Did you know the Koch Bros created an all-seeing Eye of Sauron-like contraption to turn its terrible, burning gaze on voters? And that the Koch Bros and RNC’s Reince Repeatus are now squabbling over the RNC’s master voter data file like a pair of horny frat boys over a bootlegged sex tape? It’s true!
Interviews with more than three dozen people, including top decision-makers in both camps, have revealed that the Kochs’ i360 platform for managing voter contacts — which is viewed by many as a superior, easier-to-use interface than what’s on offer from the RNC — is becoming increasingly popular among Republican campaigns.
The RNC is now openly arguing, however, that the Kochs’ political operation is trying to control the Republican Party’s master voter file, and to gain influence over — some even say control of — the GOP.
“I think it’s very dangerous and wrong to allow a group of very strong, well-financed individuals who have no accountability to anyone to have control over who gets access to the data when, why and how,” said Katie Walsh, the RNC’s chief of staff.
You don’t say, Katie Walsh! Imagine how much worse it would be if well-financed individuals were able to just purchase candidates outright, like so many packages of Peeps? Oh wait…
Any guesses on who wins in this scuffle over the precious data?
Splitting Image
Hillary Clinton.
boatboy_srq
It’s absolutely delicious watching the GOTea discover that the 1%er Job Creators don’t really have the Grand Old Party’s interests (and policy planks) at heart.
More popcorn, please.
bemused
Irony…are the Republicans finally learning?
MattF
And how does the RNC think the Kochs got to be billionaires? By asking politely? Um, guess again.
WereBear
Just how old is the average Republican voter? And the Koch scum themselves? This is like some horror movie, with very rich and politically retrograde zombies.
And I speak as someone of a certain age myself. I’m not being ageist, I’m just noticing that the racist godbothering hordes don’t have traction with the younger people.
Which means the sixties did work.
boatboy_srq
Hurts when Daddy Warbucks starts pulling the strings, dunnit? The whole debate is shades of Faust.
I don’t think an electron microscope would be able to find the appropriate-size violin for this situation.
Tim C.
“I think it’s very dangerous and wrong to allow a group of very strong, well-financed individuals who have no accountability to anyone to have control over who gets access to the data when, why and how,” said Katie Walsh, the RNC’s chief of staff.”
Not being snarky, but isn’t that pretty much the explicit GOP platform?
Villago Delenda Est
The Birchite (or, let’s be fully honest about this, the Nazi) Koch brothers will win in the long run. And turn the GOP into the Whigs of the 21st Century.
Villago Delenda Est
@WereBear: It took a while, but we’re getting there. I’ve had a 60’s attitude about a lot of things for a very long time myself. Since, well, the 60’s.
Villago Delenda Est
@Splitting Image: DING DING DING DING DING
boatboy_srq
@bemused: They’re discovering that there’s a mismatch to the Venn diagram, and that racist/sexist bigoted End Times believers and dudebro libertarian tightwads aren’t identical sets. There are a host of poorly-thought-out commitments the GOTea has made over the decades that all seem to be hitting at once: look at what KS is going through with ATR-pledge-takers and Grover The Untaxable over their trainwreck of a budget.
scav
So, giving giant corporations’ daddies effective control of the country’s direction is a-ok, but of the party, eek!
Brachiator
It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.
@Tim C:
Did she say this with a straight face, or was she giggling the whole time?
WereBear
@Villago Delenda Est: The recent thread on the Iowa candidate rally had similar observations. Just like the more extreme elements of the Evangelicals, who are losing the young people right and left.
piratedan
@Tim C.: well it’s a great idea, when you’re the one in control… Hope the petard is nice and pointy
Howard Beale IV
So Reince-you finally realized you are the head of the GOP in name only, and the Brothers Koch are the ones calling the shots.
So whatcha gonna do, tough guy?
pete
I think it takes more than one defensive back to slow down a decent offense. Oh wait, this isn’t football?
Mike J
Do you know what “al Qaeda” means? “The base.” Originally, it referred to “the database” of people OBL could count on for missions.
MomSense
@WereBear: @Villago Delenda Est:
I hate to tell you both this but we Xers are populated with way too many spawn of the undead Reagan. Maybe the millennials will finally sort this mess out.
boatboy_srq
@WereBear:
FundiEvangelist Xtianism can only be failed meets whadda-ya-mean-I’m-not-a-Real-Xtian. See: Grant, Amy.
WereBear
@MomSense: Oh, there’s some. But the Republicans have noticed that, like Fox News viewers, they are skewing very old and very white.
