Category: Politics and Grassroots

Why Bankrupting America’s New Web Series Actually Works

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This week, Bankrupting America launched “The Government,” a new web series this week parodying both government spending and The Office.  Unlike many attempts at politically themed humor, it actually works.

There are some over-the-top spots – the introduction of the (probably?) fictional Department of Every Bureaucratic Transaction comes to mind – but nothing that detracts from the main joke.  What makes the video click is its natural dialogue, solid acting, identifiable characters, and subtle jokes (such as the employees walking around in the background holding golden coffee mugs with oven mitts).

In other words, structurally, it entertains for the same reasons The Office did, which means it’s a great approach to this type of communication.  If future episodes hit these same beats (and patch up some of the rough spots), Bankrupting America will have a pretty powerful messaging device on its hands.

Unions Clamor For Smaller Government

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This ad opposing Common Core standards popped up on a few right-leaning blogs this week, advertising the website StopGovernmentOverreach.org:

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Clicking through led to this landing page:

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Who’s behind these right-wing clarion calls to limit expansive government?  The AFL-CIO, of course.  They don’t particularly hide their involvement, but they don’t bang the drum to call attention to their funding either.

It’s actually a smart and mature move.  Opposition to Common Core education isn’t the sole dominion of people who would rather not see teachers held accountable; there are also people who hold principled stances against national standards superseding local control of education.

What would be interesting to know is how the AFL-CIO uses this data.  For an advocacy group, a list of people on the other side who agree with you on certain issues is an underrated asset.  If they can turn other policy positions into small-government arguments, they can go back to that list for future action.

Data on Donuts to Make You Go Nuts

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Dunkin’ Donuts will roll out a loyalty program later this year.  (Shockingly, this will not be automatically included with residency in Massachusetts or Rhode Island.)

Anyone who has spent time in New England (or the Northeast in general) understands that this is an idea whose time is overdue.  Dunkin’ Brands’ Vice President of Global Consumer Engagement didn’t give away too much when chatting about the new program with Ad Exchanger, but this part was pretty interesting:

We look at the consumer base and there are a number of options for them to consider when making the decision on where to get their coffee, whether that’s in the morning or the afternoon. We wanted to not only reward them, but provide incentives, and ways to drive frequency and customer retention… [T]hat’s where every marketer wants to be — where they know exactly who is buying, when they are buying, what they are buying and what triggers they need to make them potentially buy more. We see it the evolution of driving a more comprehensive CRM opportunity with Dunkin’.

They may not know it, but it’s a direct copy from the 2012 Obama campaign: tap into an audience’s excitement, then gather as much data about what causes that excitement to translate into action.  Every cause has its champions, so ever would-be mob leader needs to think this way.

At least in theory, Dunkin’ Donuts will run a loyalty program that looks like a Presidential campaign.

Rand Stands His Ground

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This week, Texas’s baby debate, the Zimmerman trial winding down, and Obamacare topped the news.  So you could forgive Sen. Rand Paul if he ignored the news that broke about one of his advisors was a southern sympathizer.

Instead, Paul replied – and did so defiantly:

Paul (R-Ky.) stressed that he opposed such views, many of which have been recanted by the Senate aide, Jack Hunter, who co-wrote Paul’s first book in 2010 and who is now his social media adviser in Washington.

“I’m not a fan of secession,” Paul said. “I think the things he said about John Wilkes Booth are absolutely stupid. I think Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents. Do I think Lincoln was wrong is taking away the freedom of the press and the right of habeas corpus? Yeah.

…“Are we at a point where nobody can have had a youth or said anything untoward?” the senator asked rhetorically.

Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer are both running for office with scandals much closer in the rear view mirror, so it’s an apt question.  But more than that, it’s a departure from the usual playbook on politicians handling negative information.  Usually, Republicans will apologize, fire the offending staffer, and then pose for awkward pictures with black people.

Paul seems to understand that plan sends the public bullcrap meter off the charts.  He answered honestly, instead.

And maybe it’s time for politicians to start doing things like that.  Politically inconvenient sincerity builds good will (or what passes for good will when dealing with a politician).  After all, if we was going to lie about something, surely he’d lie about this, right?  It also demonstrates a healthy respect for the electorate’s intelligence.

