Dollarocracy (57 page)

39
. Quoted in Andrew McGill, “Business Booming for Pittsburgh Ad Agency BrabenderCox,”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
, October 14, 2012.

40
. Cited in Glenn W. Richardson Jr.,
Pulp Politics: How Political Advertising Tells the Stories of American Politics
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 125.

41
. Thorstein Veblen, arguably the most original and greatest American economist of all time, was the first to grasp this fundamental change in capitalism, though many of course have followed in his wake. See Thorstein Veblen,
Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times
(New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1964). The book, originally published in 1923, was Veblen's final work.

42
. See John Bellamy Foster, Robert W. McChesney, and R. Jamil Jonna, “Monopoly and Competition in Twenty-First Century Capitalism,”
Monthly Review
62, no. 11 (April 2011): 1–39.

43
. C. B. Macpherson,
The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 89–90.

44
. V. O. Key Jr.,
Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups
(New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1955), chap. 19.

45
. One of us was told this story by a former advertising professional at Reeves's Ted Bates advertising agency. For somewhat different versions of the story, see Reed Hundt, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, “The Children's Emmy: An Award Worth Winning,” November 19, 1996; and Richard S. Tedlow,
The Watson Dynasty
(New York: HarperBusiness, 2003), 118.

46
. Halberstam,
The Fifties
, 227.

47
. William Greider,
Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 271. Greider, to his credit, is one of the few writers on this subject who made the strong link between political and commercial advertising.

48
. Darrell M. West,
Air Wars: Television Advertising in Election Campaigns, 1952–2008
(Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010), 89. For a smart examination of the importance of visuals for TV news coverage of election campaigns, see Maria Elizabeth Grabe and Erik Page Bucy,
Image Bite Politics: News and the Visual Framing of Elections
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

49
. Jerry Mander, “Privatization of Consciousness,”
Monthly Review
64, no. 5 (October 2012): 31.

50
. Ibid., 29.

51
. For a fuller elaboration on these themes, see Hannah Holleman, Inger L. Stole, John Bellamy Foster, and Robert W. McChesney, “The Sales Effort and Monopoly Capital,”
Monthly Review
60, no. 11 (April 2009).

52
. Drew Weston,
The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2007).

53
. Quoted in Packard,
The Hidden Persuaders
, 166.

54
. See Shanto Iyengar and Jennifer A. McGrady,
Media Politics: A Citizen's Guide
(New York: Norton, 2007), chap. 6.

55
. Stacia Mullaney, “Do Political Ads Work?”
wlns.com
, October 2012.

56
. Glenn Greenwald, “Election 2012 and the Media: A Vast Rightwing Conspiracy of Stupid,”
The Guardian
, August 30, 2012.

57
. Dan Eggen, “Both Sides Hate Financial Sector—in Ads,”
washingtonpost.com
, October 8, 2012.

58
. Peter Baker, “Romney's Foreign Policy Intentions Can Be Tough to Gauge,”
New York Times
, August 29, 2012.

59
. Tim Madigan, “Texas Native Is Romney Campaign's Top Ad Man,”
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
, October 11, 2012.

60
. Quoted in Andrew McMains, “Romney's Guy: No Apologies,”
adweek.com
, November 20, 2012.

61
. Quoted in Rebecca Greenfield, “Romney Hired Gun Claims He ‘Reinvented Political Advertising' with His Losing Ads,” the
atlanticwire.com
, December 3, 2012.

62
. Ted Brader,
Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 183.

63
. Quoted in Daniel Slocum Hinerfeld, “How Political Ads Subtract; It's Not the Negative Ads That Are Perverting Democracy. It's the Deceptive Ones,”
Washington Monthly
, May 1990.

64
. Greider,
Who Will Tell the People
, 274–276.

65
. W. Lance Bennett,
The Governing Crisis: Media, Money, and Marketing in American Elections
, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), 151.

66
. Jeremy W. Peters, “The New Stars in Republican Commercials Attacking Obama: Babies,”
New York Times
, September 29, 2012.

67
. Ezra Klein, “Rick Perry Loves Science. Political Science,”
Washington Post
blog, September 16, 2011,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/rick-perry-loves-science-political-science/2011/08/25/gIQAD27AXK_blog.html
. See also Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber,
Get Out the Voter: How to Increase Voter Turnout
, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 161.

68
. John Sides, “The Most Important Ads of the Campaign Are Only Airing Now,”
themonkeycage.org
, November 1, 2012.

69
. Sean Richey, “Random and Systematic Error in Voting in Presidential Elections,”
Political Research Quarterly
20, no. 10 (2012): 1–13. Quotation from Lee Drutman, “Did Campaign Spending Buy Bush the 2000 and 2004 Elections?,”
sunlightfoundation.com
, October 1, 2012.

70
. Quoted in Eli Pariser, The
Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You
(New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 160.

71
. Leonard Steinhorn, “The Selling of the President in a Converged Media Age,” in James A. Thurber and Candace J. Nelson, eds.,
Campaigns and Elections American Style
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2010), 154.

72
. Matthew Creamer, “Obama Wins! . . . Ad Age's Marketer of the Year,”
Advertising Age
, October 17, 2008,
http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-marketer-year/131810/
.

73
. Travis N. Ridout and Michael M. Franz,
The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), viii, 146, 149, 145.

74
. Kate Kenski, Bruce Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson's,
The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 267, 268, 284.

75
. Julian Brookes, “Why the 2012 Election Will Be the Most Expensive Ever,”
RollingStone.com
, June 7, 2011.