And that’s a problem I find encouraging.
Brendan in Charlotte
@Splitting Image: I know who doesn’t win…the voters
boatboy_srq
@Brendan in Charlotte: Not convinced of that – unless you consider the GOTea the only legitimate party. Teahadi voters will no doubt get the worst of all possible worlds here: a no-holds-barred fight to the finish for the last byte and the last campaign dollar, with the scarred and tattered (and hopefully near-bankrupt) survivor the one on their side of the ticket. From here this looks like a good thing for the rest of us.
Belafon
@Brendan in Charlotte: The voters could fix this easily.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@MomSense: No shit. I’ve been spending the last two years apologizing to every Boomer I can find for the shit I used to say about their generation, because ours is proving to be way, way worse.
Hoping we can just hop right over from Boomers being in charge to Millenials. I don’t want a single person I went to high school with anywhere near the levers of power.
Gravenstone
It’s hilarious to watch as the RNC slowly realizes that they have no choice but to become a fully owned subsidiary of Koch Industries. And there’s not a blessed thing they can do to stop it.
Rafer Janders
@piratedan:
A petard is a bomb.
Amir Khalid
I tried to go to the first link and got
Could you fix the link?
CONGRATULATIONS!
Who wins the scuffle? No brainer. The Kochs. If the RNC continues to insist that candidates use their inferior tool, the RNC will be rendered instantly irrelevant.
Free market, bitches.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: The URL is missing the first letter ‘h’.
Amir Khalid
Until I can read the story describing the fight between the Kochs and Priebus, I have no idea how the former can have any claim on a database presumably created by the Republican party and belonging to it. Would someone be so kind as to summarise that for me?
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Fixed. Thanks!
srv
Ho ho hoes:
tom
In vaguely related news, Christopher Lee (aka Saruman in LotR/Hobbit movies) died today. Sad.
fuckwit
@Splitting Image: Very well played. First comment, and you nailed it.
piratedan
@Rafer Janders: granted… bombs can be full of pointy bits, true?
Belafon
@tom: According to IMDB, he died Sunday. The news just wasn’t released until today.
fuckwit
@CONGRATULATIONS!: c.f. Rubio, Marco… Cruz, Ted… Palin, Sarah… Paul, Rand… Walker, Scott,… Ryan, Paul… the Klown Kar is filled to the brim with Gen Xers. Hint: they may be considered “young” by the geriatric set who watches FAUX “news”, but they are not well loved among the young generation.
Linnaeus
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Eh, I don’t find that kind of self-flagellation very productive.
rikyrah
Shut your whining, RNC. You know who’s in charge. I know who’s in charge. Accept it.
Amir Khalid
@Belafon:
His wife wanted to make sure family and friends (of whom they must have had many) heard the news ahead of the public announcement.
JPL
Has Katie Walsh apologized to the Koch family yet?
Valdivia
I have been wondering what it would look like to have an election that is totally run from the outside. Seems Jeb will try it since it’s the PAC that is ding everything, even hiring staff.
Can the Koch ground game be as good as the Obama ground game in 2012?
MomSense
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
You and me both.
srv
John Cole’s old boss has been getting more airtime. Here he is on snoozehour last night telling Panetta & Zinni that they’re stupid fucking morons.
feebog
Oh Katie, you are such a kidder.
Roger Moore
@Gravenstone:
Of course there is. They could always look for a white knight investor who would buy them up instead. That’s what corporate management who don’t like a potential buyer do. I don’t think a poison pill provision would work, though.
Omnes Omnibus
Hey, Katie, remember when you thought Citizens United was so cool? What do you think now?
MomSense
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Except for 1994 Gen Xers who turned 18 during Presidents Reagan and Bush (38-49 in 2012) voted Republican in every election since.
Ugh.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Isn’t the GOP itself the poison pill?
sharl
@WereBear:
I mostly agree with you, but I wouldn’t count out the Big Money geezers. They don’t have to understand the youngsters themselves, but if they have at least minimal intelligence to do so, they hire smart, ambitious people to figure things out and implement things for them. There are entire professional classes – e.g., the “K Street” crowd in DC, and a subset of the Silicon Valley crowd as well IMO – who exist for this very purpose.
