The Lincoln Project’s “tiki torch” stunt near Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus ahead of the election quickly collapsed like a house of cards, and now the LP now reportedly says they weren’t trying to pull one over on anybody. Instead the LP is saying that reporters just weren’t doing their jobs:
NEW: Internal Lincoln Project emails show how a Charlottesville tiki torch stunt went wrong https://t.co/BYyGj3Uw0R
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 3, 2021
https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/1455971893215997958
https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/1455973108628791303
The Lincoln Project seems to have actually intended that tiki torch bit as some kind of satire, but didn’t count on their own core audience of resistance libs being dumb enough to think it was real. https://t.co/2sPNfUNS00 pic.twitter.com/QureMytpE8
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) November 3, 2021
So who looks worse here, the media, or the Lincoln Project? Could it be a tie?
Don't expect journalism from journalists. https://t.co/eCVSB6WLEA
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 3, 2021
We don’t, but apparently the Lincoln Project did.
Went wrong? Are you kidding, it worked perfectly. https://t.co/I8W12EI9CJ
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) November 3, 2021
Right!?
I think @HashtagGriswold nailed this – they were going to be open about it being a troll but nobody in the media asked them and Resistance Twitter ran with "they're real Youngkin supporters."https://t.co/8RE6gefeSS
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) November 3, 2021
https://twitter.com/mattdizwhitlock/status/1455960036778328065
Then again, for quite a while that day, Dems and McAuliffe staffers sure didn’t seem like they wanted anybody to know it wasn’t genuine:
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1455972547338686466