76
. West,
Air Wars
, 174.

77
. Quoted in Mike Madden, “A Small Group of Savvy Political Operatives Will Control How Billions Will Be Spent in Next Year's Election,”
AdWeek
, June 27, 2011.

78
. The material in this paragraph all comes from Daniel Adler, “Political Ads: Overpriced, Inefficient, Essential,”
RollingStone.com
, August 14, 2012.

79
. Carter Eskew, “Political Advertising Is Dangerous for Democracy,”
washingtonpost.com
, August 16, 2012.

80
. Larry Bivins, “Campaigns Bombard Ad-Weary Wisconsinites,”
greenbaypressgazette.com
, October 29, 2012.

81
. John G. Geer,
In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 36.

82
. Research conducted by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, Political Science Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Special thanks to Katherine Cramer Walsh and Sarah Niebler.

83
. Erika Franklin Fowler and Travis N. Ridout, “Advertising Trends in 2010,”
The Forum
8, no. 4, art. 4 (2011): 11–13.

84
. Quoted in Alina Selyukh, “Study of U.S. Campaign Ads Finds Growing Role of Outside Groups,”
reuters.com
. September 13, 2012.

85
. Elizabeth Wilner, “Why Pushing a Politician Isn't Like Selling Soap,”
Advertising Age
, October 1, 2012.

86
. Donovan Slack, “RIP Positive Ads in 2012,”
politico.com
, November 4, 2012.

87
. Kevin Landrigan, “New Hampshire Facing Onslaught of Campaign Ads, as Obama, Romney Spend $1M a Week,”
Nashua Telegraph
, August 10, 2012.

88
. Ari Shapiro, “Colorado Springs Soaks in Triple the Political Ads,”
www.capradio.org
, September 25, 2012.

89
. See David Mark,
Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).

90
. Marc Caputo, “UM Professor Studies the Goldilocks Spot for Negative Ads,”
miamihearld.com
, October 9, 2012.

91
. Westen,
The Political Brain
, 435–436.

92
. Jessica Wehrman, “Despite Nastiness of Political Ads, Many Gave Substance,”
Daytona Daily News
, October 6, 2012.

93
. Quoted in Pauline Arrillaga, “The Mean Season: Negativity in Election 2012,”
heraldnet.com
, October 22, 2012.

94
. Drew Westen, “Why Attack Ads? Because They Work,”
latimes.com
, February 19, 2012.

95
. Quoted in Belinda Young, “Iowans Can't Avoid Political Ads on TV,”
kcrg.com
, October 21, 2012.

96
. Rob Christensen, “Attack Ads Exhausting, Effective,”
newsobserver.com
, October 28, 2012.

97
. Rick Perlstein, “Exclusive: Lee Atwater's Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy,”
thenation.com
, November 13, 2012.

98
. Quoted in West,
Air Wars
, 3.

99
. Quoted in Bernard Weinraub, “Campaign Trail: A Beloved Mug Shot for the Bush Forces,”
New York Times
, October 3, 1988.

100
. One of us had a relative who was a political junkie and an avid right-wing Republican. He defended the Horton ads as not being racist by stating, “Hell, no one even knew Horton was a god-damned [insert n-word here] until the Democrats made such a stink about it.”

101
. Quoted in Ridout and Franz,
The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising
, 2.

102
. Kate Phillips, “The Last-Minute, Anti-Obama Ad Blitz,”
New York Times
, November 3, 2008.

103
. Paul Krugman, “The Post-Truth Campaign,”
New York Times
, December 22, 2011.

104
. Craig Trudell, “Fiat Says Jeep Output May Return to China as Demand Rises,”
Bloomberg News
, October 22, 2012; “ABC Toledo: Auto Workers Slam Romney's False Jeep Claim,”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnY2qbE4d2w
.

105
. Gualberto Ranieri, “Jeep in China,”
www.chryslerllc.com
, October 25, 2012,
http://blog.chryslerllc.com/blog.do?id=1932&p=entry
.

106
. Quoted in John Nichols, “Yes, Romney's a Liar, but This Is Getting Ridiculous,”
The Nation
, October 30, 2012.

107
. Larry J. Sabato and Glenn R. Simpson,
Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics
(New York: Times Books, 1996), 253.

108
. Michael W. Traugott and Mee-Eun Kang, “Push Polls as Negative Persuasive Strategies,” in Paul J. Lavrakas and Michael W. Traugott, eds.,
Election Polls, the News Media, and Democracy
(New York: Chatham House, 2000), 283.

109
. Robert H. Swansbrough,
Test by Fire: The War Presidency of George W. Bush
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 47.

110
. Richard H. Davis, “Anatomy of a Smear Campaign,”
Boston Globe
, March 21, 2004,
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/21/the_anatomy_of_a_smear_campaign/
.

111
. Traugott and Kang, “Push Polls,” 290–291.

112
. Richardson,
Pulp Politics
, 138.

113
. Ridout and Franz,
The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising
, 17.

114
. Franz et al.,
Campaign Advertising
, 142.

115
. Wilner, “Why Pushing a Politician Isn't Like Selling Soap,”

116
. Andy Ellenthal, “7 Political Ad Tactics Every Marketer Should Know,”
imediaconnection.com
, August 15, 2012.

117
. Westen,
The Political Brain
, 346.

118
. Bruce Ackerman,
The Decline and Fall of the American Republic
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2010), 126.