Sánchez sweeps "La Revuelta" and maintains the PSOE's hope

After 9 years of exile, deputy Lluís Puig was able to return yesterday to sit in his seat at the Parliament. His emotion contrasted with the coldness with which he was received by the socialist group, at the head of which President Illa was not present, perhaps because it is one thing to have converted to the faith of the amnesty when his friend Pedro Sánchez has needed Junts to be invested as president and another to appear alongside someone who has not been to prison and who for nine years has been characterized as a “fugitive” (in reality, not a fugitive at all, because the exiles have always been, from the first day, at the disposal of the Belgian justice system (or German or Italian in the case of Puigdemont).

But while the amnesty is just being applied and closing the chapter of 2017, the Spanish electoral pre-campaign has definitively entered the second quarter of the 21st century.

Yesterday evening, Pedro Sánchez went to La revuelta, on TVE. And you know what? He crushed it in viewership: in Catalonia he was watched by an average of more than half a million people, with peaks of more than 600,000 viewers. For an hour and three quarters, out of every 100 televisions turned on, about 35 were tuned into the interview. The data for Spain is similar: a 34% audience share, the absolute historical record for La revuelta in its two years of airing, surpassing the previous mark, held by Rosalía (20.4%). Take note of that figure. It is true that popularity is not votes, but an audience like that is the dream of any electoral campaign manager. It indicates that Sánchez generates television expectation and does not disappoint. As Mònica Planas observes today, Sánchez went there dressed in a shirt and jeans, which is the new socialist corduroy, he took the opportunity to deliver all his messages and had brilliant retorts prepared: “It has its epic, this thing about being the Gaulish village, Ha, ha, ha. Well, let's see. In any case, if they insult, well that's on them. They insult me in every way. Do they remember my mother? Ha, ha. I also remember theirs, when I raise pensions or when I raise the minimum interprofessional wage”.

Sánchez's team is very good and he, for these things, is too. Because it is one thing for a politician to go on an entertainment show, which is already a classic, and another is for him to entertain and not falter. Yesterday he was playing at home, yes, but Sánchez masters the codes and the tones. He is the favorite in a head-to-head with Feijóo.

I was telling you that the pre-campaign has brought us into the second half of the 21st century. Big data dominates: whether it's alliances in the Senate to secure 3/5 of the seats and control appointments to the Constitutional Court, or whether in certain provinces the remainder of the electoral law can grant a seat by a few tenths, and AI.

Well-known socialist faces say the worst about themselves and top it off with an "I am a leftist." It is AI at the service of the PP. It says so underneath, in almost illegible print. Sharpen your cognitive tools, because, nowadays, seeing is no longer believing. What capacity does this whole show have to change the vote? It is not known, but if the parties are doing it, with the amount of money they spend on electoral foresight, it is because it works or it can work. It is about maintaining the initiative, making the other side follow, hitting the right tone, maintaining it, and reaching election day with the best voting intention. Think fast, execute fast, and perfection. From this point of view, the campaign is promising.

Good morning.