Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Why is Scott Walker Lying about the Brown Bag Idea?

, Walker's central campaign gimmick is quickly becoming a fiasco:
Walker campaign spokeswoman Jill Bader said the brown bag theme idea for Walker didn't come from SCM but was devised during a brainstorming session with campaign staff in Wisconsin. Bader said when the campaign discussed its ideas with direct mailer SCM, the firm mentioned it had done a similar ad for Voinovich.
But earlier in the very same article:

Reusing successful campaign tactics certainly isn't new. But Walker, a Republican candidate for governor, has taken the brown bag idea to a new level by making it the central theme of his campaign.

It's the focus of his first television ad of the campaign, he's urging voters to get on board with his "brown bag movement," and he's hosting brown bag lunches across the state. His supporters can also purchase brown paper bags promoting his anti-tax philosophy.

Both Walker and Voinovich's fundraising letters, signed by the candidates' wives and mailed in a brown bag, were devised by the same New Hampshire-based direct mail consulting firm, SCM Associates. Voinovich's brown bag letter, used in his first race for U.S. Senate in 1998, netted SCM an American Association of Political Consultants' Pollie Award that year for best campaign fundraiser.

SCM isn't running from the fact that it came up with both campaigns. It even bragged about it on its Facebook page in a Feb. 26 posting: "Brown bag movement takes off in Wisconsin. Our client, Scott Walker, running for Governor starts a movement based on an SCM Associates mailing. But Walker is the real deal, he brown bags two ham and cheese sandwiches on wheat every day."

First Walker lies about cutting his salary in his first campaign ad, then it turns out he actually eats out quite more often than the brown bag thing would suggest, and now his campaign is lying about who came up with the idea?

It doesn't really matter where the idea came from, but lying about makes it an issue. Walker's spokeswoman is clearly not being honest when she says that the brown bag concept was concocted in a brainstorming session and not by the consultants the campaign hired that did the exact same thing 12 years ago.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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