Why We Are Bringing “Smoking Politics” Back

Posted on November 8, 2011 by DaveJandJamesB

Five years ago, we started writing blog posts together. While we each have our own interests, we share perhaps a perverse fascination with the corporate/conservative movement right, the ways they communicate and their ability to communicate without conscience or concern for facts and sheer hypocrisy. It is often an unrecognized theme in American Politics, the simple fact that the right doesn’t even concern itself with simple facts and the effect that has on our discourse and ability to solve problems. It is all just propaganda – saying whatever they need to say to gain power.

As part of our work together in 2006 and 2007, and especially with James’s Kerry Campaign experience and our work together on “The Patriot Project,” a project funded by John Kerry and run by James in 2006 which helped defend among others Joe Sestak, John Murtha and Patrick Murphy from smears on their service records, we saw more and more how pervasive this strategy of factual ignorance was becoming common place. As we looked into where it came from – the smears, the phrasings, the tricks, the front groups, the consultants, the “institutes-for-money,” the media machine, the echo chamber, the money, the money, the money — we discovered that many of the right’s consultant heroes, Rove, Atwater, etc. had started out in tobacco marketing. We discovered that many of the right’s “think tanks” and front groups and various other organizations had started out fronting for tobacco interests.

That clicked for us, on two primary levels.

First, people who do tobacco advertising and marketing are purely in it for the money. It is a financial transaction, nothing more, nothing less. You pay me and I will help you sell your product. This is also how the right operates politically. People on the left, we believe, actually believe in what they are selling, The right is just selling, for money, and those providing the money just want power. It’s just business.

Second, if you can sell cigarettes based upon making them the symbol of clean healthy living (Marlboro Country) or the claim that more doctors smoke them (Camels), then the minor inconvenience of an economic fact or global warming, well, that’s nothing folks. And by the way, did you know that the oil industry hired the same tobacco lobbyists that created tobacco denial to create the ‘manufactroversy’ of global warming. “It’s not proven science.” “Scientists disagree.”

So, after a bit of a hiatus we’re bring back www.smokingpolitics.com. If anything, the right has gone FURTHER with this strategy and it’s working better than ever. (See decline of support for climate change legislation.)

Our role, our vision is to help shine the spotlight on how the right does this, how they operate, because it’s important that when we are talking jobs, tax cuts, global warming, Herman Cain etc, someone is standing up and pointing out how they are attacking.

So please follow us AND

if you have a post that deals with this, with front groups, etc., please please let us now and we’ll feature it.

Thanks

Dave Johnson and James Boyce

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Yes, It Would Have Been Amazing If The Washington Post Had Printed It.

Posted on November 4, 2011 by James Boyce

I have an uncle I love dearly, but to say he is a Republican is an understatement. But one thing he has taught me politically is how email has become such an effective tool of transmitting political commentary.

This might be happening on both sides, but it appears to me, biased as I am, that the Right, and its supporters, have turned this strategy into a communications vehicle on steroids. It’s like the old shampoo commercial, and they email ten friends and they email ten friends and then, I have had the personal experience of having an email thrust in my face, printed out in ripe indignation as if it was a page of the Bible.

“How can you say that when Michelle Obama’s European Trip cost $100 million?”

Uh, well, I see your point Uncle Ken.

Today, I was forwarded an email with the headline

Amazing that the Wash. Post would actually print this. Amazing!
The Washington Post
August 18, 2011 Obama: The Affirmative Action President by Matt Patterson (columnist – Washington Post, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner)

Well, yes it would have been amazing. And let’s forget the rest of the entire email, let’s ignore the commentary in the email because clearly the commentary has value because this was printed in The Washington Post! A liberal paper in Washington DC printed this! You see how it works!

And clearly this Matt Patterson knows his stuff, look where he is a columnist for!

Well, google Matt Patterson and here is his site. Seriously, go see it.

Matt Patterson Online

And here is his contribution as a ‘columnist’ to The Washington Post. A single online letter to the editor from 2009

Now, Google Matt Patterson Washington Post August 18, 2011 and guess what you get? Hundreds of conservative sites linking to this remarkable article. But what you won’t get is any evidence that the article every actually ran in The Washington Post.

In fact, if you go to www.washingtonpost.com and search for Matt Patterson, you get nothing.

This is an example of what is remarkable about the Right’s echo chamber.

Here it echoed with a million plus links on Google, something that never was actually fired in the first place.

