How to Mislead Voters Lesson #2: What's in a Name?

With the election only two weeks away, more ads are hitting the airways every day. Needless to say, there is a lot of money changing hands this time of year. People are donating to the campaigns of candidates they support in hope that it will lead to increased ad presence and a greater chance at winning the seat. But people aren't the only ones donating. There are a number of corporations and special interest groups that are also putting money into the races. But at the same time many of these corporations or groups may not want their name publicly aired on the ads that they fund. After all, they still want to maintain their customer base regardless of consumers' political leanings. So what's a corporation to do?

Give money to other groups that will put out the ads in their own names. And boy, what names they are! Every day I turn on the TV I see ads from groups like MN Forward, Minnesota's Future, Alliance for a Better Minnesota, Americans Against Food Taxes, etc. That brings me to the first rule in naming your political organization.



1. Pick a Name That Few Would Disagree With

Who doesn't want to move forward? Who doesn't care about the future? Who doesn't want their state to be better? Who wants all their food taxed? No one! So you've won the first battle in putting forth something people can relate to.


2. Pick a Name That Sounds Far More Optimistic Than Any of Your Ads Will Ever Be

Hopefully people will be so inspired to dream about the future and how we should move forward after seeing your name that they will forget that the entire previous 30 seconds were spent trying to scare the hell out of them. After all, Minnesota's future looks bright as long as we don't elect the drunk driver, the erratic unreliable one, or the Democrat/Republican in Republican/Democrat clothing who will only enact policies that will destroy everything you hold dear.


3. Pick a Name That Sounds Like You're Just a Group of Average Americans Who Bought An Ad

Americans Against Food Taxes is a great example of name that achieves exactly that. Sounds like people are finally standing up to The Man and telling him to leave their food alone! Wait. What? What do you mean the group is primarily comprised of companies that produce/sell unhealthy high sugar content beverages with little nutritional value that would be subject to these proposed taxes? If that's the case, I'm sure they would have disclosed that in the ad. Which brings me to the next rule...


4. Make People Work to Find Out Who You Actually Are

Many people today have the attention span of a gnat. (I'll be shocked if they are still reading this post!) So most will never discover who is funding your group if finding out requires more than three steps. Hide it in a fancy website where they will be too distracted pressing other buttons telling them why you are on their side or looking at beautiful pictures of happy families that look just like theirs to notice anything else. Even better, simply leave it on your IRS disclosure form. Who looks up that? They'll never know that the Republican Governors Association is behind Minnesota's Future. They're too busy telling their neighbor about how erratic Mark Dayton is to bother looking at some stuffy old tax forms.


5. Fill Your Website With Undefined Terms

Rather than have the "about us" section of your website filled with detailed information, I would recommend you bust out your political ad thesaurus. For example, replace "Group of large corporations" with "Group of job creators." "Corporate board" becomes "Families just like yours." "Life long partisan political strategists" can be "Your neighbors and coworkers." I don't know about you, but I'm feeling better already.


6. Take Your Issues Directly From a Single Political Party While Insisting You're Non-Partisan

Feel free to cut and paste the issues section directly from the local Republican or DFL website. That won't matter as long as you don't tell people you did. Also make sure to pepper your site with the terms "non-partisan," "no political affiliation," "values," and "the state's best interest." Those terms will make people feel so good that they'll notice neither the blatant cut and paste nor the fact that all of your ads support only one political party.


7. Mention Things That Make People Feel All Warm and Fuzzy

It's even better if those things mentioned also leave visions of "Leave it to Beaver" era security and morality dancing in people's heads.  Children - Values - Our Community - Small Businesses - Freedom - Families - Prosperity. People love those things. And if they think you love those things, they will love you.


I hope that helps you get well on your way to starting your very own political group. As long you follow these guidelines it's sure to succeed.

This message has been brought to you by Americans For Children With Adorable Rescued Kittens.

And They'll Know We Are Conservatives By Our Billboards?

I've been traveling around Minnesota this week. And from I-94 to I-35 one thing has become very clear about Minnesota Conservatives: They LOVE billboards. Throughout my travels I've been greeted by images of the US piggy bank drowning, warnings about socialism, Lady Liberty weeping over us straying from our Christian roots, and even one doozy that was hard to take in at 70mph but seemed to be an array of buzz words designed to boil the blood of the staunchest tea party members (Voter Fraud, ACORN, AFL-CIO, Pelosi, etc.).

