Olivia's Strategy Memo to Bobby

'You are Rocky while the other candidates are Rocky and Bullwinkle.'

I’ve been asked by some of you to provide more primary source materials backing up the claims in the series I’ve been writing about the unusual events that transpired in 2024. That’s a very reasonable request, and I plan on making some of those materials available in the coming days. As a start, here is the text of the political strategy memo that Olivia Nuzzi wrote for R.F.K. Jr. in late June 2024 as he prepared for a pivotal event and while she was simultaneously finishing a severely critical article about Joe Biden. This memo was referenced in Part 3: Catch and Kill and helped form the basis of my conclusion that Nuzzi had crossed the line from journalist to political operative. —Ryan

“I worry that this format will visually suggest that you are not a legitimate option by projecting an image of you with your face pressed up against the glass. Your base may love that, but debates aren’t about bases. It sucks and it’s unfair that CNN and the major parties colluded to exclude you, but you have to deal with that reality as it is. You can’t manufacture an alternate reality through production bells and whistles. Even if it ends up looking great and it’s pulled off smoothly, I worry that the prevailing narrative will be about the stunt itself, prolonging a challenging news cycle instead of transcending it with the content of your speech and performance.

“Then there is the question of who this is for. The kind of person inclined to watch such a program live likely already supports you or at the very least is hyper aware of you. I assume that this cannot be simulcast on another network and will be streamed on social instead. If that’s the case, you’re probably addressing a younger demo live (the 70-or-so percent of 18-29 year-olds who don’t have cable) who you are already reaching. And if that’s the case, the actual challenge is not to produce a competing live event but to produce an event that has a long and versatile afterlife to penetrate other demos. I would lean into the fact that a majority of voters are sick of Trump and Biden and project an image of strength by accepting your exclusion, not dwelling on it, and having a conversation instead with those people who are inclined to welcome the relief that you represent. Your campaign and surrogates can dwell on your exclusion. You should exist on the plane above that conversation unless asked directly about it. Ron Paul did a great job striking this balance in his last campaign.

“Your team still should cut clips of your event together with clips of the debate (and they should do so much faster than they typically get around to posting content from your events; they are often on a multi-day delay, and sometimes longer, which amounts to an enormous missed opportunity as well as a waste of your time and resources). I would make sure someone is providing the moderator at your event with real time questions and updates from the debate so that you can address the same major subjects and weigh in on the biggest areas of disagreement. Not to be all Naomi Wolf advising Al Gore, but I would wear a (blue — unlike Gore, you are a summer) suit and your standard thin tie so that those clips achieve the same thing aesthetically that your actual presence at the debate would achieve in terms of signaling both plausibility and a contrast. And as for contrast: the official debate is going to be a controlled and quiet affair, as you know, with no audience. Your event should demonstrate that you are the candidate who people are actually enthusiastic about. I don’t mean that it should look like a rally (though I do see wisdom in holding a rally); but it should depict the reality that you are the only candidate who is capable of and willing to talk to real people, and that real people want to hear from. If you prescreen questions (which you should) you should permit a really negative one or two. The takeaway should be that you are Rocky while the other candidates are Rocky and Bullwinkle.

“Your SOTU response is an imperfect but instructive comparison. While I thought the publication itself was mismanaged and mistimed and as a result it did not achieve a mainstream media/broader demo breakthrough like it could have, it still succeeded long term. It was not an attempt to manufacture a rival SOTU. It felt authentic and you came across as presidential (there were too many cutaways from your face, however, which bothered me personally for private reasons related to my feelings about your face, but also as a minor but important strategic editing error: people who are not yet familiar with you need to make an approximation of eye contact with you when you speak DTC; you need to hold their gaze). In this case, I would offer news of whatever you decide to do as an exclusive to Fox, and as a condition of the exclusive, dictate that they must include on the chryon and at the beginning and end of the segment explicit directions for how people can watch the event, and they must run an accompanying news story on their website where the same information is emphasized at the top and bottom of the page. (Watters would be my first choice. If he doesn’t go for it, I would forget primetime and offer it to Fox & Friends, The Five, or Outnumbered.) If Fox turns it down, I would offer it to Piers in conjunction with the Daily Mail, with an agreement about how long the story must stay on their homepage, and since they have British media ethics you can probably dictate — carefully — other terms about the tenor of the story. If they turn it down, which they won’t, as they love any excuse to use the “EXCLUSIVE” banner, Newsmax or News Nation as a last resort (former has about 4x the viewers, depending on the show, but I know you have a good relationship with the latter and they are a better fit ideologically; Cuomo is most popular, as luck would have it). I would also leverage every relationship you have with podcast hosts and ask them to hype the event and tell people how they can watch it, too. If you have the volunteer bandwidth, you should go as far as to have volunteers in swing states contact nursing homes, campus political clubs, rotary clubs, etc. to arrange for them to stream your event live. Every screen counts.

“You are the best candidate, and the people who already know that came to that belief because they respect you and your ideas. Focus on your ideas. Just as you know what’s best for the country, you know best what you should do on your campaign, and whatever you decide, you’ll be great. I love you 💋❤️”