Vincent Harris Quoted on “Trump vs. Clinton general election sets up war of words with long-term risks”

WASHINGTON (SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP) —Competing to be the less hated of the most disliked presidential candidates of an election in recent history, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have begun targeting one another as they eye general election.

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“Donald Trump thinks he’s a unifier. His own party disagrees,” Clinton tweeted over the weekend, linking to a list of damning quotes from his rivals.

The list is one of many posts on Clinton’s campaign feed that address the man she is likely to face off against for the presidency.

Other posts include “9 things every voter in America needs to know about Donald Trump,” “4 things you can do right now tohelp stop Donald Trump from becoming president,” and “Trump will be the Republican nominee and only one candidate can stop it,” which is written in Spanish.

While Trump’s website lacks the extensive feed of lists about his now-main competitor, his Twitter leaves no question who he is running against.

“Crooked Hillary Clinton says that she got more primary votes than Donald Trump,” Trump wrote.

“But I had 17 people to beat – she had one!”

“Crooked Hillary just can’t close the deal with Bernie. It will be the same way with ISIS, and China on trade, and Mexico at the border. Bad!” Trump wrote less than 24 hours prior.

Despite having been up considerably longer, Clinton’s tweet of reasons why Trump should never become president had only been retweeted 2.2 thousand times and favorited 3.2 thousand times.

Trump’s remark on primary victories, having been up only three hours, was retweeted 3.1 thousand times and favorited another 9.1 thousand times.

The tweets represent a sharp contrast between the engagement the two candidates are seeing on social media right now. Clinton has just over 6 million. Trump has 8.06 million followers.

Commenting on the engagement the candidates are receiving, Vincent Harris, Founder and CEO of Harris Media LLC, noted the type of followers Trump has attracted online.

Trump, Harris suggested, has done “a very good job,” of playing to the grassroots, Tea Party, “very angry base online.”

“Those are people who are sharing his content to a level that Clinton doesn’t have right now,” Harris said.

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Harris foretold that Clinton would have “more people pushing her content forward,” once she wins the nomination. A lot of that engagement on the Democratic side currently resides with Bernie Sanders.

While Hillary Clinton is using gifs, Snapchats and pictures, Harris said she is running her so called “digital campaign,” within a box.

Clinton, Harris explained isn’t putting labels on her opponents or creating soundbites the way Trump is saying “outrageous,” things about her.

“He’s so outrageous that he generates attention,” Harris said describing that is where Trump is a “marketing genius.”

Trump knows what to say to stir the media into a frenzy “unlike any candidate in the modern media era,” Harris said.

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“I think that Donald Trump controls the media narrative,” Harris said noting how every video Trump puts out, tweet he sends or attack he lays garners attention.

“Hillary and his Republican rivals have been playing defense,” Harris described adding that now we’re seeing Clinton go on the offense a bit.

Asked about the marketing strategies the Clinton campaign is using to attack Donald Trump, Bruce Newman, professor of marketing at DePaul University’s Driehaus College of Business, said that it appears that Hillary Clinton “is attempting to take a page out of the playbook,” Obama used when he ran against Mitt Romney.

Newman, who authored the book The Marketing Revolution in Politics: What Recent U.S. Presidential Campaigns Can Teach Us About Effective Marketing, explained that Clinton is trying to define Trump the same way Obama was able to define Romney.

Both Trump and Clinton, Newman explained, are making the effort to redefine who their opponents are to the American people.

So far, Harris observed Clinton “is doing a pretty good job of bracketing him on gender issues.”

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“She and the democratic party are pushing out video content of some of his past statements,” Harris explained noting how a lot of the work they are currently doing “is really targeted at the female audience.”

Trump, Harris described,” is “responding [to] what she’s saying by dismissing her entire argument.”

Trump is accusing Clinton of playing the “woman card,” and attacking her for her “previous scandals,” Harris said.

“It does sound at some point,” Harris said that the candidates are simply “name calling back and forth,” opposed to having substantive debates about the issues.

Trump, Harris said “has done the best job of any candidate this cycle,” when it comes to using attacks to his advantage. “You see him put these labels on people,” Harris remarked noting that Trump utilizes the “age old,” strategy of repetition.

As the candidates struggle to sell their version of their opponent and themselves, Newman noted a “big advantage,” Clinton has over Trump: data.

Clinton, Newman said is “sitting on a massive database,” that’s been built up while Obama has been in office.

This information will help her to effectively micro target voters and engage in customer analytics, Newman said. Describing the likelihood that Clinton’s attacks against Trump would be micro-targeted, The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells explained that the Clinton campaign is able to pay for this information.

As a result, Wallace-Wells wrote “a catalogue of Trump’sdisregard for science will likely greet voters with environmental interests, and a recounting of his ugly history on race will surely be presented to African-American voters.”

Newman explained that the “one critical area that separates the two candidates, comes down to the Obama model.”

Trump, Newman believes is “in huge trouble” and the consequences could pose a long-term threat to his larger brand.

“I personally think that there’s more at stake for Donald Trump than just winning the presidency,” Newman said noting how Trump’s entire brand and even existence have “been built on winning.”

“Deep down in his psyche he has to be thinking about the following scenario: what if he gets walloped?” Newman said.

“What happens to his brand?” Newman questioned.

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In such a scenario, Newman explained Trump goes from being a winner to being a loser.

“There’s a lot at stake for him,” Newman said.

“Everything he’s built up over his life could come crashing down if he loses miserably in this campaign.”