I had no idea there were so many. In an age of social media, I didn't realize how many of these billboard campaigns there were. It first came to my attention with the now infamous "Miss Me Yet?" billboard anonymously put up near Wyoming, MN. At the time I just thought, "Yeah, no. Not at all." I had no idea that one was just the beginning. That was soon followed by Ronald Reagan (complete in cowboy attire) asking me if I remembered real hope and change up near Rogers, MN.

Recently these been a lot of discussion about this anonymous billboard that's currently up in South Minneapolis:

courtesy The Rachel Maddow Show blog submitted by Stephen Schweckendieck of Minneapolis

It was even the subject of a question during the State Fair gubernatorial debate! Although I would argue that if you still have billboard money your taxes can't be that bad.

Upon driving to and from the western part of the state this week, I saw no less than seven more conservative billboards! Many were cited to be from Freedom Boards Across America or Action4Liberty. (Be sure to check out some of their other designs that portray unions as leeches or thugs.)  Both of these are small groups of conservatives or "local patriots" in the state of Minnesota.These are no longer just the random anonymous donors like the Bush billboard. They have organized. There are multiple groups based in the state of Minnesota whose primary mission is to keep putting ads like these up. Who would have thought this would be the big trend in Conservative politics in Minnesota in 2010? Does this occur with such frequency in other states?

On a related note, I'm going for a long weekend vacation. I'm sure I'll see even more of these along my way. I won't be posting while I'm gone, but will be back at it either Monday or Tuesday. There should be a lot going on this weekend. Both Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty will be making appearances at the Values Voters Summit and there are two more gubernatorial debates coming up in the next 5 days. Tom Emmer's interview with the Humphrey Institute will air on MPR at noon today. More ads are being released daily. I'm sure there will be no shortage of things to discuss. Just remember to clear your head by getting out and enjoying the fresh Minnesota autumn air. Have a great weekend!

*Update: On vacation I saw another 4 of these billboards, including one that showed an anonymous black man (his face was cropped out of the image) putting the U.S. Constitution into a paper shredder. I also stumbled upon what may be my new favorite campaign TV ad. I don't know why, but it just cracked me up.

Jim the Election Guy Revealed!

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a fan of Jim the Election Guy. I was baffled by that ad strategy from the first time I saw him appear in Michele Bachmann's first ad of the election season. I mean, what type of credentials does it take to become an election guy? Frankly, it sounds like one of those programs where you can print your degree and license right off the internet.

Thanks to MinnPost's Derek Wallbank, we now know exactly what type of credentials you need in order for Michele Bachmann to knight you "the Election Guy." Because who would know better about Minnesota elections and the needs of the 6th district than an actor from Maryland now living in California?

I found a video of one item on Beau Peregino's acting resume. Check out this episode of "A Haunting." Recognize that stranger with a wide stance who enters the picture at about 5:40? Yep, that's our 6th district election expert.

Michele Bachmann's camp has been quick to defend the use of the actor stating that who he is isn't important but rather his message. But Bachmann's camp should have bigger concerns. It's true that in the state of Minnesota for a candidate to use a paid actor in his/her commericals is rare. (The last instance I can think of offhand would likely be Mark Kennedy. He lost that race to Sen. Amy Klobuchar.) However, what is even more rare is for a candidate to use an actor who does not live in Minnesota and has no known ties to our state. The reason that should concern the Bachmann campaign is because one of the most frequent attacks on her is that she is out of touch with her district and prefers to spend her time on a national stage courting Fox News and the Tea Party rather than more frequently be seen around the 6th district. This only reinforces that argument.

It looks like Tarryl Clark hit the nail on the head when she assumed that this "Jim" was likely an actor without ties to the district. Her "Real Jim" ads have proved to be one of my favorite political responses of the season:



Minnesotans don't take kindly to outsiders telling us what to do. If you consider us to be "fly over country" we don't believe that you know what is best for our state. We like to hear real stories from real people about the people seeking to represent us. This is reflected in the latest ad from Tim Walz, Tom Emmer's first ad, and the ads Amy Klobuchar ran during her Senate campaign. It's a strategy that is generally well received in a state where we still expect to know our neighbors and help one another out.

I'm curious to see if the "Jim the Election Guy" ads keep coming or if Bachmann will seek out a new strategy. I'm wondering if this ad choice will backfire at all. The question is, does she think that she is politically invincible enough to further the perception of being so far out of touch with her district and still think a win is in the bag? The even bigger question is, will the voters of the 6th district continue to be willing to reelect someone who seems to keep putting her national agenda ahead of their local one?