Tag Archives: The Bulwark

Who’s Coughing Up the Cash for Full-Page Ads Touting Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and flipping through the Boston Globe, when I came across this full-page ad on A3.

What the hell, Doc – this guy’s calling card is his anti-vaccine jihad, but no mention of it in this costly  five-figure advertisement? Is the Super PAC just trying to inoculate him?

– Vax Vexed

Dear VV:

First of all, you gotta admire any full-page ad in a major metropolitan newspaper that starts off with a quote about being silenced.

Beyond that, now that we know who the bad guys are, let’s take a look at the purported good guys, starting with the outfit that paid for the ad, American Values 2024. Its website fails to list any of the Super PAC’s good guy funders, but it does showcase Our Team.

The website also spotlights the bad guys at ABC News.

ABC News makes a point of letting viewers know they censored RFKJ

ABC News made a bizarre announcement that they censored RFKJ’s statements about COVID, vaccines and autism following an interview with him on Thursday, 4/27 that included a discussion of the ongoing censorship of him by the corporate media.

“We should note that during our conversation, Kennedy made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines,” ABC interviewer Linsey Davis said following the interview. “We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview.” Davis added.

At this point we will just quote Kennedy, “Show me where I am wrong.”

The group helpfully provides video of the offending segment.

Finally, there’s this boilerplate about the Super PAC.

(John Gilmore’s website provides exactly zero additional information.)

The American Values 2024 Twitter feed  (70 tweets, 301 followers) isn’t much help either.

But elsewhere on Twitter, the Super PAC has gotten a modicum of attention.

About a week ago, Slate’s Jim Newell took a look at those polling numbers.

Kennedy officially launched his Democratic primary bid on April 19, after a month or two of making noise about it. In an April 9 Morning Consult poll, 10 percent of those surveyed said they would support Kennedy for the Democratic presidential nomination. The day of Kennedy’s launch, a USA Today/Suffolk poll had Kennedy at 14 percent. The Fox News poll released April 26, referenced by CNN, showed Kennedy at 19 percent. Kennedy was at 21 percent in an April 27 Emerson College poll . . .

It’s not just Kennedy who has a little bit of traction, though. Marianne Williamson, in her second consecutive Democratic primary, is registering in polls as well. In the Fox News survey, Williamson was polling at 9 percent. She was at 8 percent in the Emerson poll.

The main reason these two eccentrics have a surprising primary polling foothold against an incumbent president, then, is because they are the only two warm bodies giving it a go against a president who a supermajority of Americans believe should not run for president again.

One final note: The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last asks, Why Is This Man Running as a Democrat?

If you haven’t read Mona [Charen’s] fantastic piece about RFK Jr., go do that right now.

For me, the most interesting question is: Why is this guy running as a Democrat?

As Mona demonstrates, RFK Jr.’s biggest fans seem to come from conservative world. He’s a Fox News / InfoWars kind of candidate . . .

And RFK Jr. is much closer to Alex Jones and Trump and even DeSantis than he is to Bernie Sanders or any other Democratic figure . . .

[It] seems possible that if DeSantis hollows out, the opening isn’t for Nikki Haley, or Tim Scott, or Brian Kemp—it’s for someone like RFK Jr., or Elon Musk, or Alex Jones to take from Trump by making him look like part of the establishment.

The Doc’s diagnosis? Forget Covid boosters – get yourself a Dramamine drip and settle in for the long run.

P.S. Still no idea who’s bankrolling American Values 2024, but it’s bound to come out sooner rather than later.

Is Anyone Winning the Trump-DeSantis Advertising Slap Fight?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Charlie Sykes’s Morning Shots at The Bulwark, when I came across this item about how routinely weak Republicans’ criticism of Donald Trump has been.

Let’s start with some stipulations: the criticisms of Trump from his fellow GOPers fall way short since they continue to skirt the main issue: his fundamental unfitness to hold any position of public trust ever again.

And, given Trump’s lead in the polls and the well-documented proclivities of the MAGA base, they are also probably ineffective. All points granted.

But it is still worth noting that Ron DeSantis has finally realized that he needs to punch back.

What’s the deal, Doc? I thought DeSantis was running as Trump without the baggage. Now he’s gonna whack the former president with a briefcase?

–  Sky Cop

Dear SC:

Unfortunately, you’ve stumbled into a proxy war between the former Cheeto in Chief and his former Mini-Me, both vying for the hearts and (small) minds of the MAGAts. This is what changed everything for Ron DeSantis, compliments of the Trumpy Super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc.

Here’s the transcript for those of you keeping score at home.

Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don’t belong. And we’re not just talking about pudding. DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements, like cutting Medicare, slashing Social Security, and even raising our retirement age. Tell Ron DeSantis to keep his pudding fingers off our money. Oh, and get this man a spoon!

That finger in the eye has triggered a couple of responses from the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down Super PAC. The first volley, as Axios’s Erica Pandey reported, came in the form of “a small online buy for ‘Gun-Grabbing Trump,’ which was geotargeted to Indianapolis for the NRA convention. The ad juxtaposes Trump’s comments about the Second Amendment with clips of Democrats: “TRUMP AGREED WITH NANCY PELOSI,” etc.”

The spot essentially accuses Trump of sleeping with the Second Amendment enemies. Drive him nuts graf: “Trump cut and run like a coward. Trump the gun-grabber doesn’t deserve a second chance.”

Ouch.

Now comes Fight Democrats, Not Republicans, which Never Back Down launched on “Fox News Sunday.” It asks the question, “What happened to Donald Trump?”

So what, in turn, happened to DeSantis’s old rope-a-dope strategy? The Bulwark’s Sykes points to this piece by Puck’s Tara Palmeri.

It’s only been a few weeks since Jeff Roe and his band of fellow Ted Cruz alumni parachuted into Tallahassee to help reverse Ron DeSantis’s wilting political fortunes, and yet they’ve already picked at an uncomfortable wound in the governor’s tight, sensitive, and less experienced inner circle. Roe’s more seasoned crew, for one, has a far less sanguine view of DeSantis’s current Trump self-defense strategy. They believe that DeSantis can’t just shrug off the former president’s public attacks on him, which coalesce around the notion that he’s an establishment stooge. Trump’s invective may be juvenile but it’s clearly moving the needle on his polling and allowing the former president to craft DeSantis’s public image.

All that brings us back to to the original question: Is anyone winning this ad-fueled slap fight? Let’s go to the highly unscientific YouTube Index for possible answers.

MAGA Pac’s Pudding Fingers  21,000 views  71 likes

Never Back Down’s Gun-Grabbing Trump  9000 views  61 likes

Never Back Down’s Fight Democrats . . .  136,000 views  125 likes

The Doc’s diagnosis: Donald Trump’s cheeks sure seem redder.

GOP Ad Says Sen. Joe Manchin (D-Hell No) Owns a ‘Luxury Yacht’. Is That Right?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Axios Sneak Peek, when I came across this item by Josh Kraushaar.

The NRSC [National Republican Senatorial Committee] is out with a new direct mail and digital ad campaign portraying Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) as a Davos-trekking elitist, firing the first of many shots to come ahead of a potential re-election campaign . . .

Why it matters: Manchin, who hasn’t announced what he plans to do in 2024, is the only Democrat who can realistically hold a Senate seat in one of the most conservative states in the country.

The ad also says Manchin drives a Maserati and owns a $700,000 luxury yacht.

Is that why the boat’s named “Almost Heaven”?

– Almost Heavin’

Dear Ms. Heavin’,

Republicans would like nothing better than to hound Joe Manchin into retirement, since they’re desperate for his Senate seat.

Here’s the ad they hope will facilitate his exit, and please enjoy the narrator’s British accent, which is supposed to echo the voice of Robin Leach, late of the venerable Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Let’s do some fact-checking, shall we?

• For starters, it’s true that Manchin attended the World Economic Forum in Davos this month, a turn on the big stage that was largely notable for the high-five he shared with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Me Mine) over preserving  the Senate filibuster – something we thought  the NRSC [checks notes]  would totally dig. Guess not.

• It’s also true that Manchin owns a Maserati, for which he’s previously taken grief from climate change activists and Brian Williams. But isn’t owning a luxury car part of the American dream, which we thought Republicans [checks notes] have always touted? Guess not.

• It is not true that Manchin owns a “$700,000 D.C. luxury yacht,” as Andrew Beaujon noted two years ago in Washingtonian.

It’s not a yacht. Republicans tried to paint Manchin as yacht-owning “Washington Joe” during his 2018 reelection campaign. Mmmm, not quite: “The vessel is listed as ‘recreational’ on documents,” PolitiFact wrote in a fact-check. “However, a less confrontational—but similarly accurate—description could be ‘houseboat,’ since it is Manchin’s residence in Washington.”

P.S. The source the NRSC cites for the “luxury yacht” designation – 100 Days in Appalachia – is a known right-wing propaganda machine.

• Finally, the NRSC spot proclaims that “Life is very good for Democrat Joe Manchin while West Virginians get stuck with higher prices, smaller paychecks, and open borders . . . Tell Maserati Manchin it’s time to stand up for West Virginians.”

