March 10, 2004
Bush: Classic Commodity Defense
A few years ago there was a scandal regarding Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). Barely after the headlines ink dried ADM saturated the media with paid advertising. You remember it, it said they were Feeding The World. Now which do you remember about ADM, their scandal, or their commercial? This is classic commodity defense. When your product or company gets in trouble, advertise the negative news out of existence. Shell Oil is currently being reviewed for underestimating reserves and today I saw an advertisement on Satellite TV for Shell exploring where no man has gone before.
What has this to do with President Bush?
Take a look at Bush's advertisements. They completely contradict factual news being reported in the media. He is talking up the economy, but the economic recovery is faltering and even the stock market today reflects that fact. He is touting 9/11 as some kind of accomplishment of his own. As President, I personally would be ashamed if such an event occurred on my watch. But, Bush instead flaunts his pride for responding to the event with a bullhorn. Bush's commercial even has the audacity to say we are creating jobs for Americans. A paltry few in fact, and a great many of those lost on his watch were good paying, good benefits jobs which are being meagerly replaced with low pay, no, or far less benefits type jobs.
His ads tout his tax cuts, but the fact is the tax cuts to the wealthiest in America are costing all taxpayers higher taxes and eventually interest rates for years to come. As of today the national debt is $7,101,968,174,220.41 with the interest on fiscal year 2003 of 318 Billion Dollars which will be considerably more this year because our debt is significantly higher than last year. Consider NASA's budget of 15 billion dollars as a reference to how much 318 billion dollars in interest for one year is and what it costs Americans each year. Make no mistake, while Bush and the Republicans want to blame the recession on Clinton or at least his time in office, this debt and deficit growth is solely the responsibility of Bush and the Republican Congress which chose instead of keeping taxes where they were to pay for Homeland Defense and the War on Terrorism, they chose to give enough tax breaks to the wealthy to have substantially paid for these programs.
With Bush's estimated 200 million dollars to spend on advertising this year, we are going to see a lot of classic commodity defense commercials trying to make up the face of this administration for the November 2 face off. Can you spot the defensive commercials? Will you be a good consumer and make your choice based on hyping a product as a cure-all, fix-all, solve-all-problems hot item. Or will you recognize that that this coming election is being bought. Bought and paid for, not by the majority of Americans, but, by a very small minority of Americans who want to rule the majority and figure they can 'wag the dog' with a large enough advertising campaign designed to get Americans to buy their product. A product they don't want, don't need, and will even harm them and their children's future. Bush's policies against the environment, against food labeling, against keeping corporate jobs in America for Americans, against a balanced budget and responsible management of the publics credit card, against unions who would fight for good jobs and benefits like the union that saved workers health care benefits in the just ended supermarket strike in California.
So, will you be a good gullible consumer and buy the candidate capable of buying the most and best advertising? Or, will you be a good and skeptical consumer and check out the facts, history and comparison shop before you choose your candidate?
Posted by David R. Remer at March 10, 2004 05:19 PMDavid:
I take exception to some of your comments. First of all, the stock market has done wonderfully over the past couple years. It dropped significantly and has rebounded to almost 11,000 levels during Bush’s tenure. Economists agree the economy was declining at the end of Clinton’s second term; while certainly not strong now, it has by many measures improved dramatically over the past 2 years.
Secondly, you blame Bush for 9-11 when you say that you “would be ashamed if such an event occurred on my watch.” Bush is touting how he handled 9-11, and many many Americans feel he did a great job. Interestingly, many Democrats feel that way too—they disagree on Iraq, but virtually NO ONE disagreed with going after Bin Laden and the Taliban.
Thirdly, and most importantly, you focus on Bush’s fundraising prowess and use this as a negative. The facts are that both parties have the same rules to abide by, and Republicans have typically been superior at fundraising. I’m not a fan of money in politics, but lets at least call a spade a spade.
To act as if Democrats do not throw ad after ad out there, as evidenced by their liberal usage of 527’s even to the chagrin of their own Democratic sponsor (Russ Feingold) of the campaign finance rules, shows them to be as callous about ads and money as anyone.
To have focused ONLY on Bush, rather than on the political system and both parties, shows your partisanship. I find BOTH parties to be guilty of what you decry, and am willing to admit it.
Are you unwilling to admit it, or simply unable to see it?
Exception noted. It is Bush and Republicans who hold the keys to power and with what I have witnessed, it is a grave and dangerous thing indeed to leave these same people in power any longer - by exposing their defensiveness which attempts to hide their failures and weaknesses, hopefully they can and will be unseated.
If the shoe were on the Democratic foot, I would have written the same article changing Republican to Democrat. I appreciate your taking the time to respond, Joe.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 11, 2004 11:44 AMDavid—
Thanks for your response as well. The amount of money in politics is bastardizing the entire process. We can no more have George Soros using his millions to push his particular agenda than we can have Richard Scaife using his millions to push an alternate agenda. Either situation means that you and I (representing the “average” American) lose our voice—-we become the equivalent of a whisper in the midst of a crowd of megaphones.
I’d be in favor of getting rid of ALL money in politics by having the federal govt pay for all elections, but by giving the incumbent less money than the challenger. There are many problems with this approach (multiple parties being formed just to get the federal money, for instance) but it would alleviate the exchange of money for influence.
Is there anyone who really believes that politicians are NOT affected by the money they recieve? And if there is someone who believes that, boy do i have some other deals for you (ocean front property in idaho, the brooklyn bridge etc.)
David, thanks again for your posting.
Posted by: joebagodonuts at March 11, 2004 11:56 AMDavid: Click my name for the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the past 5 years. Also Retail Sales were just announced as up today, unemployment holding steady at 5.6%, and so on.
Alan Greenspan today: “”As history clearly shows, our economy is best served by full and vigorous engagement in the global econist measures. These alleged cures could make make matters worse rather than better,” he said. “They would do little to create jobs and if foreigners were to retaliate, we would surely lose jobs.”
I recommend we use www.factcheck.org around here for some of these wild claims like 3mil jobs lossed and so on. They seem to be independent in their anaylsis and do provide sources.
Doh, the above post was by me and not by you!
Posted by: George at March 11, 2004 03:27 PMDavid, all facts reported in mainstream media like Lou Dobb’s (hardly a liberal), WSJ, and MSNBC. Those are my sources. Accept them or leave them as you wish.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 11, 2004 03:41 PM