A few months ago I came across a series of short animation videos called The Kronies which are critical of crony capitalism, agribiz subsidies, military-industrial complex, etc. I think these videos are really skillfully done, and I think they’ll have a lot of appeal for the younger crowd. [Though note that the value of my opinions on what will be a hit with kids is depreciated by the fact that I have no kids of my own, that I’ll turn sixty this year, and that I was a socially maladjusted dork-nerd even forty years ago. So really, what do I know? So check the videos for yourselves.]
Anyhoo, I got curious about who was behind the The Kronies, and it was a bit of a maze-run to figure that out! A February 2014 Forbes contributed article led me to this:
Ah, Generation Opportunity, that sounded familiar. From the ‘Funding’ section of G.O.’s Wikipedia page:
Again, I don’t know that I’m right about how well those videos will go over with the kids. But as long as rich evil bastids are smart enough not to hire the likes of Mark Penn, they cannot be ignored.
cahuenga
Rinse Penis clearly has no faith in free markets.
jl
Maybe the RNC could follow the lead of their semi-mythical folkloric teabagger heroes of various denominations among the ‘lesser people’ and crowdsource the funding. Won’t be the same as old school small time contributions, since the contributors will have ‘equity’ and get a cut from the proceeds of election wins, just like the Kochs and other fatcats do.
See, you can manage that kind of thing on the internet!
jl
The GOP does seem to be going over some kind of event horizon, from what I see in the news.
Sen. Inhofe is going full-on UN black helicopter conspiracy nutcase on climate change policy. At this rate, he’ll make Alex Jones look like Chaffee pretty soon.
North Carolina is in process of trying to exempt public officials from following law on same-sex marriage.
Germy Shoemangler
@sharl: I’m confused. The kronies, an anti-crony capitalist cartoon is funded by crony capitalists?
In this clip, I see solyndra gets top billing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw2cP00zbgQ
Karmus
@MomSense:
That is my cohort, though I have always voted the other way. But I consider myself a little old to be an Xer, and as my three siblings, all several years older, qualify as boomers, I feel that I am a member of Generation WTF.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@boatboy_srq: I would like to alert you to expect a letter from counsel for fourth graders, whom you defamed in a most cruel (and unacceptable) fashion in Mrs. Cracker’s earlier thread. Just a heads up.
mai naem mobile
The current Republican base is truly one of the stupid party bases evah. I got nothing else except hahahahahahahaha. Repeat fifty times.
Germy Shoemangler
@sharl: Interview with the inventor of the Kronies.
I smell a rat.
fuckwit
@Roger Moore: The frightening thing is, they’ll start with the RNC, and continue on as far as they can or until they own the entire country.
Tommy
This is the first I’ve heard of a Koch’s developing apps and the like. Sure money in politics is super important, but it worries me a lot more if they put their vast sums of money to developing apps and tools that can be used by their minions.
If you recall back when Obama first got elected there were a lot of people within our party (myself included) that were really pissed that Organizing for America didn’t release many of the apps and tools his campaign developed as “open source” so candidates all across the country could use them.
I mean let’s face it, the dude/gal running for a House seat in Illinois can’t afford to develop them on their own. So if the Koch are doing this they are pretty darn smart and that worries me.
raven
futbol
sharl
@Germy Shoemangler: They’re not crony capitalists, they’re hard-working businessmen who earned every penny by the sweat of their own brows, and never, ever caught a break, golldangit! The crony capitalist are {points vaguely toward horizon} over there!
Geeno
@Germy Shoemangler: They’re just against SOME crony capitalism.
Ah the heady days of the Solyndra “scandal” in O’s first term.
Villago Delenda Est
@tom: Christopher Lee did so many things, and did them so well…Dracula in the Hammer films, a Bond villain, Count Dooku, Saruman…and he was a commando in WWII!
Villago Delenda Est
@sharl: It helped, as with The Donald, that they inherited millions as well. Except the Kochs are at least competent capitalists, unlike The Donald, who managed to bankrupt a fuckin’ CA$INO!
Redshift
@Amir Khalid: I’m just guessing here, but I think the real fight in this instance is over new data collected by Republican campaigns. I only know about Democratic campaigns firsthand, but in the pre-internet days, a campaign would buy the relevant piece of the voter file from the state or national party, and then in the course of campaign fieldwork would add a lot to it (new voters, address changes, info about voters’ issues and interests. The problem was, it was like pulling teeth to get that information back into the central file, because the campaign pretty much dissolved on Election Day, and win or lose it wasn’t something anyone on the campaign staff had much motivation to deal with.
