Talking about Romney’s anti-President-Obama assault ad, David S. Bernstein, at the Boston Phoenix, thinks normal political practitioners just aren’t as jaded and dishonest as “Mad Men” corporate advertising types like Willard Romney:
… People look at me funny when I say this, but people in and around politics are remarkably, and rather naively, honest. Yes, they spin and hyperbolize and stretch context and so on, but they really don’t very often just flat-out lie in obvious ways like in the Activia example. (I’m excluding sideshow entertainers like Ann Coulter and such.) Which is why so many political insiders and commenters have been so worked up about this Romney ad. It’s also, to a great extent, why all of Romney’s competitors in the 2008 GOP primary ended up hating him so much — because they really do believe that there is honor among political campaigns, and the Romney campaign kept doing things that are perfectly normal in cutthroat corporate competition, but really take people aback in the political world.
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I’m quite sure that to Romney, all of this is A) baffling, and B) exploitable weakness. Just as, to Activia’s parent corporation, the unwillingness of Yoplait’s parent to lie about its bacteria-injected yogurt was a baffling, exploitable weakness…
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We certainly feel like there’s something wrong here — that Romney shouldn’t just be able to manipulate America into making him President the way Activia manipulated them into buying their yogurt or Axe manipulates people into buying their cologne, or the millions of far less obvious manipulations that go on all the time in the corporate world all the time, without anybody in the press or elsewhere blinking an eye — indeed, it is exactly what Romney did for a living for 25 years or so. It’s an awful lot to think that I, or some New York Times reporter, or some talking head pundit, can effectively stand athwart of it now…
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So I ask you: how could anybody have stood athwart of Staples’s successful, and completely bogus, rebranding of its image? Any ideas? And if so, can that be applied to Romney’s bogus attempts to brand Obama as an America apologist, for example? Or his bogus attempts to brand himself as having a smart foreign policy platform? And so on?
AA+ Bonds
Romney was a corporate raider for Bain. It would be giving him far too much credit to call him as ethical as a marketing executive, who would have at least entered a field where lying has been the norm since before the written word.
Romney’s life’s work, on the other hand, was not just to lie to everyone about everything concerning a company for extremely short-term returns, but to promote this model as THE model for corporate governance.
Enron, the financial crisis, etc. can all be laid in part at the feet of Bain and McKinsey and the “regulators” who slipped through the revolving door. (You may remember McKinsey as the good neighbors who released a completely invalid “study” to scare small businesspersons into opposing the Affordable Care Act.)
AA+ Bonds
In other words, what Romney did with his life was largely a form of internal advertising/marketing where he deceived shareholders and management into creating unsustainable corporate models that gutted the company. Staples is only the Bain story because Romney and Co. wanted it to be.
Of course, as you can imagine, those shareholders and managers were like most targets for successful advertising: they WANTED to buy the hype in the first place, because if they knew when the weather was going to change they could make out big themselves.
Lest we forget, insider trading was also rampant and practically public under Bain Capital and in the era of Romney’s rise.
Mino
Just what the hell did they consider what was done to Max Clelland and Kerry if not downright lying?
Off topic, but Charlie Gonzales is retiring from the House. Damn, we’ll probably get some half-assed Blue Dog as a replacement. Just save us from Ciro, please.
AA+ Bonds
So, in conclusion, Romney got where he got because his dad gave him millions of dollars and taught him how to lie and flip-flop. He’s all fake, all the time, his religion, his smile, everything.
You do not build something like Bain Capital on a moral foundation.
Before folks like Romney and those weiners you always see biting dollar bills with him in that photo, there was a vague idea that corporate interests dovetailed with American social stability, and that what you wanted to do was build a company that would outlive you. Hell, that’s how George Romney had all that money to give Willard.
AA+ Bonds
So, Romney presidency:
1) Plan to gut country
2) Tip off rich friends as to when and how country will be gutted
3) Gut country
4) Go to war with Iran and Syria
5) Retire into the loving bosom of rich friends
This model may sound hilariously familiar. Ever wonder why Rove chose Romney
The Bearded Blogger
@Mino: Politicians are as willing to lie as the sleaziest of ad-men and corporate pillagers. They only lie less because, in the cost benefit analysis, lies are somewhat more damaging to their brand.
For example, the GOP brand can’t be damaged in places like Georgia or S. Carolina, so they can lie freely there.
