The Republican Party of Texas announced they are hiring Karl Rove to run their 2020 campaign to keep Texas red.

They sent out copies of their strategy to retake 12 seats in the Texas House so that they can be totally in charge of the 2020 redistricting. It’s kinda hard to tell if this is the plan they did by themselves or the new Rove one.  One way or another, they’ve got it floored in neutral.

Bless their hearts, they also included in that email the 12 Democrats who are targeted in their plan.  Seriously.

The document identifies 12 statehouse districts the Texas GOP plans to target in 2020 as well as plans to center candidates who can push back on a “narrative driven by Democrats” about the GOP’s lack of diversity.

“Starting after the Primary, the RPT will generate microsites for negative hits against the Democrat candidates in our twelve target race—we expect each microsite to be roughly $500,” the document reads. “We will then begin rolling out these websites, prioritizing the races that were within 4% in the 2018 election.”

They’re gonna make a video with brown and black people in it and then they’re gonna sling mud.

If you are a minority, there’s a Republican in Texas who wants to hire you for a photoshoot. Then they want you to leave.

What’s a microsite?

A microsite is a branded content site that lives outside of the company homepage and/or brand URL.

That’s it, really. What differentiates a microsite from a company blog or newsletter or any other branded platform is that it has its own independent URL—likely one that doesn’t include the name of the company sponsoring the site. If you have to register a new domain name, you’ve got yourself a microsite.

In useful language, it can be a site created by the Republican Party, but it doesn’t have to say that. It can say it’s done by Wonderful Sheep Herders of Texas or Magic Get Rich Plan or People Who Love Their Mothers.  And they can use that microsite to sling mud.  And then place ads for it on Facebook, Google, or your favorite weather site.

I’m pretty damn sure the Russians taught them how to do that.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.