 

 

Posted in Media, Prop Mail | Tagged , , | 76 Comments

Cain – Now There’s A Pattern

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Dave Johnson

In a post a few days ago, The Herman Cain Sexual Harassment Accusation, I wrote that what had come out so far didn’t add up to enough yet to make me question Cain’s character.

My take on it: I don’t see it. Unless something else comes up I have not heard enough evidence to make me question Cain’s character — on this issue. (His 9-9-9 plan is a whole different story.) I haven’t heard of anything that might indicate a pattern.

Well, it sure is getting there now. It is starting to look like there could be a pattern, and is enough to make me start questioning his character.

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Howie Carr Showcases How The Right Views The World Without Facts.

Posted on November 2, 2011 by James Boyce

Howie Carr, a minor clog in the Right’s noise machine, who writes a column for The Boston Herald among other things, did a beautiful job showcasing what the world looks like when you have the innate ability to look at situations without logic or facts.

In his day, Howie would have done a terrific job telling us how “more Doctors smoke Camels” or that if you smoke Marlboros, welcome to the great outdoors and Marlboro Country.

In his “column” “Lefty Media Pounce On Vague Allegations” Carr addresses the Cain Harassment issue. He starts, fairly enough, by noting that we don’t really know what happened with Cain and the women, but he ignores the fact, conveniently, in the entire column that Cain settled not one but two sexual harassment lawsuits.

Never mentions it.

He then juxtaposes the treatment of Cain with the treatment of Edwards and his affair in 2008.

The mainstream media knew it was all true. But they wouldn’t say boo. Edwards was one of the Beautiful People.

This wonderful ability to think of himself, a writer for a major newspaper in one of America’s largest cities, the host of a daily radio show, and someone who has done this for decades, but is he part of the “mainstream media?” Of course not.

Next, compared to his fair treatment of Cain and the concept of we don’t really know what happened there, he takes an accuser of Bill Clinton’s and makes her word gospel, quoting directly from her allegations.

What’s also missing from his article is the core of the issue. One of his fellow Republicans planted this story, who was it and why did they do it? Are Perry and Romney (and I would presume Carr would have pretty good contacts in the Romney camp) really this afraid of Herman Cain?

Sometimes, it’s nice to take a step back and look at a single article, by one writer, and realize the power of hundreds of men and women writing and dispersing misinformation like this.

If you read Howie’s take on it, Politico is a liberal site (it’s not) Cain never settled the charges (he did) and you would presume that this ‘high-tech lynching’ is the work of the left when it was clearly someone on the right who brought out the rope.

 

Posted in Candidates, Marketing | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Follow Us On Twitter @SmokingPolitics

Posted on November 1, 2011 by James Boyce

Facebook Page is on the way but for right now, you can follow us on Twitter and please do!

@SmokingPolitics

If you are further interested, I am @jamesboyce and Dave is @dcjohnson.

 

 

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How Cain Episode Shows Us Again – Republicans Play A Different Game.

Posted on November 1, 2011 by James Boyce

Yesterday Dave wrote an insightful post about the Herman Cain media blow up on harassment claims. He’s dead on with his analysis.

But there is one thought I would add to the debate over the issue and the coverage of the issue. The Republicans flat out play a different game. And, as a Democrat who has worked on two Presidential Campaigns, here’s why it matters.

A Democrat would have never done this. First, they would have debated about whether the original harassment claims were valid. Then they would have worried about getting found out as the leak behind the story. Then they would have worried about the impact on the women in the original claim. And the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace in general.

Then they would have worried that once, somewhere, a Democrat was accused of the same thing and how can they possibly bring this up in case someone says well, fifteen years ago, what about Bill Clinton?

So they would have passed. They would have let the story go and gone on to attack what some genius in Washington thinks is Cain’s real weakness and that is issues within his tax plan.

Republicans? No way. This was a way to derail a potential frontrunner and the facts, the ethics, the potential cross claims be dammed. Shoot first. Ask questions later.

In fact, this small example is part of the reason this site exists. The Republican Strategists, the men and women who sell tobacco as part of a healthy outdoor lifestyle, do you really think that the chance that Cain might not have actually done anything would bother them? Or that it could cause terrible trauma to the women involved? No, this is a business and the ends justify the means.

The press coverage on the Right also proved this. People who pay attention think it’s hypocrisy, it’s not. It’s just you have to put yourself in a reverse enlightment, a place where facts don’t matter. And then it’s easy to call Politico the main stream media and describe this as a “high tech lynching” by Democrats. It’s laughable, if it wasn’t so effective.

Democrats, you want as friends. Republicans? Watch Cain fall now and you’ll realize. You want those bastards running your campaign.

