Mitt Romney Gayly Campaigning for Votes
Mitt Romney has been advertising on gay web sites. Is this stupidity? Perhaps he doesn’t understand his policies are antithetical to gay citizens? Is it a mistake? Heck, every politician on the right would claim that. Or is he trying for gay votes as a way to gain a point or two in the polls?
Oh, we know Mitt Romney has been flip flopping on gay issues. It’s been well reported that Romney used to think he was more of a friend to gays than Ted Kennedy, though now he insists he’s as against gay marriage as any other nutcase Radical Right Wing Christian Cleric. But he’s been campaigning on gay web sites. Oops? Or is the guy really trying to go both ways on this one, a bisexual campaign of sorts. From the New York Times:
Advertising networks hit the front page of the Times today, and not for all the money they are making. Jim Rutenberg reports that political campaigns are increasingly using ad networks in the current campaign.
The issue is that the networks place ads far and wide, including sites representing views that politicians run from. The delicious lead example is how advertisements for Mitt Romney—who has campaigned against gay marriage—appeared on Gay.com. This bit of dissonance was arranged by AOL’s Advertising.com division.
Of course, many marketers are just as wary of associating their products with controversial sites, and many networks give them some level of control over where messages are displayed. Something went wrong—for two days—in the case of Mr. Romney’s ads.
As Big Head DC notes, Romney was quick to condemn Larry Craig and his wide posturing in restrooms, but he was at the same time posting his campaign ads on gay.com and on some fan fiction sites, which have some pretty steamy stories posted featuring, for instance, Harry Potter and Hermoine Granger (Harry and Draco, too, I’ll bet!).
OK, the Romney campaign is claiming they told the advertising network they didn’t want to advertise on any controversial sites, but I’m not necessarily buying that. This guy is desperate for votes, and I’m figuring he was going for that small segment of the Republican electorate, the Log Cabin types, in and effort to gain a couple points at the polls. Of course, there’s no way to prove that. Still, there’s a history of flip flops here. And once a guy like Mitt flips once. . .
I’m not all that sophisticated in the ways of the blogosphere, but doesn’t this sort of thing happen a lot? I see Ann Coulter’s column advertised on progressive sites, and Pandagon regularly has ads with babes in barely-there swimsuits.
If gay websites don’t want Romney ads, can’t they just give back the money? (That isn’t exactly a rhetorical question. Is there some sort of clause in contracts with Internet ad agencies that forbids websites from rejecting individual ads? Educate me.)
Ever-suspicious PoLT, who tries to stop short of being an actual conspiracy theorist, wonders if once again what he proclaimed after the Nov. ‘06 election could actually be quite possible (that the republicans “threw” the election). Are the republicans trying to lose elections? (If the democrats are “in power”, so to speak, then all the doom, despair, trial, and tribulation which is being and will be visited upon the Earth can be blamed on them.)
Giuliani’s wisdom and judgement, or lack thereof, will likely again be called into question IF and when an indictment against Bernie Kerik is handed down, which according to the ABC article linked, might be tomorrow.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
If gay websites don’t want Romney ads, can’t they just give back the money?
I doubt they would give back the $$. But, it’s easy enough to opt out of ads that you don’t want on your site. You don’t see any Newt or Coulter on ASZ because I figured out how to opt out of those on google ads. So it can be done. But most sites take the position that, hey, if someone like Romney wants to waste their ad dollars on a site that would never support him, well, then that’s on Romney and they’re more than happy to take his money. Markos has broached this topic many times.
Mitt Romney doesn’t have a chance at all to win the presidency. If you want to check out a real candidate with real values, check out Hillary Clinton. You won’t be disappointed.