The 45,000 once (and future?) striking Verizon workers are back on the job, but the advertising battle rages on.
On one side, the telecom giant is still running newspaper ads like this one:
On the union side, the Communications Workers of America have upped the ante with this ad:
This is getting to be like the Iran-Iraq war.
No one to like.
With Labor Day in the rearview mirror, the Campaign 2012 adstravaganza is starting to heat up.
Full-page national newspaper ad from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
(Actually readable version here.)
No one knows how much the Chamber will spend this election cycle, but given that the business cartel spent $33 million in 2010’s midterm elections, its expenditure this time around is bound to be significant.
And create maybe not millions – but at least hundreds – of jobs in the process.
Presidential primary thorn Ron Paul (R-Have I Pricked You Now?) has turned his advertising sights on GOP frontrunner Rick Perry (R-Prick This).
Paul’s latest ad (and, credit where credit’s due, he’s the only Republican candidate running a real on-TV – v. Mitt Romney’s weak-ass web videos – advertising campaign) is, according to Politico, “[a] 60-second spot, backed by a six-figure ad buy — the first negative ad attacking Perry to come directly out of a Republican campaign this primary season — [that] contrasts Paul’s endorsement of Ronald Reagan in 1980 with Perry’s role as the Texas chairman for Gore’s first presidential campaign.”
Ouch.
Key text:
After Reagan, Sen. Al Gore ran for president, pledging to raise taxes and increase spending – pushing his liberal values. And Al Gore found a cheerleader in Texas named Rick Perry.
Rick Perry helped lead Al Gore’s campaign to undo the Reagan Revolution, fighting to elect Al Gore president of the United States.
Now America must decide who to trust – Al Gore’s Texas cheerleader, or The One [see Campaign Outsider here] who stood with Reagan.
Double-ouch.
This is Paul’s third six-figure ad buy in Iowa and New Hampshire. Coincidentally or not, he’s also running third in most national and early-primary-state polls.
Time to take this guy seriously?
From last weekend’s Wall Street Journal:
Wikipedia has a numbers problem: Its use is growing, but fewer editors are opting to edit the sprawling online encyclopedia. And it isn’t clear how many more editors are needed to sustain the critical mass that Wikipedia and others say is vital to generating accurate, credible information.
There are roughly 3.7 million English-language articles on the encyclosite, with new additions (understandably) and active editors (alarmingly) declining.
Kind of helpful graphic:
Worse news:
Just 35,844 registered editors made five or more edits in June, down 34% from the March 2007 peak. Just a small share of Wikipedia editors—about 3%—account for 85% of the site’s activity, a potential problem, since participation by these heavy users has fallen even more sharply.
Which inevitably means more puff pieces are making their way onto Wikipedia.
Local case in point: This entry from Boston fashion designer Daniel Hernández. It violates two basic Wikipedia principles:
#1: No point of view.
#2: All content must have been previously published.
Hernández’s entry does contain this Wikipedia disclaimer:
This page is a new unreviewed article. This template should be removed once the page has been reviewed by someone other than its creator; if necessary the page should be appropriately tagged for cleanup. If you are the article’s creator, you can seek feedback on your new article. (May 2011)
Right – so three months later no one at Wikipedia has reviewed the page. Not exactly a system that inspires confidence – or credibility – eh?
This is not to pick on Hernández – if I were him, I’d do exactly the same. The fault lies with Wikipedia, which professes to have one set of standards, but exercises another.
The Missus and I were watching Caroline Wozniacki reduce Svetlana Kuznetsova to a pile of rubble in the U.S. Open when this ad for SonoSite’s hand-carried ultrasound contraption popped up:
Pretty dramatic, no?
Injured athlete: “See anything, Doc?”
Hot doctor: “I see everything.”
That’s because she’s The Rehabilitator.
SonoSite’s website pitch:
WHEN DREAMS SHATTER, SHE REPAIRS THEM.