MattF
I agree that flat-out lying ad reveals something about Romney, and I agree that ‘corporatism’ is a possible explanation– but I’m not really satisfied with that.
What I got was a whiff of brimstone. So, you see, Mitt has a soul after all… or he had one, once, but it now belongs to another party.
Brachiator
What a bunch of hand wringing bullshit. When lies and dirty tricks are used in political campaigns, and voters complain, politicians, and the people they hire, respond with the obvious.
“We use dirty tricks because we believe they work.”
They are sometimes wrong about the usefulness of lies and tricks, but this is their primary stock in trade.
And “honor among politicians,” especially the current bunch of GOP goons? Wow. Must be a slow news day, so reporters and pundits gotta make shit up.
Joshua Norton
That’s the reason there’s a revolving “leading” candidate-du-jour. Wingnuts are trying to figure out which one they hate less than Mittens and it changes according to the weekly set of favored buzz words and who said them.
Gex
And on the other hand, it’s infuriating how many people I know believe that *they* aren’t swayed by marketing. Like the PBR hipsters that don’t realize that PBR planned to get hipster cache by not marketing.
They don’t know and don’t care how they are being manipulated into buying something. It makes me think of the post by DougJ about talking with fellow liberals who agree with us on issues, but still spout the MSM talking points. They don’t care how they got that information and they don’t think they are being manipulated by our propagandist media.
The Bearded Blogger
@Joshua Norton: I think it’s not just the mormon thing, nor his past as a “moderate” governor… it’s his inherent unlikeability, the way he oozes sleazyness and entitlement…
AA+ Bonds
@Gex:
. . . can you point me to this not-marketing campaign or are you just making this up
Maude
@The Bearded Blogger:
It’s his hair.
The Bearded Blogger
@Maude: I’ll see that, and raise you his shit eating smile.
Ian
Legalize rooftop dog transportation
lol
@The Bearded Blogger:
SNL has been capturing this essential fake quality of him pretty well.
Anoniminous
@Gex:
The widespread American obliviousness to the affective power of advertising is the best tool in the marketer’s workshop.
gnomedad
There are enough people out there eager to hear lies about the DFHs and their Kenyan messiah that the liars can focus on mass production rather than plausibility.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m reminded of Robert E. Howard’s observation about how civilized men would be routinely rude while barbarians were polite, mainly because barbarians knew that being rude would result in single combat (or a knife in their back) while civilized men would of course not fear that, being amongst other civilized men.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous:
If advertising didn’t work, millions wouldn’t be spent on it.
Brachiator
@Gex:
Largely true. And yet people reject marketing all the time, especially when what is being pushed on them is something that know about, have experienced, and rejected. On the other hand, marketing is most effective when it panders to a customer’s biases, preferences and biases.
People are lazy, ignorant, and just plain have other stuff to do other than look for nuance.
And while it may be true that watching Fox News can actually make you dumber, it amazes me that increasingly people choose easily accessible gossip that they can find on a Twitter post or a FaceBook page over any kind of substantive journalism.
The irony is that the MSM is dying, but no consistently reliable alternative has arrived yet.
ChrisNYC
Agree with bearded blogger, sort of but I don’t think it’s entitlement. It strikes me as superciliousness. Like that story of Mitt on the plane next to the woman who wanted to talk healthcare and who was interested enough to have read the ACA. And he basically said, “Yeah, it’s complicated” and put on his headphones. I get a sense from Romney that he is sure that no one has anything to offer him — no ideas, no insight, nothing. I guess know-it-all-ness. Or some sense that persuading people, engaging in a frank back-and-forth sullies him, is below him.
I’m pretty convinced he’s not a pol at heart, just followed the dad. He doesn’t seem to enjoy any part of the job.
Violet
@Brachiator:
We are in a weird in between era. I think the “citizen journalists” with their phone video cameras that have been documenting police atrocities at Occupy protests and elsewhere are on the forefront of what will be part of the new journalism. There will still be a need for experienced reporters to dig and find real stories, however.
Maude
@The Bearded Blogger:
And I raise you I want to have a beer with him…well, maybe not.
RossInDetroit
@Brachiator:
Emphasis mine. And I think that’s the key. People will settle for the appearance of being informed rather than doing the due diligence. And that’s probably the majority.
Swellsman
What a load of crap. If I understand Bernstein correctly, what he is saying is that Romney is going to lie because lying works, that neither he nor anybody else in the media has the ability to stop Romney from exploiting this weakness, that it “baffles” him people would think he has such power, and so I guess we’re all just going to go along with it.
