Introduction

As we barrel toward the midterms, the parties have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into delivering their messages to voters. Doug Thornell may be responsible for more of those ads than anyone.  He's a partner at SKDK, one of the top strategic communications companies in the world, and one of the few Black media consultants in Democratic politics.  So when we asked him what making all those ads has shown him about the challenges that the party faces, he had something interesting to say. "The Democratic Party has an image problem.  And we have for awhile now."