When the star quarterback goes down, one doctor rises above traditional methods to get him back on his feet and into the game. Based on a true story of a physician with an extraordinary power of vision and the SonoSite point-of-care ultrasound technology that enabled her to visualize needles at steep angles others couldn’t see.
Whatever that means. But it sure sounds fabulous.
Until you read this piece in Monday’s New York Times:
As Sports Medicine Surges, Hope and Hype Outpace Proven Treatments
This particular report involves the injection of platelet-rich plasma (or P.R.P.), but the Times promisess more in a new series:
The Athlete’s Pain
A Rush for Cures
Articles in this series will look at popular sports medicine procedures that remain unproven.
The hardworking staff will look to see if SonoSite makes the list.
By now it’s clear that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is overcaffeinated on the topic of partisan gridlock in the nation’s capital.
But his crusade is really percolating thanks to this full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times (via Mogulite):
The text (for us elderly):
September 1, 2011
Dear Fellow Concerned Americans:
I love our country.
And I am a beneficiary of the promise of America. But today, I am very concerned that at times I do not recognize the America that I love.
Like so many of you, I am deeply disappointed by the pervasive failure of leadership in Washington. And also like you, I am frustrated by our political leaders’ steadfast refusal to recognize that, for every day they perpetuate partisan conflict and put ideology over country, America and Americans suffer from the combined effects of paralysis and uncertainty. Americans can’t find jobs. Small businesses can’t get credit. And the fracturing of consumer confidence continues.
We are better than this.
Three weeks ago, I asked fellow business leaders to join me in urging the President and the Congress to put an end to partisan gridlock and, in its place, to set in motion an upward spiral of confidence. More than 100 business leaders representing American companies – large and small – joined me in signing a two-part pledge:
First, to withhold political campaign contributions until a transparent, comprehensive, bipartisan debt-and-deficit package is reached that honestly, and fairly, sets America on a path to long-term financial health and security. Second, to do all we can to break the cycle of economic uncertainty that grips our country by committing to accelerate investment in jobs and hiring.
In the weeks since then, I have been overwhelmed by the heartfelt stories of Americans from across the country, sharing their anguish over losing hope in the strongest and most galvanizing force of all – the American Dream. Some feel they have no voice. Others feel they no longer matter. And many feel they have been left behind.
We cannot let this stand.
Please join other concerned Americans and me on a national call-in conversation on Tuesday September 6th hosted by “No Labels,” a nonpartisan organization dedicated to fostering cooperative and more effective government. To learn more about the forum and the pledges, visit http://www.upwardspiral2011.org
America is at a fragile and critical moment in its history. We must restore hope in the American Dream. We must celebrate all that America stands for around the world. And while our Founding Fathers recognized the constructive value of political debate, we must send the message to today’s elected officials in a civil, respectful voice they hear and understand, that the time to put citizenship ahead of partisanship is now.
Yours is the voice that can help ignite the contagious upward spiral of confidence that our country desperately needs.
With great respect,
Howard Schultz
Chief Executive Officer, Starbucks Coffee Company
This is probably good PR for Starbucks with the coffeerati, but it’s a total joke in the real world of politics.
Message: Try the decaf, Howard.
Oh, wait – there isn’t any after noon at your establishments.
Maybe you could stop by Dunkin’ Donuts.
The dustup over US prosecutors’ stooging for British authorities in the quest for Boston College’s IRA oral history archives has spilled over into the social mediascape.
Say hello to @BCSubpoenaNews, a new Twitter feed that promises to “Keep [you] up to date on the latest news involving Boston College’s fight against the subpoenas seeking the Burns Library’s Belfast Project Oral History of the IRA.”
No explicit mention of who’s behind the effort, but this Twitter gravatar –
– and this BostonCollegeSubpoena blog certainly point to BC’s Burns Library. (Also see the site’s Chris Bray-Cliopatria link.)
[UPDATE: From an excellent, although anonymous, commenter: “[P]erhaps you should have scrolled all the way down the home page where, lo and behold, you would have read this: ‘This site is not affiliated with nor endorsed by Boston College. All material on the site is publicly available.’”]