Will it help him stand out during the GOP kumite in Spring 2016?  Maybe not, since another likely candidate will have the same type of tough-talking honesty as his signature, too.  At least it will set a good example.

Obama’s data may scale – but will his support?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Democrats are clicking their heels at the prospect of using the Obama 2012 list for the 2014 campaigns.  Fresh off a special election win in Massachusetts, the main concern seems to be how to scale the data from a national campaign down to a Congressional-level race:

That’s not to say, Democrats caution, that there’s nothing lost in the scaling process. Hiring a talented analyst doesn’t mean a campaign will be able to collect the immense trove of data — and update it over and over — the way the Obama campaign did. Not every Senate and congressional candidate will have the wherewithal, or the inclination, to test the effect of slightly varying messages on an experimental slice of the electorate.

But down-ballot campaigns also don’t need that level of data awareness in order to improve their performance in some material way. And if the Massachusetts special election was one case study in transferring data and analytics tools to a nonpresidential level, Democratic operatives say there’s plenty more where that came from.

There’s a big problem, though: there isn’t plenty more where that came from.  Barack Obama is no longer running.

Sure, he’ll “sign” emails – and despite tumbling approval ratings, that will mean a lot to a certain subset of voters.  Even so, starting in 2014, Democrats have to deal with a problem Republicans have  suffered since 1988: the specter of a popular and philosophically grounded President may hang over the election, but the candidates who fill his spot on the ballot won’t match his charisma.  Voters vote for candidates more than they vote for ideas.

And Barack Obama ain’t walkin’ through that door.

 

 

Funny First

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

David Letterman’s ratings are falling like the stuff he used to toss off of buildings back in the day.  Big Hollywood’s Christian Toto speculates that it might be because the normally warm and cuddly Dave is letting politics stifle his comedy:

Leno continues to pound the president as the daily headlines demand. He does so without venom–he’s merely mocking the powerful as he’s been doing ever since taking over for Johnny Carson in 1992.

Letterman, by contrast, avoids Obama jokes in his monologues. When he does serve one up, he looks as if he’d rather be anywhere else but on the Late Show set.

Toto has a point.  In May, Letterman started trying to shame Senators who opposed gun control with a “Stooge of the Night” segment.  Here’s one for Ted Cruz:

Setting aside the amateur-hour graphics that look like a middle schooler found an outdated version of Windows Moviemaker, it’s just not funny – and it gets less funny as the tortured segment drags out.  When Letterman made fun of George W. Bush for sounding like a dunce, it didn’t always sound like Dave had an ax to grind.  There was a setup and a punchline.  There’s a difference between being sarcastic (or even caustic) and ranting about an issue because you have a TV show and you can.

“Conservative entertainment” gets deserved criticism for ignoring quality in pursuit of a made point.  Now, the once-hilarious Letterman is writing a textbook on it from the other side.

You know, this kind of crap didn’t happen on Hal Gurnee’s watch.

Private Issues

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

In a recent post on ViralRead, I listed five technology issues that will be hot-buttons in the next six to eight months.  Privacy was at the top of the list.

The NSA/PRISM revelations have exposed that Federal authorities can pull information from technology companies.  For many Americans, the concept of a little surveillance in exchange for thwarted attacks is a fair trade.  Hammering the Obama Administration on the facts of this “scandal” likely won’t be a long-term political winner, and the Administration can’t scale back terrorism investigations while blood still stains the sidewalks in Boston.

And here’s a dose of reality: the “personal” information that the government was getting from the likes of Facebook and Google?  It’s information that people volunteered.  Google doesn’t know anything about you until you search for “Winged Monkeys in Chaps” – even if you’re totally only looking it up for a friend.  Facebook only has pictures of your kids when you upload them.  Your cell phone only triangulates your location via GPS after you buy the phone.  These creature comforts may seem difficult to live without, so we buy the products, use the services, and participate in the networks.  We should understand there are consequences to giving our data to a third party.  It’s not bad that we do it, but we need to be careful.

It is a short jump, though, from “Wow, look at all the stuff the NSA got from Facebook!” to “Hey, why does Facebook have all this stuff in the first place?”  Suddenly, tech companies are the easy bad guys.

