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It Gets Better, Corporate Edition

Frank Bruni on corporate America’s sensitivity to public opinion on gay rights:

In addition to Starbucks, Microsoft and Amazon spoke up for same-sex marriage. All have surely taken note of several polls over the last year suggesting - for the first time - that a slight majority of Americans supports it. All have no doubt taken even greater note of a generational divide. In a Gallup poll, 70 percent of people in the 18-to-34 age range favored same-sex marriage, while only 39 percent of people 55 and older did.

More so than politicians, corporations play the long game, trying to engender loyalty for decades to come, and they’re famously fixated on consumers in their 20s and 30s.


“  I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Pop and Circumstance

James C. Mckinley Jr., for the New York Times:

Let’s say you’re a Republican running for president.

You’re looking for a rousing pop anthem to pump up your troops and underscore your message. There’s plenty of music out there, but you have a problem: most of the pop stars, it seems, prefer Democrats.

Perhaps a market failure?


Net Negative (Is Sort of an Understatement) But so what? Graph via Andrew Rudalevige and the Monkey Cage (and Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group). UPDATE See also John Sides: At this point, I would say there is suggestive evidence that Mr. Romney’s advantages in advertising helped him win in Florida – but it qualifies as circumstantial. The longer the campaign goes on, and the longer Mr. Romney’s advertising advantage persists, the more data we will accumulate to test these effects.

Net Negative (Is Sort of an Understatement)

But so what?

Graph via Andrew Rudalevige and the Monkey Cage (and Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group).

UPDATE See also John Sides:

At this point, I would say there is suggestive evidence that Mr. Romney’s advantages in advertising helped him win in Florida – but it qualifies as circumstantial. The longer the campaign goes on, and the longer Mr. Romney’s advertising advantage persists, the more data we will accumulate to test these effects.

“  In Florida, as you go north, you go south.” — Walter Mebane quoted in a 2004 Washington Post article on Bush’s reelection

“  Yes, Hollywood does spend a lot of money on politics. But so does tech. The Motion Picture Association of American reported $1.3 million in lobbying expenditures through the first three quarters of 2011, and is now run by former Senator Chris Dodd. But Google spent $7.1 million over the same period, and has hired former House Democratic Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, among the 112 lobbyists registered to lobby for the company. Google’s PACs and employees have given three times the money as the MPAA.” — Lee Drutman on SOPA and PIPA

“  What has been said about Newt is pretty much true. He had to step down because Republicans, conservative Republicans, wouldn’t vote for him again as Speaker. Because he’s not really a conservative. I mean, he’ll tell you what you want to hear. He has an uncanny ability, sort of like Clinton, to feel your pain and know his audience and speak to his audience and fire them up. But when he was speaker, he was erratic, undisciplined.” — Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (so this could be true)

“  So I’ve had the experience of leadership. Now Speaker Gingrich has also been a leader. He was a leader for four years as speaker of the House. And at the end of four years it was proven he was a failed leader. And he had to resign in disgrace. I don’t know if you knew that. He actually resigned after four years in disgrace. He was investigated under an ethics panel and had to make a payment associated with that and then his fellow Republicans, 88 percent of Republicans, voted to reprimand Speaker Gingrich. He has not had a record of successful leadership.” — Mitt Romney

Breeding PACs

Politico on hybrid PACs:

Here’s how it works: under new federal rules, a traditional PAC and super PAC may operate under one roof. These hybrid operations can raise and spend unlimited amounts of cash to promote or oppose candidates, as any super PAC can, while simultaneously giving limited amounts of money directly to campaigns and committees, like a traditional political action committee.

Teaching campaign finance is hard (via Taegan Goddard).


You're So Dodd to Me

Former Senator Chris Dodd (CT-D) speaking as a lobbyist on behalf of the MPAA:

Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.

Shameless.

But it gets worse. Dodd, August 2010:

Sen. Chris Dodd says he still doesn’t know what he’ll do come January 2011, when, for the first time in 36 years, he will no longer be a member of Congress. But he has ruled out one option.

“No lobbying, no lobbying,” Dodd said in a recent interview. That Dodd would forgo a trip through Washington’s “revolving door,” using his policy and political expertise—and a thick Rolodex—to launch a new career in the influence industry, may come as a surprise.

No lobbying indeed. Link via MG.