BILLIONAIRES BRAINSTORM – OCT 16 ’03
Andrew, Chris, Nick, and Matthew convened via telephone to bounce around
ideas for the B4B campaign. Below are some notes.
---------------------------------------------Puncture Bush's folksy image, reveal how he's embedded in owning class,
servant of corporate power
Possible aesthetic styles: hip-hop ("bling bling"), self-help, institutional, 1890s
robber barons, hipster 1990s dot-com, aircraft carrier landing
Billionaire attitude: not upper crust 19th century, rather hard & mean, go with
naked aggression, new empire, no regard for the facts, we’re just going to tell
you that we’re going to win
Use bush’s carrier landing
Do an oil-rig landing
Do a series of landings in front of different backdrops to cover different issues
Accentuate constructed-ness of bush presidency by always having him in a
mask, always in front of a backdrop
Backdrops have blunt, brutally honest messages
(Backdrops have silly, almost childish messages?)
Dress economic issues in military aesthetic
President as action figure
Whips out light saber
Bush in diverse outfits (& flight jacket) to convey: chameleon, faux presidency,
Make-your-own super hero paper doll Bush – PDF on desk
When do street actions, always have Bush in flight jacket
Have him change into different costumes
Camouflage top hat ?
Riff off dr. strangelove, “army of one” ads – maybe “(political) party of one”
Use military, permanent war, counter-terror motif throughout campaign:
“we’ll smoke the welfare queens out of their public housing projects”
chapters could give themselves names like “Sacramento wealth battalion”
name actions “operation X”
use language like “target of opportunity” etc.
bring out ideological hatred of social security & “starve the beast” strategy
riff on marine ad: billionaire with sword slashing elderly, school budgets, etc.
(deconstruct hero)
Posters casting elderly retirees as freeloaders / loafers / dummies for not saving
enough for retirement
platform elements:
“war on health care”
“war on elderly”
make it more concrete:
“war on Eleanor, the lady down the street”
“war on schools/hospitals”
but we got to think about the swing voters…how will they respond to this…?
Watch jay leno for clues – he talks about Iraq war & oil all the time
Motivating the left base vs. picking up the center
Vote for me -- what other choice do you have
Bush(es) for Billionaires
Tagline:
Millions more jobs to cut
Because there’s millions more jobs to cut
You have nothing to lose but your job, (we have a world to plunder)
Chris adds:
Testimonials from disgraced executives
"Tax cuts and unemployment — what's not to like?"
Imagery of Bush drowning government in the bathtub (Grover Norquist quote)
Spoof of 1984 "It's Morning in America" commercials for Ronald Reagan
Spoof of 1964 Johnson ad with girl pulling petals off flower leading to
nuclear war.
Personal testimony: "I'm a billionaire and now, due to Bush's tax cuts, I'm
finally able to scrape by. Things are really looking up for me now."
Picture of little kid: "He'll pay your taxes: so you don't have to."
Tagline: Cutting our Taxes and Destroying Your Jobs Since 2001
Tagline: Because Social Security is for Losers
Tagline: So Many Tax Cuts, So Little Time
Tagline: Winning the Class War, One Tax Cut at a Time
Deficit, Schmeficit: We can loan the government the money -- We just got a
big tax cut!
Matthew adds other ideas of questionable value:
issue injunctions at protests
"Towards a Second Gilded Age"
"For King and Country"
"Because poverty is not growing fast enough"
"Tax the poor and send them to war" : War on Poverty --> Poverty at War
"Bush is a proven servant — why trust a Democrat?"
"Wartime sacrifice for everyone else."
"God bless unemployment"
"Shut up and wave the flag"
"No Billionaires have died in Iraq" / Live Billionaire Casualty Counter on
website
Endorsements/testimonials from satisfied billionaires
Some terms to play around with:
empty warheads
weapons of mass destruction
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Operation Infinite Justice
Operation Enduring Freedom
Let's roll
Smoke 'em out
evildoers
road map
preemption
liberation
freedom
leave no child behind
clear skies
Axis of Evil
faith-based
homeland
double-dip
growth
Hunt them down
sleeper cells