Let The $4 Billion . . . Or $6 Billion . . . Or $9.8 Billion Rumpus Begin! (Threefer Edition)

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The latest trio of attack ads – a Splat Trick? – from the 2012 presidential campaign (all via Politico’s Morning Score):

Obama Campaign Brings the Bain

The hardworking staff at first thought this was a 2:03 web video – but it’s actually a two-minute TV spot from the Obama campaign running in the usual swingspects: Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Virginia.

Description:

Kansas City’s GST Steel had been making steel rods for 105 years when Romney and his partners took control in 1993. They cut corners and extracted profit from the business at every turn, placing it deeply in debt. When the company eventually declared bankruptcy, workers not only lost their jobs but were denied their full pensions and health insurance, and the government was forced to step in and provide a bailout.

The spot:

 

Killer quote: “It was like watching an old friend bleed to death.”

GOP Group Yokes Obama to Wall Street

Republican independent expenditure group American Future Fund “is launching a $3.4 million, five-day, eight-state counter-assault . . . that ties President Obama to Wall Street.”

The spot, which begins with Obama saying “I did not run for office to be helpin’ out a bunch of, y’know, fat cat bankers on Wall Street”:

 

Killer quote:

“Guess who gave $42 million to Obama’s last campaign for president? Wall Street bankers and financial insiders, more than any other candidate in history.”

Disregard the fact that Wall Street regrets backing Obama more than any other candidate  in history.

MoveOn.org’s Mitt Romney Drive-By

“A 30-second spot from MoveOn.org’s political action wing, timed to Obama’s speech at Barnard today, suggests Romney moved to the right on women’s issues to secure the Republican nomination and features various women saying they won’t let him pivot back toward the middle. The script, read by various females looking into the camera:”

Congratulations, Mitt Romney! You’re the presumed GOP nominee
and all you had to do was
threaten to let our employers take away our contraception coverage
threaten to let our insurance companies charge us more, just because we’re women
and threaten to get rid of Planned Parenthood, a life-saving source of healthcare for million of women
So this November, we’re gonna remember
how you threw women under the bus, just to get the nomination.

The spot:

 

Of course, none of those women would have voted for Romney at gunpoint under any circumstances, so the ad is a sort of empty exercise.

Which pretty much describes this entire enterprise.

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Boston: We’re Number . . . Whatever In Segregated Schools!

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

From our Why the New York Times Is a Great (Local) Newspaper desk:

Monumental takeout on New York’s public-school system in Sunday’s New York Times.

Nut graf:

In the broad resegregation of the nation’s schools that has transpired over recent decades, New York’s public-school system looms as one of the most segregated. While the city’s public-school population looks diverse — 40.3 percent Hispanic, 32 percent black, 14.9 percent white and 13.7 percent Asian — many of its schools are nothing of the sort.

About 650 of the nearly 1,700 schools in the system have populations that are 70 percent a single race, a New York Times analysis of schools data for the 2009-10 school year found; more than half the city’s schools are at least 90 percent black and Hispanic.

Helpful chart:

Notice anything?

Boston schools are nowhere in sight!

Then again there’s this.

So let’s not do any victory dancing just yet.

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NYT’s Tom Friedman Is A Dummkopf

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

New York Times chinstroker Thomas L. Friedman, CEO of the Flat World Society (and bête noire of Crazy Train engineer Matt Taibbi), has a real headscratcher in Sunday’s Times about Michael Sandel’s What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets:

This Column Is Not Sponsored by Anyone

PORING through Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel’s new book, “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets,” I found myself over and over again turning pages and saying, “I had no idea.”

I had no idea that in the year 2000, as Sandel notes, “a Russian rocket emblazoned with a giant Pizza Hut logo carried advertising into outer space,” or that in 2001, the British novelist Fay Weldon wrote a book commissioned by the jewelry company Bulgari and that, in exchange for payment, “the author agreed to mention Bulgari jewelry in the novel at least a dozen times.”

