Todd Cranny

Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Riverwood Strategies · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

operatorfounderanalystriverwoodstrategies.com ↗

Todd Cranney is a longtime Republican campaign strategist who co-founded the Idaho-based public affairs and political consulting firm Riverwood Strategies. He previously served as the National Deputy Political Director for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign and managed operations for campaigns including Arnold Schwarzenegger's and Meg Whitman's.

9statements → 2claims → 0claims resolved → 3.89/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →

2 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 assertions · 7 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Todd argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: speaking style how? →

282 words/min while actually speaking · 4 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Todd Cranny: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 4 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 2,745 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Todd Cranny is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

Everything Todd Cranny said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Todd Cranny: Go-to-Market Teams Must Tell Buyers What They Want
“Sometimes voters don't know what they want. You know, just like buyers don't know what they want. You got to tell them what they want. And you can tell them what they want. You can actually create a new paradigm with them.”
Todd Cranny Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 6:12 a16z Podcast | Messages and Movements in Politics AND Business
Insight
Todd Cranny: Grassroots field ops add 2 to 4 points in close elections
“The grassroots organization, they could be worth two to four points in a close election race if it's done well.”
Todd Cranny Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:48 a16z Podcast | Messages and Movements in Politics AND Business
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Todd Cranny: Obama's 2012 victory margin came from superior field operations
“That was basically, unfortunately, the difference between us and President Obama. I mean, he beat Maybe by three and a half points, it was him being able to squeeze out on his field operation, and what they did was they maximized the technology and the digital…”
Todd Cranny Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:59 a16z Podcast | Messages and Movements in Politics AND Business
Insight
Todd Cranny: If you are explaining, you are losing
“If you're explaining, you're losing.”
Todd Cranny Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 21:28 a16z Podcast | Messages and Movements in Politics AND Business
Insight
Todd Cranny: A political campaign is the ultimate startup
“A political campaign really is the ultimate startup. You come in with nothing and you have to basically build a organization and You got to do it in zero to 60 and in a hurry. And it's kind of the ultimate startup and then shut down.”
Todd Cranny Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 3:29 a16z Podcast | Messages and Movements in Politics AND Business
Insight
Todd Cranny: In politics, unlike business, coming in second is absolute defeat
“The difference between business and politics is that you can, in business, be competing with somebody in a quarter and come in second and still make a lot of money. And still be in business for the next quarter. And politics, you come in second, and you're don…”
Todd Cranny Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 3:55 a16z Podcast | Messages and Movements in Politics AND Business
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Todd Cranny: Romney's 2012 campaign lacked data infrastructure because it was broke
“Well, the problem is we didn't have the money to invest in infrastructure in both field and on the data side because we were broke, you know, and we had four months over the summer to try to redo all that sort of stuff, to build out a field, full field program…”
Todd Cranny Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 9:16 a16z Podcast | Messages and Movements in Politics AND Business
Insight
Todd Cranny: Messaging requires data validation followed by strict delivery discipline
“The message itself, you test it, you know what it is, you know what the data tells you. Now that's the first part of it. Then you have to have a somebody who can deliver it and someone who can deliver it the way it's supposed to be delivered. In other words, d…”
Todd Cranny Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 18:09 a16z Podcast | Messages and Movements in Politics AND Business
Insight
Todd Cranny: Challenger organizations have far less room for error than incumbents
“When you're not the incumbent, you have very little room for error, and you have very much a much more difficult resource allocation decision to make. You got to really know what's the 20% that's going to get you 80% of the way there. If you mess that up as an…”
Todd Cranny Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 10:58 a16z Podcast | Messages and Movements in Politics AND Business

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
a16z Podcast | Messages and Movements in Politics AND Business Jan 2, 2019 11m
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,000 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.