Not to get technical about it, but check out this graphic from Jonathan V. Last’s Triad newsletter at The Bulwark.

See that deep blue blotch straddling Virginia and Kentucky? That’s blood-red West Virginia, baby!  The Mountain State gets back $3.09 for every tax dollar it ponies up to the feds.

If you don’t think Joe Manchin has had a lot to do with that, you just haven’t been paying attention.

Won’t Democrats Eventually Get Burned By Their Ads Boosting GOP Crazies?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Charlie Sykes’s Morning Shots newsletter at The Bulwark, when I came across this item linking to a Lachlan Markay piece at Axios.

FFS. “Democrats boost right-wing challenger to GOP Trump foe.”

A new TV ad from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee portrays Republican John Gibbs as the true pro-Trump conservative in his effort to unseat Republican Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) — aligning with Gibbs’ own campaign messaging.

  • Trump endorsed Gibbs’ challenge after Meijer voted to impeach the former president over his role in fomenting the Jan. 6 Capitol siege…

Be smart: The spot is couched as an attack ad, saying “the Gibbs-Trump agenda is too conservative for West Michigan.”

  • Despite the framing, it hits on precisely the issues any Trump-backed Republican would want to be elevated before a primary contest.

What the hell, Doc – does this seem like a prescription for victory in November?

– Dimocrat Watcher

Dear Watcher,

The Doc has been on this gambit by Democrats like Brown on Williamson for the past two months (see here and here).

But there are plenty of others in the punditocracy also dissecting it.

Let’s begin with the ad “attacking” John Gibbs that Lachlan Markay noted in his Axios piece.

The Bulwark’s eminently sane and always readable Jonathan V. Last had this to say about that spot.

Here are the relevant facts:

  • Gibbs is an insane conspiracy theorist—Hillary does Satanic rituals!—who is manifestly unfit for office.
  • Gibbs should lose this primary. So the add serves no “preparing the ground for the general” function.
  • The ad will help Gibbs because he’s struggling with name ID and hasn’t been able to run his own ads.
  • Again: Meijer is one of the ten Republican House members who voted to impeach Trump.

JVL’s conclusion: “[Going] into a race purely in the hopes that maybe the insane person will pull an upset over Meijer is not just foolish and dishonorable, but dangerous, too . . . This is the bad kind of boosting. The kind that the DCCC absolutely should not be doing.”

Then again, consider the gubernatorial race in Maryland, where the Democratic Governors Association poured over a million dollars into promoting Republican candidate Dan Cox, who, according to Vanity Fair’s Chris Smith, “pushed for Donald Trump to seize voting machines in the month after the 2020 presidential election, and . . . pals around with QAnon supporters.”

“It’s crazy like a fox,” says Cornell Belcher, a strategist who worked on both of Barack Obama’s winning presidential campaigns. “If you can impact the odds of winning on the front end, it’s hard to argue with doing it. If I have the ability to run against someone who I know is going to be the weaker opponent, I shouldn’t do that? That’s la-la land shit. The likelihood that Maryland will go Republican in November is a lot less today than it would have been if the Hogan-like candidate had prevailed in that primary.”

The jury’s still out, however, at the Jan. 6 Committee, as Alayna Treene noted in Axios Sneak Peek.

Representative sample:

Between the lines: Public backlash intensified yesterday when it emerged that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is boosting an election denier in his primary against Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) — one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

  • Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chair of the DCCC, said on MSNBC this morning: “If you’re talking about trying to pick your opponent, you might see us do that, sure. And I think sometimes it does make sense.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee, told Axios: “No party, Democrat or Republican, should be promoting candidates who perpetuate lies about the 2020 election and try to undermine our democracy.”

Karma being the corkscrew that it is, there’s a non-zero chance that at least one of the MAGAts Democrats have been boosting – call the roll: Doug Mastriano in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race; Darren Bailey in the Illinois governor’s race; John Gibbs; Dan Cox – will squeak through in November.

As the feller says, lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

Flea powder sold separately.

Is the New MoonSwatch Collection Really ‘An Abomination’?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Jonathan V. Last’s Triad newsletter at The Bulwark, when I came across this item.

3. Watch Talk

It’s been a while since and I know that this if [sic] frivolous, but this just happened:

I have no words.

Taking the iconic Speedmaster Professional—the watch that went to the frickin’ moon—and turning it into a candy-colored hunk of plastic quartz . . . this is an abomination. An offense against God and nature. It’s like the Louvre partnering with Oscar Mayer to sell a Bologna Lisa.