Once internet-based campaign tools were developed, the problem went away – part of the deal was that you were working off of the central database (well, probably a copy, but still controlled by the party), so they had all the campaign info, after a bit of scrubbing. The Dem voter file got a lot better after that.
So if the Kochs bought or licensed a copy of the GOP voter file and had their own tools built that campaigns like a lot better, they they’re getting all of that info that keeps the voter file fresh, not the GOP. They either have to spend a bundle duplicating that effort, or do whatever the Koch’s may demand in return for it.
As I said, it’s just a guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s behind this. The frog and the scorpion come to mind…
Tommy
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah my mother is hooked on The Celebrity Apprentice. Kind of thinks he is this “business genius.” I am like mom you realize he bankrupted a ca$ino …. TWICE. She was like how could that happen? I told her I had no clue but I once heard somebody say if you can’t make money, a lot of money with a ca$ino you are doing something wrong!
MomSense
@Karmus:
I think Congratulations and I would both like to join you.
Gravenstone
@Roger Moore: I’m not sure Israel Inc. (dba Sheldon Adelson LLC) is an improvement for them.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: He was in The Magic Christian!
Iowa Old Lady
What’s the power balance between Fox and the Kochs?
Notice I don’t ask about the RNC. I think they’re close to irrelevant already.
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
Apparently that’s all Christopher Lee ever said about what he did in the war. He admitted to working with SAS but never said more than that. He said he was under a lifelong non-disclosure order.
raven
@Amir Khalid: From the SAS To The Gurkhas: The Story Of Sir Christopher Lee
I didn’t realize he was Ian Fleming’s cousin.
Tommy
@Iowa Old Lady:
I don’t really know but it is a good question. My gut is they LOVE them because if they are going to spend like a billion in the next election a lot of that money will go to Fox Corporate via ads on their local stations. If I was a media whore and running Fox I’d play pretty “nice” with them.
But with that said, the egos at Fox Noise are such I have to wonder if they dislike the power the Koch brothers have over the party they like to rule if not “own.”
les
Ah, pot, black? What’s the RNC but a would-be group of very strong, well-financed individuals who have no accountability to anyone? They’re currently weak, becoming poor (and not especially attractive), but I’m not noticing a shitload of accountability.
Germy Shoemangler
jl
@Tommy: I think Fox News view the GOP as the chump junior partner they are taking to the cleaners, but need to keep on life support as a good public front. Maybe Kochs have same view. So, real contest and rivalry is between which corporate grifters are going to have most control over the front organization, and how the proceeds will be split up.
Kind of like two competing parasites that have invaded some insect and are eating it out from inside, and battling over who will control the host’s brain, digestive tract and genitals.
Germy Shoemangler
Redshift
On a related note, in that story about the NH GOP officials complaining about the debate plans yesterday, does anyone else think it was odd that they sent their letter to Fox, rather than to the RNC that abdicated the decision to Fox, and could presumably reverse it?
Yet more evidence that nobody considers the RNC to be much more than a vestigial organ at this point.
Doug R
@CONGRATULATIONS!: We are educated in their old ways and things have to change. But we don’t really have any ideas so the Millennials will have to pick up the slack.
Tommy
@jl: I go back and forth on this. Sure Ruppert and Rodger are far right leaning Republicans. But at their core I think they want to make money, lots of money, first.
I have a media background and in grad school and afterwards read more on Ruppert than I care to admit. Say what you will about the dude but as a media player goes there has never been anybody better.
I know people here are smart and educated on the topics of the day, but I bet many would still be stunned how dominant he is globally. Not letting him get DIRECTV was about the only smart thing I can think regulators in this nation have done in recent years.
If he had DIRECTV coupled with his ownership of SKYTV he would have owned almost the entire global TV market.
Emma
@Villago Delenda Est: I’ve always wondered how one manages to bankrupt a business where people are shoveling money at you 24/7.
jl
@Redshift: I found that curious too. Did the NH GOP really totally bypass the national organization? I don’t know the legal and financial details of primary debates, especially in the endless presidential primary of the GOP candidates, which is more like pro wrestling or vaudeville circuit than anything resembling half-rational democratic governance.
At this point in the cycle, I think it is more about grifting, promos for the eventual losers’ future entertainment and consulting contracts and producing reality show entertainment product for the teevee.
