Ad o’ the Day (pat. pending)

Posted on September 2, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

For the past  two decades, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of blanking Barney Frank in his reelection campaigns for 4th District Congressman from Massachusetts.

So imagine my surprise when I received a “Barney Frank for Congress” newsletter in the mail this week.

Surely, I thought, this can’t be about whatever tomato can Barney will dispatch next November. It must be about something much more important.

And it was.

It was about Barney.

And the people who are being mean to him.

Largely because I am chairman of an important committee and a leader in the effort to adopt the new [financial] reforms, these groups have completely distorted my record and sought to place the blame on those of us working to put more fairness into our economic system.

Yes, well, that’s what all the Chairmen of Important Committees say.

Message to Barney: You’re nothing special, despite what your Mom told you.

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Time Magazine’s Ted K.O.

Posted on September 2, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

The cover of Time’s Ted Kennedy Commemorative Issue features a photo that made him look dead while he was still alive.

No surprise, the photographer was the uni-named Platon, who also embalmed John McCain on a Time cover during last year’s presidential race, which no doubt nabbed the necrofilmia vote but didn’t do much for McCain.

Just-Platon also shot the “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth” portrait of Dan Rather for the New York Times Magazine  several years ago.

Me? At gunpoint I wouldn’t  let this guy take my picture.

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The Boston Globe’s Richard Egan Problem

Posted on September 2, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

The suicide of Richard Egan, co-founder of technology giant EMC Corp., may be understandable given his terminal illness, but the Boston Globe’s coverage of it is entirely befuddling.

Initially, the Globe missed – or ignored – the actual cause of death, then acknowledged it a day late and a dollar short, at least in comparison to the Boston Herald, which had the real story right off.

But on Tuesday the Globe reverted to form. Steven Syre’s business-section column ignored both Egan’s suicide and the Globe’s previous coverage:

Egan, who died late last week, remained a guiding force at EMC until he retired as chairman in 2001.

Raise your hand if you think the Globe couldn’t get out of the Egan family’s pocket with a crane.

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Ad o’ the Day©

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Mike Allen’s Playbook at Politico.com has been a leader in online political-digest promotion, teaming up with companies such as Starbucks and Qualcomm in a variety of marketing initiatives. (See: Politico’s series of political-thumbsucker panel discussions at Starbucks locations across D.C.)

At first, Politico diligently flagged the Playbook sponsorships, but lately they’ve just been embedded in the digest’s text.

Exhibit A, from Monday’s edition:

** A message from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency could take away your financial choices. Learn more at http://www.StoptheCFPA.com. **

Even more egregious was this later pitch:

** The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act would create a new government bureaucracy with sweeping authority going far beyond financial services regulation. Virtually every business that extends credit to American consumers would be affected, including neighborhood groceries and even funeral homes. CFPA would threaten the privacy of consumer financial information and take away consumers choices. This is not consumer protection, it¹s more big government. Learn more at http://www.StoptheCFPA.com  <http://www.StoptheCFPA.com/> . **

Forget that. Stop PoliticoSellOut.com.

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Crayonpedia

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Wikipedia, which is to reference materials what Amy Winehouse is to singing gigs, is about to introduce color-coding to its three million entries. According to a report at Wired.com:

Starting this fall, you’ll have a new reason to trust the information you find on Wikipedia: An optional feature called “WikiTrust” will color code every word of the encyclopedia based on the reliability of its author and the length of time it has persisted on the page.

Some might think that’s almost as credible as the Bush administration’s color-coded threat level system, but WikiTrust claims to be decidedly more discerning:

Text from questionable sources starts out with a bright orange background, while text from trusted authors gets a lighter shade. As more people view and edit the new text, it gradually gains more “trust” and turns from orange to white.

Sounds like a Concept with a Capital K, guaranteed to dislocate your brain in short order.

Which, of course, plays right into Wikipedia’s hands.

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Change We Can . . . Afford

Posted on August 31, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

New school year, new wardrobe.

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Ad o’ the Day®

Posted on August 31, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Interesting to see who ran memorial ads for Ted Kennedy.

The Boston Globe house ad last week and Sunday’s Massachusetts Hospital Association ad (“One man can make all the difference”) make sense, but what about last week’s Lockheed Martin ad and Sunday’s Levi’s ad (which also ran in the New York Times) with the headline, “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

Is that code for “the jeans endure and the denim shall never die”?

Attempts to find Ted K links to Lockheed Martin or Levi’s in the Googletron came up empty, but this certainly deserves further scrutiny.

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Not to Get Technical About It . . .

Posted on August 31, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

The Sunday Boston Globe piece summarizing summer movies featured this subhed:

Even in the silly season you can learn a lot from what clicked, what stiffed, and what surprised

I thought the expression was “get /got stiffed.”

Paging Jan Freeman, paging  Globe Word maven Jan Freeman.

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Second Shot

Posted on August 31, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

From Sunday’s Boston Globe:

Richard J. Egan, the billionaire entrepreneur who cofounded data storage provider EMC Corp. and served as US ambassador to Ireland, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Friday, according to a law enforcement officer with knowledge of the investigation.

So that settles that.

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Ad o’ the Day™

Posted on August 30, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Peggy Noonan’s latest Wall  Street Journal column (headline: “The Reagans and the Kennedys”) recalls Ronald Reagan’s speech at a 1985 fundraiser for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, “which at the time was relatively new and the only presidential library that didn’t have an endowment.”

And so, June 24, 1985. I had worked on the speech, to my delight—JFK had been a childhood hero—and Reagan went off in a happy mood, waving his cards at Pat Buchanan, the director of communications. “I bet you love my speech, Pat!” he said as he bounded out of the West Wing.

It’s unclear what “worked on the speech” actually means, but Noonan means to take full credit for it in the excerpt that consumes about two-thirds of the column.

That said, it seems to be a pretty good speech.

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