Excuse me, David, but the only reason Romney thinks he can get away with this is because he knows the media isn’t going to call him on this. Not in any way that matters. If Romney thought he would get tarred in a televised debate by a mediator out-and-out calling him a liar, he wouldn’t pull this crap.
If he knew the media would forever brand him a liar for pulling this crap, he wouldn’t do it.
If he knew he wouldn’t be able to appear on Sunday Shows without being asked about this crap, he wouldn’t do it.
If he knew the media would subject his every word to scrutiny now, and report every lie he ever uttered, building a theme for the American public that he is an untrustworthy liar, then he wouldn’t pull this crap.
But neither Bernstein nor anybody else in the media is going to do anything like that. Instead, they’re all gonna report on whether “it worked” and speculate about what it means for our modern politics and generally pretend that they stand outside the political system instead of recognizing that they play a big role in shaping that system.
And then it’ll only get worse.
People say we get the leaders we deserve, but we don’t; we get the leaders that the fatuous jackholes the political media deserve. The rest of us deserve a whole lot better.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Couldn’t have said it better.
Ruckus
@Swellsman:
People say we get the leaders we deserve, but we don’t; we get the leaders that the fatuous jackholes the political media deserve. The rest of us deserve a whole lot better.
Absolutely True.
andrewsomething
@AA+ Bonds:
The Marketing of No Marketing
Ben Cisco (mobile)
Doesn’t flat out lie? Whose politics has this hump been watching?
cat48
“Pants on Fire” Lies at Politifact are supposedly the most egregious. Romney has 8, while Obama has 4.
Obama said what he had done with Regulations was “unprecedented” & got a POF lie for saying it was “unprecedented” because Politifact felt it was fairly common. In 2008, he said McCain’s immigration policy was the same as Limbaughs’ & got a POF for that.
Romney states everytime he gives a speech that “Obama went around the World, apologizing for America & got a POF. They had FP experts review everything O said & it did not happen. In 2008, he cut 2 Ads about McCain’s immigration policy & called it amnesty in both ads. When confronted about the ads, he said “I didn’t call it amnesty.” This is the same thing he did with the ad about Obama. He blatantly lies to your face.
I can’t remember any politician lying about something they’ve actually done after they’re called out about it. That’s just stupid to begin with, but he expects to be believed at all costs over anyone else; even the recorded proof. That’s frightening to me.
Brachiator
@Violet:
I am undecided on the value of “citizen journalists,” who can sometimes give you immediate photos and video, but no context or essential information.
And the problem is that experienced journalists are being tossed out along with dying newspapers and magazines. What you have left is TV headliine news, which is often more shallow than the best citizen journalists.
@RossInDetroit:
Agree with you big time.
People keep talking about the Web as an alternative, and yet a recent story suggests that fewer than 25 percent of people know how to do a google search. And 90 percent don’t know how to use Ctrl F, according to google itself.
By the way, stories are beginning to emerge about political strategists seeding crappy stories so that they rise to the top. And there are stories that the Herman Cain organization manipulated web stories so that stuff about harassment charges would not show up first.
Violet
@Brachiator:
Me too. I think they have some value, but they don’t tell the complete story. But witness the value of the UC Davis pepper spray video and others. There would be no discussion of police brutality and Occupy protests (among others) if video equipment were expensive and hard to acquire. So it has value, but it’s not a complete picture.
Couldn’t agree more. I don’t know how experienced reporters are going to find a place to work, but they’re essential to a strong democracy.
cat48
The Political Cartoonist routinely show Mitt as a liar. That’s the only comfort I have. Luckovich had a good one this weekend about Mitt.
dmbeaster
I had to laugh at the bs notion that politicians lie less than businessmen. Politics and sex are the two arenas where shameless lying is perfectly legal. The business world make lack ethics, but at least they have to worry a bit more about the consequences of fraud.
Chuck Butcher
Politicians who want to get elected have create a group (called their voters) out of a bunch of discrete individuals with all kinds of views mixed up together into something called an individual political philosophy (that may be phrasing it a bit nicely). This means at least at one level, the pol’s effectiveness, has to be exaggerated in the voter’s mind. The realities of a House Freshman or one vote out of 435 won’t work, so you immediately have hyperbole.