JPL
Did Jeb Bush publicly shame is daughter and march her around in offensive clothing? I don’t remember if he did, but I don’t think so. How about his son for trespassing? The Post has a good opinion piece about Bush’s views. link
Glad to know this is the moderate in the GOP
Belafon
The Texas teacher got fired: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/fired-texas-teacher-let-go-after-saying-mckinney-pool-party-almost-shows-need-for-racial-segregation/.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
I’m sorry, theories about second gunmen and RFK are just as weak and unconvincing as theories about second gunmen and JFK. This is especially the case when there are citations about analysis of audio and the testimony of people during an admittedly chaotic situation.
jl
@Emma: I don’t think a person has to know much of anything to run a successful casino. You hire out for expertise on getting a reliable take on the gambling to consulting firms full of mathematicians and statisticians and IT people. You hire out the marketing.
I guess an owner has to have enough sense of long run strategic marketing to know when the marketing consultants are producing lousy ideas for a sustainable brand.
What casino did Trump blow up financially? Was it in a good location, or doomed, like Salton Sea fishing and boating resorts were doomed due to location?
Tommy
@Emma: How about it. I had a buddy in college that taught me how to play poker. A huge gambler. When we’d play at the frat house somebody (and it would rotate) had to be the “House.” Often he’d “buy” the “House.” I asked him way and he said:
Even more so when you consider Atlantic City. If you have ever been to Vegas and then Atlantic City, well Atlantic City is kind of a dump. The Trump ca$ion was the only place, at least to me, that made me feel like I was on Vegas and not some hole in the wall.
How you lose money in that establishment is beyond me.
charon
@Rafer Janders:
or a fart
jl
I don’t think a person has to know much of anything to run a successful c a $ eee no. You hire out for expertise on getting a reliable take on the g * mbl * ng to consulting firms full of mathematicians and statisticians and IT people. You hire out the marketing.
I guess an owner has to have enough sense of long run strategic marketing to know when the marketing consultants are producing lousy ideas for a sustainable brand.
What place did Trump blow up financially? Was it in a good location, or doomed, like Salton Sea fishing and boating resorts were doomed due to location?
Redshift
@Valdivia:
I think we should be vigilant that the billionaires may at some point learn how to do this stuff effectively, but so far they haven’t shown much sign of it. Thus far, the billionaire class all seem prone to believing that because they’ve made a lot of money, they’re geniuses. Yes, they’ve said they plan to spend $900m on campaigns this year. Even if they spend it more intelligently than they have in the past, that still won’t go nearly as far with paid organizers as the Obama campaign did with mostly volunteers.
In state and local campaigns, billionaire money and organizations are a major problem. In presidential campaigns, I think it will always be mostly wasted.
Tommy
@JPL: How about it. Honestly I knew the dude was a pretty far right loon with some insane views, but reading the past day or so what he wrote in that book still stunned me.
Makes me think of the TV show Salem I am hooked on. In one of the first shows a man is found to be an adulterer so they brand an A in his forehead.
Jeb only seems to be a step or two past that.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@jl: Freaking Trump Atlantic City. At the time, there really wasn’t a better place on the planet to put such an establishment.
Brachiator
@Tommy:
I think that Rupert clearly wants to do both. In the UK, there is some evidence that he cultivated relationships with both major political parties to further his own interests, but a number of his media properties in the UK, in Australia and in the US have explicitly backed conservative candidates and right wing positions.
Murdoch “promised” the editors of the Wall Street Journal some independence, but ended up installing his loyalists at the paper. And there’s this:
And I will grant you that Murdoch knows how to make money. Fortunately, he doesn’t quite seem to understand new media. I think he was incredibly stupid in making The Times of London into a “walled garden” with respect to the Internets.
It will be interesting to see what his children and other successors have to offer.
Tommy
@Redshift:
This in fact worries me greatly. I worked almost 20 years at high-end ad agencies. I know for a fact if I have enough of a budget and I let my creative and media team do their “magic” I can make most of the public think whatever I want. I am always stunned, as Markos at Daily Kos has written about in this books, that the political class keep hiring people that have a proven track record of losing more then winning.
There are many ad agencies out there that have a proven record of “winning” far more often than losing, otherwise they wouldn’t be in business.
People get pissed when I say how easy it is to influence public opinion, but it is just a statistical fact I’ve proven to clients hundreds of times.
Talking Points Memo has highlighted the core people working in the Koch political operation and they are all Koch insiders for lack of a better word. Only a few outside people, but they all came from think tanks (and don’t get me started on what I think of think tanks, regardless of party).
Any multi-billion dollars Madison Avenue ad agency would take all the Koch money they wanted to spend and not care for a second their politics. They WOULD produce results for them.
