A study conducted by Internet marketing research firm Rimm-Kaufman Group, found that there was not a particularly significant use of paid search ads during the 2006 election cycle. The study is less than pure, in my view, because it includes any ad with political content, including some third party advertisers selling buttons on CafePress who are unaffiliated with any campaign. Still, some of their conclusions are notable. For instance, red ads outnumbered blue ads two-to-one. And blue ads were three times more likely to be negative than red ads. Other reports reveal that Republicans are more likely to buy search terms, while Democrats are more likely to advertise on blogs.

That set me off to wonder what the presidential candidates were up to now. So I did searches of all the known candidates and compiled the results below.

Republicans seem to be first out of the starting gate in the paid search arena.

Mitt Romney returns ads for both himself and John MCain. Curiously, McCain’s ad is labeled “Mitt romney” but points to ExploreMcCain.com
John McCain returns an ad for Romney on Google, but an ad for himself on Yahoo.
Rudy Giuliani returns an ad for Romney on Google, but an ad for himself on Yahoo.
Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, and Sam Brownback, all return ads only for Romney.
Gingrich, Pataki, Gilmore, Thompson, Paul returned no ads at all.

Democrats are more thinly represented in the search ad-stakes.

Bill Richardson returned an ad for himself.
Tom Vilsack returned an ad for himself.
Wesley Clark returned an ad for his podcasts, which might not be campaign related.
Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Kucinich returned no ads at all.

President 2008 returned ads for Romney and Bill Richardson.
Campaign 2008 returned ads for Giuliani on Google, McCain on Yahoo, and Colbert/Stewart on Yahoo (I don’t think they have announced yet).

Conclusions: Romney is clearly the most aggressive advertiser with his name displaying on searches for himself and five other candidates. I wonder if his neglect of the rest of the field (including Gingrich) is a clue as to his opinion of their competitiveness or likelyhood of entering the race. Romney and McCain are the only candidates to advertise on competitor’s search terms.

The most striking observation is that none of the leading Democrats are advertising at all. Obviously, it is still early, but these ads aren’t expensive and they can generate traffic and help to channel prospective supporters. Republicans are in this game by themselves. This is surprising because previous studies suggest that there is an ideological disparity in media preferences. The Red Media/Blue Media divide shows Democrats leaning toward the Internet as a news source. Since the Internet is perceived to be friendly to progressives, why have they not pursued a greater presence?

I also did searches of five issues – Iraq War, Social Security, Global Warming, Civil Liberties, and Minimum Wage. There were no candidate ads returned in any of them. This seems like an opportunity slipping away.

I’ll update this survey on an irregular schedule as the campaign proceeds.

Take cover. Get ready for the blast that’s about to sweep through the media. A former presidential candidate said something that can be easily taken out of context and blown up into an absurd controversy by lazy and unethical media whores. Therefore, it will be.

At an economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, John Kerry was asked a question about the U.S. government’s relations with Iran prior to the election of Ahmadinejad. Kerry had the audacity to answer the question honestly and correctly recognizing the reality of Americas place in today’s world diplomacy. Unfortunately, he failed to couch the answer in phraseology that would prevent the misuse of his thoughts. Here is what he said:

“When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don’t advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy. So we have a crisis of confidence in the Middle East – in the world, really. I’ve never seen our country as isolated, as much as a sort of international pariah for a number of reasons as it is today.”

Lookout! Incoming! It has already started. This morning Fox News’ Brain Wilson (recently promoted to VP and Washington bureau chief) asked Democratic “strategist”, Bob Beckel, if John Kerry should be calling the U. S. an international pariah. The headline on Foxnews.com is: “Kerry Blasts Foreign Policy, Says U.S. Has Become ‘International Pariah.'”

Never mind the fact that that is neither what Kerry said, nor the obvious intent of his comments. And forget that both surveys of international leaders and populations affirm the accuracy of Kerry’s statement. Fox (the only cable news channel that does not bring you the usual left wing bias), will find this just too juicy a morsel to exploit and too easy to misrepresent.

So be prepared for the Fox-led onslaught condemning these unpatriotic remarks that embolden the terrorists. And all public persons need to be aware of their QQ: Quotation Quotient. That means that you must now vet everything you are contemplating saying in public through a filter to ascertain its QQ. Never say anything that can be edited down to a misrepresentative soundbite.

