Greenberg,Carville, Shrum...Our Brand is Crisis Trailer..Bolivia

[madfloridian]

Run time: 01:46 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V3mE5beWuQ   Posted on YouTube: September 19, 2006 By YouTube Member: kochlorber Views on YouTube: 8563   Posted on DU: December 10, 2006 By DU Member: madfloridian Views on DU: 931

 
From the You Tube poster:

"For decades, U.S. strategists-for-hire have been quietly molding the opinions of voters and the messages of candidates in elections from the Middle East to the South American jungle. With flabbergasting access to think sessions, media training and the making of smear campaigns, we watch how the consultants' marketing strategies shape the relationship between a leader and his people. Our Brand is Crisis is an astounding look at one group's campaign to elect the President of Bolivia and its earth-shattering aftermath."
For more information please visit www.ourbrandiscrisismovie.com

From the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/cl-et-...

'Our Brand Is Crisis'
Documentary details the hush-hush truths of geopolitics and the challenges of "exporting democracy."

"Unlikely as it sounds, a documentary that details with jaw-dropping candor how contemporary political campaigning works at the highest levels of government is set not in this country but in the far-off reaches of Bolivia. Yet the implications of "Our Brand Is Crisis" for how things go down in the United States — and elsewhere — are inescapable.

That's because the "full-service political consulting firm" seen hard at work in Bolivia is not only American, it's high-powered Greenberg Carville Shrum (GCS), the people, personified by James Carville, who helped put Bill Clinton into the White House and now sell their expertise to potential political leaders around the world.

The last documentary Carville was featured in was 1993's "The War Room," which took us inside the ragtag have-not beginnings of what was to be Clinton's successful presidential campaign.

With "Our Brand Is Crisis," by contrast, we not only see how it is for the haves, we get unprecedented access to the hush-hush high-level Bolivian back rooms where schemes are hatched, strategies are worked out and smear campaigns are started."

I still worry about Carville's call for Howard Dean to step down as chair, for his calling him Rumsfeldian in his incompetence. It worries me because of who Carville is, what he does, why he does what he does.

I have not quit wondering why he did it.

[madfloridian]

1. About Democracy Corps and GCS....advised Democrats on IWR

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2563 /

The B team
On the other side of the aisle are the shining lights of the Democratic Party, James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Bob Shrum (the consultant who ran Kerry’s campaign and shied away from confronting the Swift Boat Veterans). These three men founded the Democracy Corps, a nonprofit “dedicated to making the government of the United States more responsive to the American people.” Recall that on Oct. 3, 2002, prior to the Iraq war resolution votes, Democracy Corps advised Capitol Hill Democrats: “This decision will take place in a setting where voters, by 10 points, prefer to vote for a member who supports a resolution to authorize force (50 to 40 percent).” In other words, Carville and friends advised Democrats to cater to public opinion and let Bush have his war.

That same year, Carville and his associates at GCS (Greenberg Carville Shrum) were working in Bolivia, as the hired guns for presidential candidate Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Their involvement in the 2002 Bolivian election is the subject of a new documentary, Our Brand is Crisis, directed by Rachel Boynton. In the film, Jeremy Rosner, the campaign’s pollster and chief strategist, explains their mission: “We are in this because we not only believe in democracy, but in a particular brand of democracy, which is progressive, social democratic, market-based and modern.” And Tad Devine, who is in charge of advertising, tells Sanchez de Lozada, “We must own crisis and we must brand crisis.” In other words, GCS was planning to use Bolivia’s economic crisis to the campaign’s advantage."

I think I have been terribly naive for way too long about my party and my country.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/...

"“It was a great win for what I call the new Democratic Party,” Dean said. “This is the new Democratic Party. The old Democratic Party is back there in Washington, sometimes they still complain a little bit.”
Howard Dean Wyoming..November 17 2006

Good luck on that new party thing, Governor Dean.

[madfloridian]

2. Not just Bolivia

Carville was working against Chavez in Venezuela. article.

"Venezuela's embattled private sector is banking on the colorful U.S.
political consultant James Carville to help oust leftist President Hugo
Chavez. The hire may herald an effort by the anti-Chavistas to focus more on
the issues than on personality. According to several individuals with
knowledge of the matter, a group of business executives contracted with Mr. Carville this year to craft a strategy that will unify a fractious and frustrated Chavez opposition and resonate with voters in a possiblerecall referendum. The executives are hoping that Mr. Carville -- the folksy, 59-year-old Democratic Party consultant from Louisiana known as the Ragin' Cajun -- will push a variation of his "It's the economy, stupid" theme that helped propel Bill Clinton to victory in 1992."