I just hope they don’t do this route and keep wasting their money on people that don’t really seem to understand what they are doing.
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
They did block the Comcast/Time Warner and Sprint/T-Mobile mergers, so there’s hope for them yet.
Roger Moore
@Emma:
I think the answer is to load it up with debt from unrelated projects, so all the profits you should be making are used up on interest payments instead. You can bankrupt any business that way.
Tommy
@Brachiator:
How about it. Can you say MySpace :)! At the time NewsCorp bought it, MySpace dwarfed Facebook. But in a matter of a year or two Facebook “ate their lunch” and destroyed them.
boatboy_srq
@jl: My impression is that Newscorp is far more vulnerable to the wingnut edge: at its foundation the enterprise is subscriber-driven, and the subscribers are the loudest voices for Teahadi action. Murdoch may be insulated by his individual wealth, but for Newscorp to persist long-term it needs eyeballs on its newspapers/TV/films to continue making profits. The Kochs have enough personal wealth to be effectively isolated from that cycle, and Georgia Pacific at least will continue to funnel cash to them (after all, everyone needs toilet paper, and Newscorp printed matter just doesn’t do the job).
Tommy
@Roger Moore: Yes. Yes they did. Now it looks like my local cable provider, Charter Communications might buy Time Warner. In the grand scheme of things I don’t think that should happen. There should be MORE competition, not less. But if it has to happen I guess Charter is a pretty good fit. It maybe one of the only utilities I can honestly say I almost like. Willing to bet there are not many people here that can get a 60Mbps (they offer 100Mbps) for $30/month.
Valdivia
@Redshift: The question is if they begin to use the money in ways that actually focus on GOTV and things like that. As you say in little races a lot of money can bury an opponent , in Presidential ones at some point it’s just saturation.
Tommy
@boatboy_srq: The Koch companies are a money making machines. They make so many products, many paper and energy related, that most people can’t live without. When the Koch brother’s hit the national scene and I learned all the products their companies made, that I BOUGHT (no longer I might add), I was stunned.
Being something of a hippie liberal, but also something of a neat freak, I was sick about how many paper towels I used. I actually found, at Menards of all places, these bamboo cloths that I can wash and reuse hundreds if not thousands of times in the kitchen.
But toilet paper, not found an alternative for that :).
StevetheWeave
About two years ago, I got a call from a headhunter telling me that the Koch Brothers were looking for a chief data scientist to run their new list operation.
I ran away from that conversation like it was the plague.
Tommy
@Valdivia: It is almost like they are shit all stupid. They have endless amounts of money and they’ve had more than a few election cycles to get their act together.
How they are not building a national network to GOTV is beyond me. I just can’t wrap my mind around how nobody has pitched them on getting a few people on the ground with local offices in every district they want to compete in just makes no sense.
Look I am an ad guy. I like ads. But ads can only do so much, and in politics I’ve never seen any data that says they help in any meaningful way to GOTV. They can suppress the vote by pounding a person into the ground with negative ads. They’ll always have money for that.
But they got to get their people to the polls. I just hope they keep wasting vast amounts of money.
Betty Cracker
@Tommy: You don’t have to shit on America twice by using Koch products in the Throne Room! It’s true that the Kochs have their tentacles in many paper products, but there’s an app you can use to avoid them.
Valdivia
@Tommy: I agree, but hope they are not listening :)
I do remember seeing some article a few months ago saying they were planing to this exactly. I will believe it when I see it, I think that for them, the whole idea that you have someone permanently on the ground doing work at the community level, is like communism, goes against the grain?
Brachiator
@boatboy_srq:
Murdoch’s net worth: US $14 Billion. That’s a lot of insulation. Lots. Whole lots.
Newspapers as we know them are dying. TV films are strong, and Murdoch’s cable and satellite operations provide the means to keep making money. the increasing move of people to watching stuff on mobile media puts Murdoch in a strong position. And smart moves like this help:
Tommy
@Valdivia: I think it is that and also a vanity thing for both them and their donors. As an ad guy I can tell you running ads gets kind of addictive for my clients. They’re “sexy” and something you can point to and say “hey that is my TV ad or billboard.” Hiring somebody and renting office space, not so “sexy,” but effective.
Iowa Old Lady
It’s indicative of the maldistribution of wealth that individuals have the money to finance a presidential campaign. It’s dazzling really.
Tommy
@Brachiator: Murdoch understands something many firms do not. Content is king. Period. I would have NO desire to be the delivery company. I want to own the content. Heck why Comcast bought NBCUniversal. The only downside to content is good content is expensive to produce.
