Tag Archives: The Daily Beast

Did Adam Schiff’s Ad Strategy Really ‘Rig’ The California Senate Primary?

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 poking around Xitter, when I came across this tweet in “semi-recovered lawyer” George Conway’s feed.

@Out5p0ken elaborated in a reply:”Seriously, wtf and let’s all thank her for giving away a House seat and then calling the election rigged and not congratulating Schiff. Deplorable.”

What’s the deal here, Doc. Just sour grapes? Or something more rigorous?

– Katie Didn’t

Dear KD,

Katie Porter is upset because, as Joe Perticone reported in The Bulwark, “[Adam] Schiff’s campaign and his allies have shelled out millions of dollars to boost [Republican candidate Steve] Garvey’s bid and box out the other Democrats” in California’s jungle primary for the seat vacated by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Here’s a representative sample of the knee-buckling $11 million worth of ads the Schiff forces ran teeing up the former pro baseball player for GOP voters.

Post-primary, Porter cried foul, as The Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis noted.

In a tweet that has evoked controversy, Porter complained that her campaign had to withstand “3 to 1 in TV spending and an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election.”

And in a weak-sauce follow-up statement meant to clarify her tweet, Porter explained that “rigged” means “manipulated by dishonest means”—and that billionaires spending money to defeat her constitutes “dishonest means to manipulate an outcome.”

Some of Porter’s supporters protested Schiff’s strategy as “sexist and cynical” in pushing her aside for another male candidate. But that wasn’t the only factor in holding Porter to a disappointing 14% of the primary vote. As Jill Cowan reported in the New York Times, “[i]n the final weeks of the campaign, a cryptocurrency super PAC spent millions on ads attacking Ms. Porter, who has supported more regulations on the industry and has rebuked various corporate leaders in congressional hearings.”

Beyond that, there’s this inconvenient fact, which Maeve Reston pointed out in the Washington Post: “[T]o hold down Garvey’s support, Porter . . . countered with similar tactics — running at least a half-million dollars in ads raising the profile of another long-shot GOP Senate contender, Eric Early.”

Sauce for the gander, anyone?

How Soon Will Dems Launch Ads Against MAGA Mike Johnson? Oh, Wait . . .

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 scrolling through yesterday’s edition of Punchbowl News AM, when I came across this item about the new House Speaker, Mike Johnson (R-Trump Won).

Of course, Democrats are already hitting vulnerable GOP incumbents over their vote to elevate Johnson to the speakership. Expect plenty of campaign ads tying endangered incumbents to Johnson’s socially conservative views.

Here’s where that link takes you (Max Cohen is Punchbowl’s Congressional reporter).

That’s not an ad, though, is it, Doc? What else you got?

– GOPsmacked

Dear G-Smack,

About six hours after that Punchbowl newsletter hit emailboxes,  The Daily Beast’s Riley Rogerson updated this report from the previous day.

Dems Turn Mike Johnson’s First Viral Moment Into Anti-GOP Ad

When House Republicans held an impromptu press conference late Tuesday night to celebrate coalescing around their new speaker nominee, they were in no mood to answer tough questions—or even the obvious one.

So when ABC reporter Rachel Scott asked Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA)—the speaker nominee who has now been elevated to the speakership—about his leading efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Republicans were having none of it.

They drowned out the reporter with boos. Johnson said “next question.” And Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) told the reporter to “shut up!”

Now, a D.C.-based advocacy group, Courage For America, is seizing on the moment to attack Republicans and quickly define the new speaker.

First, let’s have a look at the Grand Old Partiers’ Shut Up Caucus, via North Carolina’s News & Observer.

The Courage for America ad buy is a mere $20,000 – just enough to get news media coverage – while targeting 11 New York Republicans: Reps. Nick LaLota, Andrew Garbarino, George Santos, Anthony D’Esposito, Nicole Malliotakis, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro, Elise Stefanik, Brandon Williams, Nick Langworthy, and Claudia Tenney.

For an even more harrowing view of the Mike Johnson Experience, check out this Popular Information colonoscopy from Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, and Rebecca Crosby. (Johnson is also Bess Levin’s latest chew toy at Vanity Fair.)

The Doc’s diagnosis? This fever ain’t gonna break anytime soon.

Why Is Madison Cawthorn (R-Sex & Drugs) So Panicked About Reelection?

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 prowling my Twitter feed, when I stumbled upon this tweet from North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn.

Hey, Doc – isn’t this the same guy who fabricated stories about cocaine-fueled congressional orgies, then totally walked them back? Guess he can be stopped in some cases, yeah?

– Kinda Cawthorny

Dear Kinda,

Lately, everything Madison Cawthorn’s done has gone over like the metric system.

Start with his recent revelations about drugs and sex among Grand Old Party Animals, as Gustaf Kilander reported in The Independent,

Mr Cawthorn told the Warrior Poet Society podcast that “the sexual perversion that goes on in Washington… I look at all these people, a lot of them that I’ve looked up to through my life”.

“I’ve always paid attention to politics, all of a sudden you get invited to like, ‘well hey, we’re gonna have a kind of sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come!’ And you realise they’re asking you to come to an orgy,” he said.

“You know, some of the people leading the movement to try and remove addiction in our country, and they watch them doing, you know, a key bump of cocaine right in front of you,” he added.

That led to a come-to-Jesus meeting with the reigning Grand Old Poobahs, as The Independent piece noted.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise met with Mr Cawthorn on Wednesday. While Mr Cawthorn, 26, refused to answer questions from reporters after the meeting, Mr McCarthy, 57, said “he’s lost my trust is gonna have to earn it back. And I laid out everything that I find is unbecoming”.

