Election Industry Inc. and the Reich Stuff

Posted 10:48 p.m., May 30, 2004

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Several days ago, I attended an event at Minneapolis' Pantages Theater awarding raspberries to the worst political ads in America.

It's been covered at some length in the local papers, so I'll try not to belabor what I saw, other than to note it was interesting to see all those bad ads that play to our baser natures, brought to you by what Bill Hillsman calls Election Industry Inc., all displayed in one place.

The May 26 event was primarily a fundraiser for Growth and Justice, an ostensibly nonpartisan--but basically pretty liberal--think tank formed by former Star Tribune publisher Joel Kramer. (It cost $30 to attend--ouch! I don't spend that much for rock concerts!)

It played to a crowd of 750 largely left-leaning souls, as witnessed by the reception to the speech by former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich. However, in addition to appearances by DFL stalwarts like Martin Sabo, Amy Klobuchar and Steve Dille, Minnesotan Republican characters like House Majority Leader Steve Sviggum and Metropolitan Council head Peter Bell handed out awards. Former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippie also appeared.

But as befits an event in Downtown Minneapolis, this event was mostly Liberal City. Still, the crowd warmly received the Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Tim Penny and his running mate Martha Robertson Meyers, and the event mainly maintained the "civil discussion" tone set by the opening monologue by local advertising magnate Lee Lynch, and was probably the first opportunity political leaders have had since the end of a difficult and rancorous legislative session to get together on cordial turf.

In fact, the toughest shot of the night was taken by Penny, delivered (in fun) by his former running mate. As the duo approached the stage, Penny, the former conservative Democratic congressman who became a third-party renegade in 2002, awkwardly fumbled around trying to figure out which of the two microphones he was to stand before. Seeing his discomfort, Robertson Meyer turned to the audience and quipped: "Tim still hasn't figured out which side he's supposed to be on."

Read My Lips ... But Please Don't Listen

A number of awards were handed out in categories like, "I Wish I Hadn't Said That," (for commercials that use a candidate's own poorly chosen words against them--it was won by the Clinton campaign's 1992 Bush-burning "Read My Lips" spot); "The Great Deception" (for commercials that take facts out of context--won by an anti-Mac Collins spot we'll discuss a little later); and "Putting the Race Into the Race" (using the race card-won by a quota-baiting Jesse Helms spot).

But the marquee awards were the Daisy (named for the famous 1964 anti-Goldwater LBJ campaign ad that associated the Republican with nuclear holocaust) and the Willy (named in "honor" of the 1988 George W. Bush campaign ad that used the race card by depicting black rapist-murderer Willy Horton as the sort of person Mike Dukakis was preparing to loose onto an unsuspecting populace).

The Daisy was awarded to a Democratic ad that used deception to slash a Republican candidate, the Willy for a Republican spot that burned a Democrat.

The Daisy was won by an advertisement that really did take the cake for deception. It was for a 1994 ad run against GOP Congressman Mac Colllins of Georgia. Collins owns a trucking company that over a period of years has racked up safety violations. But the ad depicted a drunken, drugged-out truck driver terrorizing a family in a car, saying that an incident dramatized by the commercial came close to "killing a little girl." In fact, no one was injured in the incident dramatized in the commercial. (And Mac Collins was not at the wheel in any case.)

The Willy was won by a commercial on behalf of Republican Rick Santorum, which tried to intimate that New York's U.S. Senate candidate Hillary Clinton was anti-Israel because she hugged the daughter of Yassar Arafat after a speech criticizing Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.

Laughing Matters

It was clear from watching the festivities, though, that Election Industry Inc. is accomplishing its task with its attack ads--which is to rally partisan viewers. Many of the lefties' ads being lambasted were met with laughter, and in some cases applause. (Admittedly, the animated ad run by California gubernatorial Arrianna Huffington depicting other leaders frequenting a brothel is pretty funny.) But I don't think approval of some of the most over-the-top spots was quite what organizers had in mind.

Still, it will be good if, as the Star Tribune reported, this becomes a once-every-four-years event. Hillsman, whose company's ads for Jesse Ventura and Paul Wellstone were feted during the event, told the newspaper he thinks the "Worst Political Ads in America" appears to be the only ceremony of its type in the country.

Here's hoping it catches on.

--Kevin Featherly

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Robert Reich Speech

Economist and former U.S. Labor Department Secretary Robert Reich gave a funny speech at the Worst Political Ads ceremony, which I tape recorded and am reproducing in full in the transcript that follows. You'll be amused, but if you follow closely, you'll likely detect some of the impudent elitism that promises to be the Democrats' biggest albatross in the upcoming Kerry vs. Bush campaign.

The speech follows:

Political advertising is to advertising what military music is to music, as Jennifer Flowers is to flowers, as George W. Bush is to a lilac bush.

"Politics" actually comes from the Greek root poli-, meaning "many," and ticks--small, blood-sucking insects.

I don't mean that because I've spent half of my life in federal politics, in Washington, and half of my life in academe.

Academe, as some of you may know, can be pretty political. Somebody asked me recently, can I describe the difference between Washington politics and academics. And actually Washington politics is dog eat dog--and academic politics is precisely the reverse.

I started out ... A lot of people think I am a Democrat and a liberal, and I am but I want to get this off my chest, because I think we ought to be extremely honest. And I love the idea of the civil dialogue that Growth and Justice is promoting.

My first job in Washington was working for a man named Robert Bork. (Laughter, oohs) Some of you may remember Robert Bork. He was then Solicitor General of the United States and I was his assistant solicitor general, and I discovered after I took the job that he and I, well, we disagreed only on the first, second, fourth, fifth, eighth and ninth amendments. It was a good job, though.