Valdivia
@Tommy: Yes, not shiny but fundamental. But it makes total sense that a client would want the glossy sexy visuals.
Another Holocene Human
@MomSense: Don’t I know it. I was born ten years too early, suffered being a weirdo, now the kids today are talking too much sense.
Our music was better, though.
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
Have you considered getting a bidet attachment for your toilet? They make ones that will wash you with water and blow you dry. Even if that isn’t your thing, you could consider changing suppliers, e.g. to Boise Cascade or Weyerhaeuser.
Tommy
@Iowa Old Lady: Yes it is and I should talk more about that instead of strategies and tactics they should but are not using.
By all the news reports I’ve seen it is the Koch Brothers and about 250 people that attend their conferences and donate. That in a nation of 300,000,000 people 250 have the ability to control not only the Presidental elections but dozens if not hundreds of location election is in fact dazzling.
Roger Moore
@StevetheWeave:
You missed your opportunity to sabotage them from the inside!
Another Holocene Human
@StevetheWeave: should have referred him to that guy you know who talks great but programs for shit, little sabotage *evil grin*
Amir Khalid
@Belafon:
She was employed by a community called Frenship? At first I thought the name was a typo.
Tommy
@Valdivia: I know this is at work here. I can’t tell you how many times a client would come to my agency. They’d layout their business objectives and we might suggest something like targeted direct mail and trade shows.
They’d often say, well how about some ads.
Bill Arnold
@Mike J:
This should be true even if it isn’t. (Is it?)
Edit, via wikipedia with a cite:
Valdivia
@Tommy: Do they ever listen to you?
joel hanes
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I’ve been spending the last two years apologizing to every Boomer I can find for the shit I used to say about their generation
Dinna fash yersel’, laddie.
Nothing you have ever said is even a patch on what our elders said about us back in the day,
and thus many of us are pretty inured.
In retrospect, we said some pretty harsh things about ourselves, too:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jeffersonairplane/wecanbetogether.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V14cHG3DKgQ
jc
@Rafer Janders: I always thought a petard was a fart, an explosive expulsion of noxious gas. As in: he’s so full of shit, his fart hoisted him off his chair.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Just in my email:
A Cleveland Municipal Court judge has found probable cause that police officer Timothy Loehmann should face murder and other charges in the slaying of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. link
Fairly unusual procedure to get there, but I’ll take it.
Tommy
@Valdivia: Yes most of the time or we’d fire them. I worked at agencies that were lean and mean. Usually around 40-60 employees. We often did a million in revenue for each employee. We made a lot of money and if clients wouldn’t listen we didn’t want to work with them. It wasn’t worth the frustration.
Just an aside about the Koch Brothers and all their ads. I think I know exactly another reason they are so ad focused. That is the advice they are being given by outside firms.
I don’t think most people know this but when doing media buys (print, electronic, digital) it is a standard industry practice if I place said media I get a 15% commission. If you have clients with deep pockets it is a license to print money (why I can’t stand Mark Penn BTW).
I think direct mail and local field offices would be best for them, but alas me as their marketing firm I can’t make nearly as much money. Sure I can charge for the creative for the DM. Mark up the printing and fulfillment.
But by far the most expensive part of DM campaign is postage. It is ILLEGAL in the US to markup postage.
So if all I care about is making money and I am not an honest person I’d say every “problem” would be solved with another ad :). Wonder if that is happening to the Koch Brothers (I sure hope it is).
WereBear
I’m in the same cohort as President Obama and Michael Jackson. I’m with the demographers who call this Generation Jones. Because there just ain’t no way I am the same generation as Woodstock.
They got free love, be-ins, tie-dye, and Jimi Hendrix.
We got after school specials, clumsy ant-drug campaigns, glitter tees, and disco.
You don’t swap ovens that radically and come out with the same cupcakes.
Brachiator
@Tommy:
I’m not too sure about that. Murdoch has been stupid about trying to protect content, as with his wall garden approach to The Times, and this has not really worked well at all. And he spent millions on the online paper The Daily, creating content that no one wanted.
He’s obviously had tons of successes as well, and we shall see what he and his family do in the future.
joel hanes
@jc:
The French word petard originally meant fart.
Later its meaning was jokingly bent to refer to a medieval explosive device,
a “mine” that was attached by “miners”
to the foundations of the outer wall of a fortress
at the end of a tunnel dug down to those foundations.