Which means Friedman doesn’t read his own newspaper, since the Times reported the Pizza Hut story here, and the Bulgari piece here.

As Bugs Bunny would undoubtedly say, What a maroon.

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Let Lord Stanley’s Wild Rumpus Begin! (Quick Response Edition)

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The Boston Globe’s Fluto Shinzawa included this in his Sunday Hockey column about Los Angeles Kings goalie Jonathan Quick:

A QUICK STUDY

Ex-coach likes what he sees

After Jonathan Quick’s junior season at Avon Old Farms, his coach delivered a message the goalie wasn’t keen to hear.

Quick was among the top prep school goalies in New England. But for someone that good, he allowed too many softies. And longtime coach John Gardner was blunt in his assessment.

“The rap on him was that he had a great year, but he’d give up one bad goal a game,’’ Gardner recalled. “On several occasions, he’d let in a bad goal. I told Jon that.’’

In his senior year, Quick posted nine shutouts. After each one, he approached Gardner with the same snarky question: “Any bad goals today, Coach?’’ The answer: “Not today, Quickie.’’

Well, yes today, Quickie. The Phoenix Coyotes caught Quick napping in the first period of Game One of their Western Conference Final:

Who’s snarky now, eh, Jonathan?

P.S. The Kings still won, 4-2. Quick’s postgame comments:

 Quick called it “a lucky bounce.”

“Things happen,” he said. “This one is overwith. We’ll focus on Game 2 now.”

Maybe with a bit more humility.

Or maybe not.

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It’s Good To Live In A Two-Daily Town (Mother’s Day Edition)

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The front pages of today’s local dailies illustrate all you need to know about the differences between the two.

Boston Globe:

Boston Herald:

That the Herald chose New England Patriot tight end Rob Gronkowski (best known for being lewd, crude, and often stewed) as its Poster Son is one thing; that his story is largely unremarkable is another (it’s one-half of Karen Guregian’s NFL Notes column).

That Diane Gronkowski’s  expectations are so low is something else entirely.

Rob and his brothers, Gordie, Dan, Chris and Glenn were all well-fed and well cared for. That’s why “Robbie” as he is known to Mom, will be cooking up a special treat today. For her part, Diane Gronkowski would welcome something as simple as a visit. That’s all it would take to put a smile on her face today.

And all it took to put her son on the Herald’s front page.

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Rebekah In Wonderland

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

From Saturday’s New York Times:

Caption: “Rebekah Brooks, a former executive under Rupert Murdoch, after testifying on Friday.”

Through the looking glass, it goes without saying.

Tip o’ the pixel to the Missus.

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The Very Model Of A Modern Sports Mom

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

From our Mother’s Day desk:

Sweet piece by Jason Gay in the Weekend Wall Street Journal:

On Mother’s Day, the Real MVP

My mother never really helped me with sports. I’m not even certain if she loves sports. All she ever did was pack me up in the car for the first 17 years of my life, dragging me out of bed and telling me to eat something before driving me off to tryouts, to practice, to tournaments and playoff games that I can no longer remember. All she ever did was make sure that I always had a ride home after the game. All she ever did was abandon huge chunks of her day—her life—to make sure I could play sports with my friends because I enjoyed playing sports with my friends.

I am not sure what the big deal is about this. It’s not like my mother taught me how to throw a curve ball.

Gay’s salute to his Mom proceeds along similar lines, leading up to this conclusion:

Now my life is surrounded by sports, by games and superstar athletes privileged to be paid millions for games the rest of us would play for free. And though there is a whole warm nostalgia built up around the idea of sports, fathers and sons, of passing the game from one generation to the next, I can tell you that whenever one of these superstar athletes wins a championship, or breaks a record, or signs a big contract, the first person they thank, 99 times out of 100, is not their father, or a coach, or an agent, or a friend, but their mother.

I am older, and I think about all these things and I wonder if I had it wrong. Maybe my mother really did love sports.

Or maybe just me.

Ya think?