[madfloridian]

3. Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Panama

http://www.newint.org/features/2006/09/01/political /

"Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQRR) is one US consultancy that has a busy international campaign schedule. It is currently advising Julio Borges, the leader of the Justice First party in Venezuela, who dreams of ousting Hugo Chávez in the December presidential election. It is also advising Honduran President José Manuel ‘Mel’ Zelaya Rosales after helping him win office in December 2005. GQRR has worked in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Panama, as well as numerous other campaigns in the Philippines, Britain, Ireland and much of mainland Europe.

While political consultants are well-honed in the art of testing opinion, crafting messages and overseeing campaigns, they are not infallible. GQRR, for example, was involved in Bill Clinton’s two successful campaigns, but also assisted both Al Gore and John Kerry in losing their presidential bids."

GQRR, CSC, Democracy Corps...how many more companies are there? Are there any countries they are messing around in?

[rebel with a cause]

4. OMG, OMG, OMG

To me this just shows there is no ideology involved in this organization. It is all about the big buck and the gaining of power. And why are they in all these other countries? The politicians get upset here when people like Chavez makes statements about bush, but then people from here do all this crap! (and this is besides all the harm our government does to other countries)

[madfloridian]

5. 'Our Brand Is Crisis,'..... democracy takes a hit

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2006112...

"In "Our Brand Is Crisis," James Carville and his team of hotshot election strategists use all the tricks of their trade to sway the Bolivian presidency toward an unpopular candidate.

Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, or Goni, was well known to Bolivians during their 2002 election. He had led the country through much of the 1990s and, though well-regarded in the West for embracing a global economy, he was also seen by the mostly indigenous population as selling out jobs and natural resources. The movie offers a fly-on-the-wall look at the strategists at work, monitoring focus groups and crafting television ads that focused on the message that Goni was the only one who could keep the country from collapse.

The movie's title is a direct quote from their marketing game plan."

And the end result...

"Within months of winning the election, Goni, fearing assassination, relocated to America with his tail between his legs. Carville and Company, meanwhile, followed suit and are likely en route to another election, spreading democracy elsewhere around the globe -- for profit, of course."

[madfloridian]

6. What the critics say.

I must be confused, as this does not seem like comedy to me. I must be missing something.

http://www.ourbrandiscrisis.net /

"“Hilarious! Would be even funnier if the well-paid American strategists weren’t helping to decide the political fate of an impoverished Third World nation. Boynton’s film ultimately reveals as many disturbing facts about our own backroom political process as it does about Bolivia’s.”
– Joshua Rothkopf,
Time Out New York "

"“James Carville goes into his Bill Clinton-meets-Looney Tunes act in Rachel Boynton’s knockout documentary. Darkly amusing. Boynton has extraordinary access – bewildering access, given the damning nature of what she gets.“
– David Edelstein,
New York Magazine"

"“Momentous! Will pack a punch with even the most informed viewer. The unrestricted access we are given to these discussions that would normally take place behind closed doors is astounding!”
– Laura Kern,
The New York Times"

And this one makes it sound like Carville is proud to be a part of it, and like the media critic thinks so, too. As I said, I must be missing something.

"Riveting. Remarkably suspenseful! James Carville is, of course, already a media star. Midway through the movie, he delivers an extended and shrewdly self-deprecating advertisement for himself. Among other things, he compares a campaign to sex: ‘You never know when it’s going to peak.’”
– J. Hoberman,
The Village Voice"

[madfloridian]

7. "Brand" doesn't pull its punches...more of the sordid stuff they do.

From Wired News:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70321-0.html

"How do you win a presidential election in Bolivia? Give the same answer to every question. Study the polls. Don't spend too much time meeting voters. Buy attack ads making your rival look like the greater of two evils. In other words, do exactly as your well-compensated, slick-suited American political consultants tell you. That's the route Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, aka Goni, took in his 2002 campaign.

The documentary Our Brand Is Crisis opens a window onto a troubling trend: the export of high-tech, American political consultants to countries around the world. Brand, which opened in New York this week, follows as strategists James Carville, Jeremy Rosner and Stan Greenberg spin Goni toward the presidency.

...."Unemployment, poverty and class tension are rising, and Goni's American strategists, who openly admit how little they know about Bolivia, seem powerless to help. What they can do, however, is drive down opponents' approval ratings.

GCS's mission includes the international promotion of a pragmatic, Clinton-style blend of progressive social policies and business-friendly economics. But the company's data-crunching and Nike-style marketing skills are no substitute for an understanding of the complexities of Bolivian society."

Alarming. If we do it there, do we do it here?