 

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The Herman Cain Sexual Harassment Accusation

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Dave Johnson

Politico has revealed allegations that Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain, the front-runner in the Republican Presidential primaries, was accused of sexual harassment in the late 90s and that his employer, the National Restaurant Association, settled the charges with a cash payout. His explanation is that he made a certain gesture and said his wife is “this tall,” and was sued for a lot of money.

My take on it: I don’t see it. Unless something else comes up I have not heard enough evidence to make me question Cain’s character — on this issue. (His 9-9-9 plan is a whole different story.) I haven’t heard of anything that might indicate a pattern. I don’t even think it looks bad that this was settled. I think the Association would have settled rather than fight the charges because that saves a great deal of money, even if Cain was innocent, so settling, to me, is not evidence of guilt. I’ve run a company, people sue you when you run a company or an association or other organization. (My own policy was never settle, and that ended up costing me a great deal of money going to court and winning.) They say something happened at an event “at a hotel.” It sounds bad that it happened at an event at a hotel, but this was the Restaurant Association and they do all kinds of events at hotels. And here is the main thing: there are two major Presidential campaigns that have very good reason to make Cain look bad. So I am withholding judgement.

Where Did It Come From?

This story likely came from either Rick Perry or Mitt Romney’s campaign, in my opinion. Cain is the front-runner in the polls, Perry and Romney believe they are entitled to be the candidate, they feel Cain is a distraction from the “serious people’s” race and they really, really want Cain out of the way so they can get at tearing each other up instead. Of course one of them set this up.

This is not a particularly bad thing. A Presidential candidate needs to be able to field this kind of thing. It’s part of the screening, part of the landscape of this. A President is going to be accused of things; do we want a President who flubs it when accused of things he or she actually didn’t do? No, we want to know that a President can get distractions out of the way. (We also want to know if the candidate really does have a character flaw, like I said I am withholding judgement until I see more to go on.)

Continue reading →

Posted in Candidates, Smears | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Why We Are Back.

Posted on October 30, 2011 by James Boyce

2006 seems like a long time ago. Coming out of the 2004 Presidential Election and the 2006 cycle where Dave Johnson and I worked together on The Patriot Project defending veterans who were candidates against smears from the corporate right (it in turn a project of John Kerry’s) we realized that there was a fundamental point being missed in the political discussion of the day.

Back in the early 1980s and ever since, the core strategy of the Right’s communication platform was one of not just disinformation, but fundamentally ignoring of facts. Constant repeating of lies, and treating our country and our environment and really our future as inhabitants of earth as nothing more than a business decision. It was clear this was happening all around us, in the debates on climate change, the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry, and more but where was it all coming from? What was its core?

The answer we learned is still true today.

The heritage of present-day corporate/conservative Republican communication strategy is from the tobacco industry. In fact, many of the Right’s top strategists including Karl Rove, started out working in the tobacco marketing & lobbying.

And, in our mind, nothing showcases this more than Marlboro Country. Cigarettes kill (we’ve known this scientifically for over fifty years.) There is nothing LESS healthy and clean than tobacco smoke. But this didn’t stop the tobacco marketing gurus from spending hundreds of millions of dollars pitching Marlboro as clean healthy living.

Progressives, for better or worse, just can’t do this. Progressives couldn’t, as a group, sell tobacco and cigarettes because we know what they are. The Right has an ability to suspend disbelief. To absolutely and completely ignore the facts in order simply to make money and make more money. The Swift Boat Veterans were funded by people who were going to make money if George Bush was re-elected.  Nothing more, nothing less. It’s the ultimate the ends justify the means.

When we look at the ‘debate’ on climate change, we also see another key component of the tobacco strategy, and a hat tip to honorary SP member Max Bernstein here, we see the strategy we call “manufactroversy.” Max figured if they are going to make up controversies, we’ll make up a word to describe their making up controversies. A manufactroversy, proudly noted in the Urban Dictionary, describes the art of creating a scientific controversy where there is none.

If you look back in the 1960s and 1970s guess what was happening in the land of cigarettes? “Doctors’ claiming we’re not really sure if cigarettes cause cancer. “Doctors’ claiming there was a debate. “Doctors” claiming more study and more time is needed to be sure. Sound familiar? It should. The “Doctors” are now “Scientists” and the mainstream media is still not doing its job and we have a climate change manufactroversy.

So we’re back. We’re going to pick up where we shouldn’t have left off. 2012 is going to be a pivotal year and we’re going to do our part in making sure someone is standing up and reminding everyone, ‘maybe we’ve heard this one before.’

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