BC is clearly in this for the long run, although Kevin Cullen’s Saturday Boston Globe piece indicates that the donnybrook is getting more complicated:
The two men who organized and carried out the interviews of former IRA members for Boston College’s oral history project on the conflict in Northern Ireland have filed suit, seeking to intervene in the legal dispute between the school and US prosecutors seeking BC’s records.
Ed Moloney, who directed the oral history project, and Anthony McIntyre, who interviewed 26 former Irish Republican Army members for the project, sued in US District Court in Boston, asking to argue on their own behalf separately from BC.
Which seems to be problematic for the college:
Moloney said his and McIntyre’s suit complements the legal arguments that BC lawyers have filed. He acknowledged that the pair’s legal approach frames the case in more political terms.
“This is to supplement, not conflict with, BC’s action, and we are doing it because it is a much more political approach,’’ said Moloney, who last year wrote a book, “Voices from the Grave,’’ based in large part on Hughes’s interviews with McIntyre.
BC was cool in its response.
“We obviously share the same goal in the outcome of this matter, but these filings, which we are just now reviewing, may not necessarily reflect the views of Boston College,’’ said Jack Dunn, a BC spokesman.
Translation: Three’s a crowd.
More complications, no doubt, to come.
Friday’s Wall Street Journal featured a front-page piece with the headline, “GOP’s Hopes Rise for Senate Control.”
It laid out the the Senate politiscape for 2012 thusly:
The political arithmetic for 2012 shows what Democrats are up against. Republicans would need to gain just four Senate seats to win a majority.
Twenty-three seats held by Democrats or their allies are up for election next year, compared with 10 for the GOP.
And the Journal piece provided this handy chart, compliments of Cook Political Report:
Note that Massachusetts has a “Potential switch” diamond attached to it. The Journal adds this:
Democrats say their own prospects have brightened recently in some ways.
In Massachusetts, they are encouraged that Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who was the force behind creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, recently took steps toward running against Sen. Scott Brown for the seat long held by the late Edward Kennedy.
To get technical about it, the Journal isn’t exactly saying Warren has a shot against Brown, but it is saying that others think Warren has a shot.
Hey, Doug Rubin: Does that count as progress?
From our All the News That’s Fit to Print a Day After Campaign Outsider desk:
Friday New York Times The Caucus item:
Ad by Group Supporting Bachmann Assails Perry
When Representative Michele Bachmann hits the campaign trail, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Mrs. Bachmann never mentions her rival Mr. Perry, who in a matter of weeks since he entered the Republican race for the 2012 nomination has captured a fair share of her Tea Party base.
But a political action committee that supports Mrs. Bachmann is not nearly so discreet. An advertisement it has created attacks Mr. Perry for raising spending in Texas and borrowing to cover deficits . . .
The ad opens with an image of Gov. Perry in a cowboy hat and the question, “Tea Party Guy?’’
Uh, no. Actually, that image –
– appears 20 seconds into the ad.
Not to get technical about it.
Maybe you can’t live in a parking space, but in Boston you can certainly profit from one.
So says the Wall Street Journal:
For Sale: 200 Sq. Feet, 0 BRs, No View: $125k
Helen and Bob Alkon paid $1.3 million for their condominium in downtown Boston two years ago. And while some apartments in the building have slipped in value since then, one of the Alkons’ investments has paid off: The parking spot they purchased for $100,000 today sells for $125,000 . . .
“The beauty of it is, as [apartment] prices came down, parking went up,” says Jon Gollinger, a condo broker and real-estate consultant with Accelerated Marketing Partners in Boston. He adds that in every city he works in, he is noticing parking rates rising for buildings with desirable locations.
“You’re dealing with the elite,” he says. “Someone who has money and is willing to spend a million, million and a half on a unit, you’re not going to park your car in a building that’s half a block away. That’s just not going to happen.”
Half a block: the new Bataan Death March.
God, this country is depressing.
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