So here’s my question, Doc: Do you want to see the Bologna Lisa as badly as I do?

– Swatched at Birth

Dear Swatched,

We’ll get to the art part shortly but first, commerce.

Here’s the full-page ad that ran in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.

And here’s the press release from Swatch.

SWATCH AND OMEGA “REACH FOR THE PLANETS” WITH THE BIOCERAMIC MOONSWATCH COLLECTION

Swatch and Omega come together for an innovative take on the legendary Speedmaster Moonwatch.

Outer space inspires a new collection of eleven BIOCERAMIC watches named after planetary bodies that will have you reaching for the stars.

The Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch is legendary and a must-have for collectors. BIOCERAMIC Moon-Swatch collection makes the iconic design accessible to fans everywhere.

The Doc assumes that JVL would like nothing better than to stick the whole thing in a Falcon Heavy and fire it into the sun, but he’s distinctly in the minority according to this Gear Patrol piece by the site’s watch writer, Zen Love (apparently his real name).

This Omega x Swatch Collab Is Breaking the Internet

An unexpected collaboration has watch fans over the moon. Omega and Swatch have teamed up to offer a collection of 11 models of what they’re calling the MoonSwatch. Recreating the exact proportions and design of the famous Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch, these are quartz watches in Bioceramic cases…and they cost $260.

The Speedmaster is an absolute basic of watch collecting, but its current version costs around $6,400. The chance to get it for a mere fraction of that — with a dial actually co-signed by Omega itself — is exciting for a lot of people. Let’s face it, though, even if you already have a Moonwatch, or never even wanted one (which is hard to imagine), these are just fun.

Yeah, tell that to JVL.

(Not to get technical about it, but Mr. Love never does explain exactly how the MoonSwatch is breaking  the Internet.)

As for the Bologna Lisa, the Doc did find a bunch of Lisa Bolognas, but none of them seem to have an enigmatic smile. Your punchline goes here.

Is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Viral Message To the Russian People ‘His Finest Moment’?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and  reading Jonathan V. Last’s Triad newsletter at The Bulwark, when I came across this item.

3. Extraordinary Leadership

I try to never waste your time and I will warn you up front that this is a 9-minute video. But it is an extraordinary display of leadership. This is Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking directly to the Russian people with a message that was designed in a lab to persuade . . .

his isn’t virtue signaling or sentiment. It’s meeting the Russian people where they are and talking honestly about his own history, the pain his father caused and then suffered from, the beauty and strength of the Russian people, and the truth that is being hidden from them.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has led a weird, wonderful, amazing life. And this is his finest moment.

What’s your diagnosis, Doc?

– Rushin’ to Judgement

Dear Rushin’,

First, you need to watch the video – all of it.

Here’s the text of the video (via The Atlantic).

Schwarzenegger’s plea is so honest, heartfelt, and direct, it’s hard not to be moved by it. You can Google the video all day long and not encounter a negative word about it. For those of you keeping score at home, Schwarzenegger’s Twitter feed got a robust reaction.

As for your question, Rushin’, if that video is not Arnold Schwarzenegger’s finest moment, it’ll do ’til something better comes along.

What’s With the ‘MAGA Mom’ (and Kids) Wielding Rifles in Her Campaign Ad?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Jim Swift’s Overtime newsletter in The Bulwark when I came across this note: “The strange thing about Dr. Oz… Stu Stevens on GOP ads.”

The link took me to a YouTube video that features former Obama comms guy Dan Pfeiffer interviewing veteran GOP media guru Stuart Stevens about some current campaign commercials from Republican candidates for federal office.

To be honest, Doc, I never got to the Mr. Oz spot (hey, right now he’s just a U.S. Senate wannabe in Pennsylvania, not a practicing physician) because I was stopped in my tracks by the ad for Mallory Staples, the self-proclaimed MAGA Mom seeking a Georgia Congressional seat.

Here’s the image from the ad that almost made my head explode.

What’s the deal, Doc – has fondling a firearm now become the cover charge for being a viable GOP candidate?

– Shot and a Chooser

Dear Shot,

It sure seems that way, doesn’t it?

For starters, here’s the full Mallory Staples spot.

As you say, she’s not the only GOP gunsel flaunting a firearm. Less than a week ago the Doc detailed the Shootout at the GOP Corral that U.S. Senate hopeful Jim Lamon is running in Arizona.

And then there are the recent Christmas cards from GOP incumbents who represent the Family Firearms Wing of the Republican party. Start with Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie.

That got an Xmas shoutout from Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and her gun-toting kids.

You can expect this arms race to heat up like machine-gun bacon.in the months to come.

Good luck ducking it.