This possibility is a likely reason Google is fighting to tell everyone what they forked over to the NSA.

Obama’s Bad News Power Rankings: 6.15.2013

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The Guardian hit the nail on the head this week while analyzing polls this week: The most damaging effects of the current spate of scandals is the erosion of trust in government.  Trusting government is the basis of  the President’s agenda.

  1. NSA Verizon. (New!)  Surveillance is the most serious of these scandals, according to Rasmussen polls, which gives this one the edge.
  2. IRS. (Last week: 2) There hasn’t been much new news this week, but Americans still care.
  3. NSA PRISM. (Last week: 1) Edward Snowden pushes this lower on the list, as does the fact that many reasonable Americans feel like spying on foreigners is an acceptable counter-terrorism measure.
  4. Benghazi.  (Last week: 4)  Americans may not care as much about it, but they do think that there was a cover up surrounding the events in Benghazi.  Worse, they believe the cover up was politically motivated.
  5. DOJ. (Last week: 3)  The Rasmussen poll linked above shows that Americans find this among the least serious scandals, but bet on ongoing media coverage.

 

Biden is kind of right on this one…

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Vice President “Diamond Joe” Biden had plenty of choice comments last night while he was helping Ed Markey raise some scratch in Massachusetts.  One of them isn’t so crazy:

“There’s a big difference in this race,” Biden said, according to the pool report. “Barack Obama’s not at the head of the ticket. And that means those legions of African Americans and Latinos are not automatically going to come out. No one has energized them like Barack Obama. But he’s not on the ticket. So don’t take this one for granted.”

Leaving aside for a moment the unintentional racism of assuming minority groups vote as a bloc for members of other minority groups, Biden is right on one point: much of the Democrats’ success over the previous six years came in large part due to voters excited about President Obama himself.   Yes, the 2012 campaign team made unprecedented use of data to identify supporters, but they did so in the name of an exciting candidate.

Edward Markey doesn’t excite people they way Obama does.  Joe Manchin, Max Baucus, and Tim Johnson probably wouldn’t, either, which is a big reason they aren’t running for re-election in 2014.  Corey Booker might, but outside of him or a similar candidate rising through the ranks, the Democrats won’t have candidates who can duplicate Obama’s success.

That’s not an indictment of the Democrats yet – politicians like Obama don’t come around all that often, and the Republican ranks only have a few political rock stars of their own.  But it will become an indictment if Democrats feel like Obama will carry them to victory again in 2014 and 2016.

Obama’s Bad News Power Rankings: 6.08.2013

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

What’s worse than spending a week rehashing an old scandal? Spending a week rehashing old scandals while dealing with a new one.

  1. NSA targets everybody. (New!)  The President’s explanation that the concept of domestic is critical for national security makes the assumption that America looks at him the way they looked at his predecessor in 2003.  Claiming that broad oversight powers are necessary doesn’t sound so good after the public has spent weeks of hearing about flouting First Amendment rights, picking on political opponents with the IRS, and inconsistent stories about the attack in Benghazi.  Further, the wording of the President’s response – that there must be a choice between rights and safety – won’t help allay the public’s fears.
  2. IRS targets the Tea Party.  (Last week: 4)  The good news for the IRS?  The expensive and idiotic videos, coupled with news about the opulent conferences, give credence to the Administration’s claim that the IRS is not malicious, just incompetent.
  3. DOJ targets the Press.  (Last week: 1)  Senator Joe Manchin suggested that Eric Holder ought to think about resigning.  That someone in his own party would even bring this up demonstrates the bipartisan misgivings about seizing phone records from reporters.
  4. State Department targets the truth about Benghazi.  (Last week: 3)  Hillary Clinton’s approval ratings are sinking.  What difference, at this point, does that make?  It’s evidence that the American public is highly skeptical of the Administration.
  5. Obamacare targets American wallets.  (Last week: 2)  Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said this week that the Obamacare-induced hikes in insurance rates actually represent reductions in cost.  Yes, she did actually say that.

Wild Card: GOP targets Facebook.  The hiring of new CTO Andy Barkett from Facebook means the RNC may actually have the tools to start organizing around some of these scandals.