Then you start to run into policy statements, it isn’t a good idea to be too strident about issues that a fair portion don’t quite share or don’t want rammed into their faces. As an example, in quite a few constituencies a statement in response to a question about gay marriage that you support equal rights and responsibilities for all law-abiding citizens has a better chance with people who aren’t comfortable with homosexuality as an act. Even if that pol’s position is a bit less nuanced, it remains truthful.
There is absolutely a difference between lying to voters and being careful with language or even over-emphasizing the impact of voting for said pol. Look, would you vote for me if I told you it was of small import to the business of Congress or if I told you I was going to do things differently – with the assumed result that it matters greatly to that body?
Think on this one, how good are you at asking people for money on a hope and a wish? I, personally, am pretty good at asking for money in return for a concrete product but I find it grinding to do it on the basis of “elect me.” I am not talking about asking for money for somebody else, I mean for your own ends, personally.
I’m not in the least appologizing for a lot of the crap that goes on in a political campaign, I’m trying to get across a feeling for how difficult it is. It can be done without descending into a pool of bullshit, but it ain’t anything like easy.
suzanne
@Gex:
This. A hundred times. And yet, the same brands all seem to, all of a sudden, be EVERYWHERE. Invariably, those people get their fee-fees hurt at the slightest insinuation that they MIGHT not have had that great idea to wear sunglasses plastered with some rhinestone-studded logo all by their lonesome.
I will say, however, that everyone I worked with when I was in marketing had a hundred times more scruples than Mitt Romney.
Dx9x
Romney just doesn’t do it for nobody! His mug screams “you trust me? Hee hee hee” in the end, the anyonebutMITT criteria will be extended to Obama.
Dx9x
Romney just doesn’t do it for nobody! His mug screams “you trust me? Hee hee hee” in the end, the anyonebutMITT criteria will be extended to Obama.
Dx9x
Romney just doesn’t do it for nobody! His mug screams “you trust me? Hee hee hee” in the end, the anyonebutMITT criteria will be extended to Obama.
goblue72
Romney is going to be the GOP nominee. There’s no one else entering the race at this point – and the other suspects – Cain, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann – are an assortment of loons and hucksters who won’t make it to the finish line.
So the sooner Democrats can tar Romney as a souless, amoral, lying servant of the corporate class, the better. And it has the advantage of also being the truth. Which makes it all the easier for the charges to stick. The Obama campaign may have an uphill battle with the economy in the toilet, but if they can draw the contrast between Obama (whom voters, in spite of disapproving of his job performance, still like and TRUST as an honest man) versus Romney, the lying corporate shill, the better.
I watched Ted run against Willard. Ted was drunk and asleep for most of the campaign until someone sobered him up as his poll numbers were sinking. All it took was some debates with Willard and a campaign message that was basically “Dear Middle Class & Working Class Voters – who do trust, this corporate raider scumbag who didn’t meet a worker he wouldn’t lay off? Or Ted Kennedy?” And that was the end of Willard’s dreams of unseating Ted Kennedy.
Obama just needs to follow the Kennedy script – and hit Willard where it hurts – his record.
Yutsano
@suzanne:
The only issue there is that could be a hundred times zero. Since I don’t think Willard has a scruple anywhere in his soul.
Bullsmith
The correct response to a realization that most western/capitalist societies have ceded their ‘christian morals’ to rampant, outright, brutal social darwinist mammonism is, ipso facto, to capitulate.
Ogami Itto
@goblue72:
I think it was Mike Huckabee who said something along the lines of “Mitt Romney looks like the guy who fired you that time.”
jomo
I am an advertising executive and must observe that the Romney ad doesn’t meet the minimum standards for a corporate ad. Generally when corporations lie – they lie on the positive side. If they trash a competitor they make sure they have their facts straight because they can be sued or counteradvertised. This Romney thing is remarkable because it is so brazen and so easily checked. The reason he is doing it now is because he is trying to win over Republicans with anti-Obama bona fides and they are not likely to oppose them. If he tried this in the general it could be used against him.
priscianusjr
@jomo:
rikyrah
@goblue72:
use the Kennedy Senate commercials…
if Willard wants to run on his ‘ work’ at Bain….then do it.
karen marie
@ChrisNYC: I don’t know, I think Romney put on the headphones (A) because he didn’t want to say something that would get him bad press and (B) because he doesn’t begin to know what to say to someone who isn’t a multi-millionaire/billionaire and for whom changes in, say, health care have significant impact.
shep
Yes, quit jerking off and call him out for the lying psychopath he is (and tell all your media buddies to do the same).