“This is unacceptable. There’s no evidence to this. He changes what he [says] and that’s not becoming of a Congressman…He did not tell the truth,” he added, alleging that Mr Cawthorn changed his story when confronted by members of Republican House leadership.

But that wasn’t the only change occasioned by Cawthorn’s moonwalk, according to this CNN report by Melanie Zanona, Manu Raju and Alex Rogers .

‘He’s an embarrassment’: Republicans threaten to primary Cawthorn over controversial antics

For those of you keeping score at home, the Republican Accountability Project contributed this head-spinning cameo from the always unreliable Roger Stone.

The next day Cawthorn himself hit back by blaming the usual suspects, as Politico’s Olivia Beavers and Craig Howie reported.

Cawthorn blames ‘the left and the media’ after intra-GOP furor over sex-and-drugs comments

Amid a burgeoning congressional controversy, Rep. Madison Cawthorn on Friday blamed Democrats and the media for amplifying his comments that some of his fellow GOP members engage in orgies and use cocaine.

“My comments on a recent podcast appearance calling out corruption have been used by the left and the media to disparage my Republican colleagues and falsely insinuate their involvement in illicit activities,” Cawthorn said in a statement without addressing the substance of his own comments directly.

“The left and the media want to use my words to divide the GOP. … I will not back down to the mob, and I will not let them win.”

“Falsely insinuate their involvement in illicit activities”? Let’s revisit the transcript, shall we?

The sexual perversion that goes on in Washington… I look at all these people, a lot of them that I’ve looked up to through my life.

I’ve always paid attention to politics, all of a sudden you get invited to like, ‘well hey, we’re gonna have a kind of sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come!’ And you realize they’re asking you to come to an orgy,

You know, some of the people leading the movement to try and remove addiction in our country, and they watch them doing, you know, a key bump of cocaine right in front of you.

All that mishegas, however, is small potatoes compared to Cawthorn’s real problem, which the Daily Beast’s Sam Brodey recently detailed.

Madison Cawthorn Committed the One Unforgivable Sin of Politics

The ingredients are there for an upset.

If the worst thing Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) did this month was call Ukraine’s President “a thug,” or get caught speeding multiple times with a revoked license, or accuse Speaker Nancy Pelosi of being an alcoholic, the 26-year-old MAGA-influencer would probably be just fine in his re-election bid.

But Cawthorn did something far worse, at least for his own political prospects, and it may cost him his seat: He left his constituents—and then was forced to return to them, hat in hand, after the courts predictably struck down the state’s new map, and eliminated the district he left to run in, on Feb. 23.

After Cawthorn abandoned his congressional district to run in a newly drawn more conservative one, as Brodey’s piece noted, “a state court undid the lines that prompted Cawthorn to make his big play, and the district he had moved to vanished in an instant.”

That “district-switching screw-up” could in turn screw Cawthorn.

The Doc’s diagnosis: This guy’s political career is one false step away from the medical examiner’s table.

What’s Up with the Starbucks Shutdown Ad?

by Campaign Outsider

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

Dear Dr. Ads,

I was enjoying a latte at the Coolidge Corner Starbucks and reading the New York Times yesterday when I came across this ad:

Screen Shot 2013-10-12 at 1.37.32 AM

You can imagine my surprise – why is a coffee chain jumping into the chain-gang affairs of Congress? Shouldn’t Starbucks just concentrate on getting my order right?

– Foaming in Beantown

Dear Foaming:

Depends. The more complicated your order is, the less sympathy I have for you.

As for the shutdown ad, the jury’s still out on exactly what the hell Starbucks is doing. An Associated Press report (via the Boston Globe) noted this:

The move is unusual for a company like Starbucks Corp. While big brands generally steer clear of politics to avoid alienating customers, Starbucks and its outspoken chief executive, Howard Schultz, have run toward the spotlight by trying to gain a voice in national political issues.2013-10-10T191143Z_1759122890_TM4E9AA11ZK01_RTRMADP_3_STARBUCKS-SHUTDOWN

But because the company’s efforts are generally nonpartisan and unlikely to cause controversy, marketing and corporate image experts say they burnish Starbucks’ reputation as a socially conscious company.

‘‘It’s always risky when brands mix politics and business,’’ said Allen Adamson, managing director of the New York-based branding firm Landor Associates. ‘‘But the benefit for Starbucks likely outweighs the risk.’’

Not according to The Daily Beast’s Daniel Gross, though.

The Starbucks Shutdown Petition Is Baloney

For the record, I love Starbucks. I’ve got a Starbucks card in my wallet. I regularly wow bystanders by brandishing the Starbucks mobile payment app on my iPhone. At home, I start the day by scooping out a couple of heaping tablespoons of Starbucks espresso roast into my Breville machine.1381508632454.cached

But I was a bit dismayed by this morning’s news that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is spearheading a  nonpartisan drive to jolt Washington into action. On the company’s home page there’s a plea to “our leaders in Washington, D.C.” to come together to  reopen the government, pay our debts, and “pass a bipartisan and comprehensive long-term budget deal by the end of the year.”

That isn’t doppio. It’s dopey-yo.

Whatever that means. But here’s Gross’s point, doppio or not:

Why is this annoying? Look, it isn’t D.C. leaders who have shut down the government and refuse to open it. It isn’t Washington that is blithely threatening not to meet our collective financial obligations. And it isn’t D.C. leaders who are refusing to enter negotiations about a longer-term budget deal. Rather, it’s Republicans behind all three.

So, presumably, all the barista-beholden should be steaming about the GOP, not the Democrats.

Time for a coffee break, yeah?

Yo.