[And while we’re at it, a moment of silence here for my Mom (rest her soul), Jackie’s Agnes. My old man and both his brothers improbably married women named Agnes, who were forever Jackie’s Agnes, Sonny’s Agnes – still going strong, God love her – and Dan’s Agnes.

[For 20 years Jackie’s Agnes almost singlehandedly raised six kids in a three-room Manhattan walk-up, and did a damned good job of it. That was something special. As was Jackie’s Agnes.

[Here’s looking at you, Mom.]

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Just Don’t “Duets”

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The new ABC show Duets is currently running this promo, a takeoff on Apple’s classic 1984 spot:

 


If that’s any indication of the show’s quality, the hardworking staff predicts it’ll go over like the metric system.

 

Originally posted on the Newer! Improveder! Sneak ADtack!

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The Heritage Foundation Wants . . . Us!

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Imagine the hardworking staff’s excitement when a 14″ x 11″ envelope poured into the Global Worldwide Headquarters with this imprinted on the front:

ADDRESSEE SELECTED TO REPRESENT STATE INDICATED IN NATIONWIDE BALLOT ON PROPOSED TAX INCREASES.

SEALED BALLOT INCLOSED.

SIGNATURE RQUIRED.

UNVOTED BALLOT MUST BE RETURNED.

Yikes, we thought. That’s a lot of responsibility.

It got even more serious from there.

 

Dear U.S. Taxpayer,

You have been selected by The Heritage Foundation to represent your state in the official Heritage Foundation Tax Increase Ballot.

Heritage will distribute the final results of this nationwide ballot to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The final tally will be used as a “wake up call” to members of Congress: That grassroots taxpayers like you OPPOSE the huge tax increases being pushed by the liberals in Washington . . . and that instead of raising taxes, Congress should work to rein in Big Government and out-of-control spending.

So, wait – they already know the results, even before the hardworking staff has filled out the survey?

Which, by the way, says this on the back of the SECURE CARRIER ballot:

INSTRUCTIONS IF YOU INTEND TO VOTE:

Vote and return BALLOT in enclosed pre-paid envelope within 5 business days.

INSTRUCTIONS IF YOU DECLINE TO VOTE:

Sign unopened SECURE CARRIER below and return to The Heritage Foundation so one of your neighbors may vote in your place.

_________________________________________

Sign here if NOT voting.

Really?

Get a life, Heritage Foundation dweebs.

I know my neighbors have one.

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Why The Wall Street Journal Is A Great Newspaper (Man Ray Edition)

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Fascinating Wall Street Journal feature on the state of Surrealist Man Ray’s artistic estate:

The Surreal Selling of Man Ray

How a Long Island family with an auto-body shop wound up controlling the artist’s legacy. The $20 million collection in the garage.

Man Ray, a pioneering photographer and Jazz Age colleague of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, died in Paris more than three decades ago, but what’s left of his studio can still be found—in a car-repair shop on New York’s Long Island.

Beyond this shop’s no-frills showroom, which is lined with upholstered seat covers, sits the headquarters of the Man Ray Trust. The trust consists of 16 freezer-size vaults containing about 4,500 works from the artist’s estate. These archives include Dadaist and Surrealist photographs of the artist’s muse Kiki de Montparnasse, as well as props Man Ray used to make some of his experimental, camera-free images, called Rayographs. (One prop box is labeled “Slinky, Wrench, Razorblade, Bullet, Comb, Can Opener, Many Metal Pieces.”)

Now, the collection is being privately shopped to museums, with a price tag of $20 million.

Art dealers, the Journal reports, peg the value of the collection somehere between $3 million and $6 million.

But that doesn’t subtract from the allure of this story about a workaday family – the Browners, related to Man Ray’s widow Juliet – that wound up controlling the celebrated artist’s archive.

Check it out – it’s a great read.

P.S. The hardworking staff thumbnailed the Jewish Museum’s 2009/10 Alias Man Ray exhibit here. Campaign Outsider Bonus Quote™ from Man Ray: “Dada cannot live in New York. All New York is dada, and will not tolerate a rival.”

Tell us about it.

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