference. You can find us wherever you get your podcast. Thanks again and see you next time.
