The Skull and Bones Game
“Do you know if George Bush really did win the last presidency? Do you know if your last mortgage firm gave you the best terms? Two valid questions. One way to deal with it: Investigate.”
And so goes the ad on Portland’s Air America Radio affiliate… another format Clear Channel can buy into, and throw up their grating voiceover guy, retoned to suit the audience. (Around Halloween time, it was “Dressing up as Dubya would be just too scary” or “Don’t let John Ashcroft bite.”)
Imageine this advertisement in a slightly different form on the right-wing radio stations. “Did Clinton kill Vince Foster?” or something like that.
Easily swarth into the cottage industry, one that I found tedious through the past few years and was hoping would vanish with a Kerry victory.
Enough of this crap, please.
Actually, back before the election, the Bush Campaign bought ads on the station. They were crafty enough ads, focusing on the flip-flopping and not the dangerous liberal — for the same effect the Republican pro-Nader ads of 2000 works — to demoralize any Kerry supporters.
The Clear Channel contribution to the mess seems to be to dump Chuck D’s program and install Ed Whatshisname, an ex-Republican DNC-enthused Dakotan who I wouldn’t be too suprised if you claimed made the ideological switch as a career choice. Whither Chuck D? I don’t know.
There is something to say with Jeanine Garofola’s expressed fatigue. The real problems with Air America Radio has little to do with the business crisis the company faced early on in its run back in April, but more with what happens when the various fixtures leave to pursue other projects. (I’m guessing the useless “Randi Rhodes” stays on — this is her career, as with Mike Malloy.) The trick is to maintain your brand.
There’s also something in something regular guest, of Brockley Almanac from out of Nebraska, hit a right tone: “The vote totals were probably already decided months ago. Go in a different direction.”
Sure.