(The small explosion, muffled by overlying dirt, and possibly throwing some dirt about,
apparently reminded French soldiers of farts.)
So “hoisted on one’s on petard” is a multilingual punning metaphor with several layers —
we have the image of a miner getting blown up by the explosive that he placed himself,
and we have the image of a person actually propelled upward by the force of his own afflatus.
jl
@WereBear:
BJ commentariate tells me tha I am Gen Jones too. Never heard of that term other than in BJ comments.
I like Generation WTF better. But I guess that could apply to all adolescents and young adults in all human generations ever. But if my gen can grab that handle, fine with me.
Tommy
@Brachiator:
That is a tough one. I only pay for content two places online. Talking Points Memo (more to support them, not to get rid of the ads) and the Washington Post (used to be my hometown newspaper). When stuff is behind a paywall it frankly pisses me off.
But then I used to work in the industry and although Content is King, I also mentioned it isn’t cheap to produce. The only ads I place for my clients now are PPC on Google, because I have the ability to target people like I am the NSA. But I used to place a ton of ads on “general” media sites in my last job when I was the VP of Marketing for an email marketing firm.
You might be totally stunned how “cheap” they are. They just don’t pay the bills in most instances much less help them make money. So unless you are like First Media and have an investor with billions, well that clearly is a problem.
Valdivia
@Tommy: which is why you have to be lucky in getting people in a campaign who are not just lookg for their cut (side-eyes Mark Penn again)
Tommy
@Brachiator: Wow I had to Google The Daily. Now I remember it. I’d argue maybe an idea that was ahead of its time. And now, well every site worth anything is mobile friendly.
OK, let me geek out for a second …..
Heck I do WordPress sites (this is one running WP) and around 22% of the 1,000 most visited sites on the Internet are running WordPress. There is a plugin (adds additional functionality to WP) called WPTouch (just one of many) that lets me create a mobile site with one mouse click, when if I want to spend the time I could take a site as complex as the NYT and customize the mobile experience in any way I want. No programming required.
So in a long winded way to have just a mobile publication makes zero sense in 2015!
Patricia Kayden
@JPL: On bended knee with cameras rolling? How dare she challenge her betters!
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: Must find that app.
Tommy
@Valdivia: I will never understand that thinking because the exact opposite was pounded into my head my entire business life.
At the agencies I worked at we didn’t try to bleed every client for every penny they had. Our thinking, and I do it in my freelance business now, is that doing what is best for the client, even if we/I make less money, makes a client happy and successful.
Next thing you know they make more money and spend more money and tell their business associates they should hire us. Why I get 95% of my business from referrals.
Heck, I told a prospect that contacted me a few weeks ago, thousands to spend, that she already had a solid site and it just needed to be updated and tweaked a little.
Starting over and spending thousands with me wasn’t a good business decision. She seemed totally stunned I’d do something like this. But I know when she really does need a new site I will be the only person she calls. And when she is networking and going to business events, if somebody says they need a site my name will be mentioned.
Oh and I sleep well at night :)!
Valdivia
@Tommy: :)
Tommy
@Valdivia:
Oh you might get a kick out of this. About a year ago I registered a few domains for a new business I hope to launch this year. I think I have figured out how to give a person running for office, like School Board or City Council, the parent or person with a full-time job that just wants to make a difference, a pretty kick ass web site.
My target audience don’t have a campaign treasure chest, but need a site. The site, which will also include social media and email marketing integration will be at a price point that is really, really low. Also totally automated.
I get this email and phone call from a firm that does something similar. Founded by former members of Obama’s tech team from 2008. They had been monitoring domain name registrations and literally called asking me what I was going to do. What were my plans?
They were using the Mark Penn model to bleed the candidate for every penny they could. The dude actually told me my price point was too low. I said thanks for the input, but I have run the numbers and I will be making money hand over fist and the client will get a quality product.
That is how I do business and no I don’t want to partner with you even if I become successful. The sheer arrogance of the person hurt my head.
rikyrah
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
and, so true.
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
It’s the grift that keeps on giving.
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
In case you haven’t noticed, that kind of long-term thinking is not very popular in corporate America these days. If it doesn’t pay off in the current fiscal quarter, it might as well not exist to a lot of MBA types. I guess it’s a lot easier to turn away business that way if you’re already busy.
Betty Cracker
@Patricia Kayden: Buycott is one. Free on iPhone and probably Android too.
Ryan
Hey Reince, be careful what you wish for.