Contine reading →

Who knew that the media would take so well to the lesson served up by our Educator-In-Chief:

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee – I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee – that says, fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.” GWB, September 17, 2002.

It appears that some factions of the press do not intend to get fooled again. Take for instance, this headline and excerpt from the Los Angeles Times:

Scant evidence found of Iran-Iraq arms link
“Before invading Iraq, the administration warned repeatedly that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Those statements proved wrong. The administration’s charges about Iran sound uncomfortably familiar to some.”

Those to whom the charges sound uncomfortably familiar are people with measurable brainwave activity. It’s nice to see that some in the press are in that category. Given the degree to which much of the press swallowed administration lies in the ramp up to the Iraq war, it is encouraging to see some evidence of professional skepticism on the part of the Times. There was plenty of reason to be skeptical the first time around, but that didn’t stop most major news outlets from ignoring the danger signs and publishing the administration’s propaganda.

Having been burned, it seems that, at least in this case, they aren’t going to roll over again. As BushCo manuevers to justify yet another unwarranted attack, this time against Iran, the newly discovered journalistic gumption of the Times produces this observation:

“U. S. officials have declined to provide documantation of seized Iranian ordnance, despite repeated requests. The U. S. military often releases photographs of other weapons finds.”

By reporting that documentation was requested and denied, and contrasting that with previous known behavior, the authors have dutifully informed their readers with sufficient and appropriate data from which informed conclusions can be made. That’s how it’s supposed to work. And it should work that way regardless of who’s in office, whether or not they are popular, or what effect it might have on the reporters or their employers. If enough of the media provides this kind of critical review of government PR, we might just avoid another deadly and pointless war.

These are the times that define the media. Will they fulfill their obligation to the people they serve? Will they honor the journalistic principles that are the foundation of open and free democracies?

We’ll see.

Little now tells the New Yorker that he is, “basically a Republican.” His career, however, is on fire. The article discloses that he next appears at the Soboba Casino, in San Jacinto, California, and then at the North Iowa Community Auditorium. Even so, he still has strong opinions about his comic colleagues:

“Little said that he does not find [Bill] Maher and his ilk terribly funny. When asked to name a young comedian he admired, he responded, “Robin Williams.” [Williams is 55 years old]

And when asked if he has a funny joke about Iraq, he slipped into his W impression and said…

“George W. Bush here. I tell you, I’m between I-raq and a hard place.”

Boy, with material like, these will be the hottest tickets in Washington.

Now it may seem like I’m making too much of this. After all it is just a social gathering for the DC media crowd; an opportunity to mingle with celebrities and one another. But when you think of the pressure that must have been brought to bear in order to make such a drastic change in direction, it reveals something about these folks.

Whether the pressure came from the White House or the WHCA members, the bottom line is this: None of these people can take a joke. The cliche about comedy, that it is funny because it’s true, is, like most cliches, rooted in reality. Truth is something that is in scarce supply in Washington. The White House isn’t dispensing much of it, and the press, too often, doesn’t go looking for it. They seem, sometimes, to be running from it. And as they run from the honesty of Colbert, they slam face first into a wall of truthiness. Ironic, isn’t it?

The fact that they cannot laugh at themselves when a mirror is held up to them just further confirms their aversion to the truth. So they settle for a safe, toothless, has-been Republican clown to provide entertainment that they know will not get stuck in their bridge-work. And that’s the perfect analogy for a press corpse that feeds the rest of us that same Truthiness Brand© of pablum.

Dennis Kucinich made a surprise appearance at the National Conference for Media Reform. Before the crowd of 3,000, he announced that there is going to be a new Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee, and that he would be the chairman. The subcommittee will oversee several government agencies, including the FCC.

Kucinich intends to address a variety of concerns for today’s media, including ownership caps, consolidation, network neutrality, and the fairness doctrine. He told the conference:

“The media reform movement is opening up holding the media to a higher standard of accountability […] The urgency of media reform has never been more obvious. The media has become a servant very narrow corporate interests.”

I hope that he forces the other Democratic presidential candidates to take these issues seriously.