Will Robinson: "Consultants are parasites"

Will Robinson has made ads for Democrats for forty years. He opens this conversation by calling his own profession parasitic.

We start with what artificial intelligence has done to political communication since late 2025. Voters searching for a candidate increasingly get a synthesized paragraph instead of a list of links, and only about one percent click through to a source. Will searched himself and found out he is a Republican state representative from Florida. His conclusion: thirty years of message discipline now points the wrong way. The rule was never repeat the attack, but if the denial is not published somewhere a machine can read it, the denial does not exist.

From there: why the Democratic Party cannot adapt, and what Blockbuster and Sears have to do with it. Why broadcast is down to nineteen percent of video viewing while campaigns still spend like it is 2004. Why a college-educated woman from Bryn Mawr, one from Ohio State and one from Liberty are three different audiences, not one demographic. Why a story beats a bag full of facts. And what he would build with one hundred million dollars, which is not ads.

Will Robinson is co-founder of the New Media Firm and writes Will Robinson's Newsletter on Substack.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold open
00:20 Introduction
02:17 AI has changed politics, and it does not know what is true
06:23 Why never repeat the attack is now backwards
10:10 The two questions every campaign should start with
13:18 The innovator's dilemma, from Blockbuster to the Democratic Party
17:12 Consultants, profit, and the case for programmatic
20:50 Why campaign managers cannot push back
23:36 Audience-first: Bryn Mawr, Ohio State, Liberty
26:51 Culture crushes credentials
29:00 Why a story beats a bag full of facts
34:08 Two hospitals close, and a woman sobbing at the pharmacy
37:20 What Abdul El-Sayed's win actually shows
41:06 The fire hose of falsehood
45:59 If I had one hundred million dollars, I would train
50:01 Leadership, Tip O'Neill, and what is going on on the ground
55:41 We cannot rent attention, we cannot rent allegiances
58:48 Career advice: you have not lost enough elections

LINKS
Will Robinson's Newsletter: https://willrobinson.substack.com
The post on the two questions: https://willrobinson.substack.com/p/im-a-media-consultant-who-tells-clients
The Rob Stein conversation: https://willrobinson.substack.com/p/a-legacy-of-strategy-what-rob-stein
The New Media Firm: https://thenewmediafirm.com
GAIN Power: https://www.gainpower.org
This episode: https://thecampaignstrategist.substack.com/p/will-robinson-consultants-are-parasites

The Campaign Strategist is produced by Prismatic Strategies. Hosted by Pete Altman. Music by Andrea Perry and Pete Altman.

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