Listen, I want to say that in fairness to Growth and Justice, that I have a personal stake in it. I didn't grow, and I think that's unjust. (Laughter, applause)

But beyond that, I'm an economist. And as you may know--I don't know that you do know--an economist is somebody who did not have the personality to become an accountant.

But if you look at the economy in terms of growth, it's grown enormously in the last 25 years. It's doubled in size. And yet there has not been that all that much growth in median family incomes. In fact, the top 1 percent of Americans right now own about the same amount of America as the bottom 95 percent put together. And indeed, Bill Gates, himself, in terms of his wealth--this is absolutely true--Bill Gates owns as much of America as the bottom half of Americans put together.

And we have not seen in this country that gap in terms of income and wealth opportunity since the Gilded Age of the 1880s and 1890s. And therefore to use this time--and by the way what I'm about to say is not a partisan statement (laughter)--to use this time to give a huge tax break to people at the top rather than to use those revenues for education and healthcare seems to be highly questionable. (Applause)

I know that the president did say in justifying this tax break ... that the average person is going to get several thousand dollars back and has gotten several thousands back. But averages ... Let me tell you that if you hear a politician, particularly in this in this administration, talking about averages, watch your wallet. The basketball player Shaquille O'Neal and I have an average height of six feet. (Laughter) You see what I'm getting at.

I'll tell you what's happened to the little guy. And if you're not one of the people at the top who is getting hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars back on their taxes, they sort of play up the average, even though most people might be getting only $49 or $50 back on their taxes.

There is not a tradeoff between growth and justice. That's why I'm so excited about Joel's project and all of your support for it. Because we need to understand that in fact in order to have a growing economy, we've got to invest in our people, in their education, in their healthcare, we have to have companies that understand that their employees are assets to be developed, rather than costs to be cut. (Long applause)

And that's the only way we're ever going to have long-term economic growth and long-term economic justice.

I thought I'd say a brief word about my new book, which also is not partisan. It's not partisan. It's reasoned and it's about civil dialogue, and the subtitle is "Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America," but that's not partisan, because there are a lot, or there were a lot, or there have been ... There were liberal Republicans. I know, I knew, I found. ... Well, I saw one.

And frankly, if there are liberal Republicans left, they are likely to be in Minnesota. (Applause)

I had the misfortune this winter of having to actually miss the New England winter. The University of California-Berkeley asked me to come out, and somebody had to do it. I went out and I was a visiting professor there in January, February and March I had to endure 70-degree days. But on my way out to Berkeley in January my son and I drove across the United States, and we drove across those states that had voted in 2000 for George W. Bush.

For some reason I don't understand they're still called the 'red' states. Doesn't the color-coding seem odd to you? They're called "Red America," those states, and then the blue states are the ones that voted for Al Gore.

So we went across and I remember the moment, we were driving across America and we went into "Red America," we went into red-state America. And there was a sort of a chill in the car.

And again, this is not partisan. No, this is not partisan. Because when we would sit and eat and go into the little drive-ins and order a hamburger or something, inevitably people would come up to us, lovely people, very, very friendly people, and because I am rather conspicuous looking, people would say, "You, you, um. I know you. You, you were, um... You are, um ... George Stephanopolis." (Laughter) Close, I was in the Clinton Administration.

And then they would down with us, my son and I, without being invited, and they would simply say, "We are very strong supporters of the president, and we know you're a Democrat, and we don't understand why you're a Democrat."

And I would say, "Why are you supporting the president?" I would say, "Certainly, I'm patriotic, I support the president, but why do really like the president?"

And inevitably, they would say--this was like a free-floating focus group across Red America--and they would say, invariably, they would say, "Because he is so honest."

This is a nonpartisan discussion we're about to have. And with them, we would have a civil dialogue and we would talk about it. And what I really began to understand was that it wasn't the honesty per se, it was the folksiness. They liked the president because he was folksy. And he is folksy. He's a folksy president. (Laughter)

And I would talk about John Kerry, who I--and again, this is not a partisan dialogue--I am supporting and I am hoping he will become president.

John Kerry is a terribly wonderful man, he's just a very dedicated and committed and terrific fellow. But if you met him, the first thing you wouldn't say about him is "folksy." You might think of a lot of other things, but you wouldn't say folksy. And I think, and this is the thought I want to leave you with about the new civil dialogue that we are going to have in America and that Growth and Justice represents and you here in Minnesota do I think exemplify. And I am so proud of what Minnesotans in the past have done for the country. (Applause)

You have been the engine of great economic change and reform, and also civil dialogue. And so on that note, let me just say that the choice facing us in the future, and I don't mean between Republicans and Democrats, but I do mean this in terms of ways of approaching the world.

There are either, on the one hand, people with soft hearts and hard heads, or on the other hand, people with hard hearts and soft heads. (Laughter) And you can draw your own conclusion.

But I do hope that we do restore a civil dialogue that transcends the kind of snarling and sneering and often venomous discussions that we've had. I go on the O'Reilly Show, or the Sean Hannity show, or this Scarborough show--I'm sure none of you has ever seen any of these programs--has ever of you ever seen any of these shows? Don't watch any of these shows.

I go on and I yell, and somebody yells back and we yell and yell at the end of the program I don't know what I said, except I know that I yelled. And that is not the kind of civil dialogue that we need. (Applause)

So I want to salute Growth and Justice, I want to salute all of you that are participating in this. I want to salute all of you in Minnesota who continue to exemplify and model the kind of civic life that all of America needs to emulate.

Thank you so much.

-- Robert Reich

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