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June 03, 2005

Staging Politics and Potholes

If Governor Schwarzenegger's blatant use of "product placement" in his never ending advertisements attacking public employees and the State Legislature is not enough to drive you batty how about his staging a pothole. As the San Francisco Chronicle reports,

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger traveled to a quiet San Jose neighborhood Thursday, and -- dogged by protesters -- filled a pothole dug by city crews just a few hours before, as part of an attempt to dramatize his efforts to increase money for transportation projects.

The choreographed press opportunity -- at least the governor's fourth recent event involving transportation issues -- seemed aimed as much at thwarting the demonstrators who have followed Schwarzenegger for weeks as grabbing new attention for his proposal.

Schwarzenegger strode toward television cameras on Laguna Seca Way to the sounds of the Doobie Brothers' "Taking it to the Streets,'' while flanked by 10 San Jose city road workers wearing Day-Glo vests and work gear. After speeches by the governor and city officials, a dump truck backed up and unloaded a mound of black asphalt and, as television cameras recorded the moment, Schwarzenegger joined the work crew, taking up a broom and filling the 10-by-15-foot hole, later smoothed over by a massive roller truck.

[snip]

"It's a lot of money spent on a staged event," said Matt Vujevich, 74, a retiree whose home faced the crew-made trench that straddled nearly the whole street. "We still have the same problems. Everything's a press conference." [emphasis added]

I guess the lighting and the angles weren't right at any real pothole. Or perhaps, as Shirley suggested, the companies located by or advertising near real potholes did not contribute to the Governors campaign.

We saw his unrelenting product placement ads five times last night while watching the news and Jeopardy. How often are we going to see the Governor filling a freshly made pothole?

By the way, I'm not sure what to make of this morning's Los Angeles Times editorial on the product placement ads. Is it tongue in cheek or do they really mean that financing political campaigns by product placement might be a good thing? If all they mean is that it is good to know where the money comes from then I couldn't agree more.

But it's not just in our state that made up events are part of politics. Check out the two photos at Politics NJ. One is from a 2004 John Dean presidential rally and the other is from Bret Schundler's website. Schundler is a GOP candidate for the Governor of New Jersey. As Taegan Goddard says on his blog,

New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Bret Shundler (R) was caught by PoliticsNJ.com using a crowd picture from a Howard Dean presidential rally in 2004 as a backdrop for his own campaign pictures.

I guess Shundler's own crowds where not sufficiently excited about his candidacy.

The Pothole story via Mark A. R. Kleiman who got it from boingboing.

Posted by DuaneSmith at June 3, 2005 12:41 PM | Read more on Current Events |

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