One of my favorite things about living in Washington, DC is reading the Washington Post everymorning. I come from a family of newsies. My great-grandfather was actually one of the first typesetters employed at the Chicago Sun-Times, which is why we hate the Tribune, the cross-town rival rag. The Post is a solid newspaper, especially for its political coverage, which many of us inside the Beltway actually rely upon.
As we, here at the Expat, rev up for the Oscars this weekend for the first time living outside of Tinseltown itself in some 8 years...I've been thinking a lot about those "for your consideration ads" that run in just about every newspaper in L.A. during the Academy voting season for the Oscars. For those of you who don't know, some studios spend ungodly sums of money literally lobbying the entire city, hoping to catch the attention of a few Academy voters to influence their ballot. This is all very important business, of course....in Hollywood.
Well...we have lobbying ads of our own here. And, it's one of my favorite things about reading the Post every day. This week has been especially good, so I thought I'd share some observations about the flood of full-pagers circulating inside the Beltway. As you know, President Obama's first visit to a foreign country as president was to our good neighbors to the North these past few days (eh?). We all love Canada. In fact, I met someone not long ago who actually told me they didn't love Canada. What? Who dislikes Canada? Beavers, Moose, charming ways to say "abooot". What's not to love? But, I digress.
The lobbying orgs have been popping out of the woodwork this week with their various ads to influence...well...I'm not always sure. Obama is in Canada, but they're running full page ads in the Washington post. Here's an analysis of one of my favs from yesterday:
The ad reads "Geography has made us neighbors...Economics has made us partners." It's a quote from John F. Kennedy's address to Paliament in 1961. Below the quote is a pretty picture of North American (cutting off right at the Mexican border, of course) against a red backdrop. It goes on underneath to read, "We share the world's longest secure common border, vibrant democratic institutions and a longstanding legacy of friendship. Common values and geography make Canada the natural destination for President Obama's first foreign visit" Aww...doesn't that just make you all warm and fuzzy? Vive La Canada!
Uh oh...then the next paragraph starts with, "but, the bonds between Canada and the U.S. are much more than cultural." It goes on to talk about our trading relationship, blah, blah, blah. Ok...we all know NAFTA is up for renegotiation under Obama. This makes sense.
Then, what I like to call the "Lobby Bomb": "These two are irrevocably linked nations, and nowhere is this more apparent than in U.S.-Canada energy independence." Boom! There it is...an oil ad! You can read the rest of the ad by clicking on it above, but it goes on to explain how we need to keep buying a ton of oil from Canada to secure our future. Interestingly, this ad was sponsored by the Canadian American Business Council. What's it' hocking? One of Canada's largest industries: the Oil Sands. If you don't know about them, they're considered some of, if not the, most energy-intensive, high polluting oil projects in the world. They essentially dig giant holes in Alberta and boil oil out of sand by superheating it.
And oh....what's this? A full page ad today in the Post on almost the EXACT same page from our friends at Energy Tomorrow! Yay! Energy Tomorrow is the campaign financed by hat lovable lobbying group (the American Petroleum Institute) we all see on TV with the blond woman in the smart pant suit who just doesn't seem to understand why we're not trying to drill every drop of oil in the U.S....and obviously now Canada:
So, I've moved from "for your consideration" ads hocking movies to "for your (policy) consideration" ads hocking the policy of the week. If I were them, I'd just put a big picture of a cute, fuzzy beaver on it and somehow make it seem like boiling oil out of sand helps keep beavers warm in their lodges. Who wouldn't support that? Damn, I'm good...I should go into this lobby ad business.
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