TN-SEN: GOP Producer Of "Bimbo" Ad Gets Ax From Wal-Mart
"Bimbo"-gate has claimed its first casualty. Terry Nelson, the top-flight GOP consultant who was political director of Bush-Cheney 2004, has lost his gig as a consultant to Wal-Mart because of his role in helping produce the "bimbo" ad targeting Dem Harold Ford, Jr. Nelson had been hired a month ago by Wal-Mart to help the company develop its new voter-registration drive, but because of Nelson's role in producing the racially-charged ad, Wal-Mart found itself targeted by severe criticism from Jesse Jackson and others who demanded that the company fire Nelson. Wal-Mart media relations director David Tovar just issued a statement saying that Nelson had "sent a letter to Wal-Mart ending its working relationship with our company. We believe this is the right course of action." Moral: It's not good for business to attach your name to ads like the "bimbo" spot.
hey, greg, call me!
skippy
October 27, 2006 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
You forgot the wink. ;-)
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October 28, 2006 3:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good for Wal-Mart for forcing Nelson to resign as a consultant. This ad was despicable. Mehlman bleating that it isn't "racist" is fatuous beyond belief. Joe Palermo reacts to Mehlman at HuffPo, says Mehlman needs some remedial education on the issue of racism, and should henceforth get himself enrolled in an American history course, where he could learn a thing or two, which, apparently, applies to a great many people in the Republican Party. I'm posting it here in its entirety, because it needs to be appreciated in full:
"Mr. Mehlman might learn about the lynchings in the South of black men that took place between 1895 and 1910, at an average of two per week. Many of these extrajudicial killings were carried out as punishment for allegedly unacceptable interactions with white women. Mr. Mehlman might also learn about the Scottsboro Boys, aged 13 to 19, who in the mid-1930s were tried, convicted, and given death sentences by an Alabama court after a discredited white woman accused them all of rape.
"Mr. Mehlman might read in his introductory history textbook about the case of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black child from Chicago who was visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955 when he was brutally beaten to death for the crime of saying something impertinent to a white woman at an encounter in a grocery store.
"In his American history class, Mr. Mehlman could learn about the bus system in the 1950s in Montgomery, Alabama, and how there had been established by law a "moving line" between blacks and whites on the city's buses with the explicitly stipulated goal of preventing black men's knees from brushing up against white women passing down the aisles.
"Or Mr. Mehlman could take a blue book examination about the school integration cases in the South following the Brown v. Board of Education decision in May 1954, where enraged parents of white female students railed in public meetings about their daughters being forced to sit in close proximity to black males.
"If Mr. Mehlman chose a good introductory American history course, he might also read a few of the editorials in Southern newspapers attacking the "Freedom Summer" volunteers in Mississippi in 1964 because white girls were seen cavorting with black males.
"He might also learn about the strictures against "interracial dating" at many southern colleges that existed into the 1990s, including Bob Jones University in South Carolina.
"Maybe Mr. Mehlman would also read in his introductory textbook about the 1988 "Willie Horton" ads run by George H.W. Bush, and understand that part of the resonance of the case was that Horton was accused of raping a white woman. For Mr. Mehlman's final project he could write an essay on the historical reasons why the ad in Tennessee can in no way be considered "racist."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/ken-mehlman-says-the-tenn_b_32661.html
October 28, 2006 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tennessean, I applaud your passion. The truth is that the GOP, just like a leopard, can't change it's spots. The GOP should no longer be allowed to identify itself as the party of Lincoln, they are the party of the Dixiecrats. Emphasizing the Dixiecrat heritage terminology would take away the ability to pretend that they continue to represent Lincoln.
Even African-American GOP activists carry the Dixiecrat baggage and some bow to it's heavy weight. A group Black GOP RNCC members had a recent ad stating that Martin Luther King Jr was a Republican. They removed the ad after protests. The truth of the King family and the GOP is that, like many Southern Blacks of his era, King's father was a registered Republican. When MLK was imprisoned in Alabama, Presidential candidate JFK intervened in an effort to have him released. Nixon, Kennedy's GOP opponent refused to take any action. The elder King, severed his ties to the GOP. MLK never stated a political preference.
The Dixiecrat tradition continued when Goldwater gave his famous "Integration has to come from the heart, from laws" speech. In the Johnson-Goldwater election, Black suuport for the GOP decreased FIVE-FOLD from previous Presidential elections.
More recently the actions of Lee Atwater, the humiliation of a Black security guard in a GOP comedy skit starring Haley Barbour (then the RNCC head, now the Miss Gov.), the "macaca" statement of Confederate Californian George Allen, and the Corker ads in Tennessee document that the Dixiecrat tradition remains strong in the GOP.
October 28, 2006 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn. Maybe I'll buy some toothpaste or underwear at WalMart as a thank you for one of the first ethical responses they have shown to their (former?) GOP ass-kissing ways.
October 28, 2006 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink