I'm hitting the road for talks at Princeton, but a quick post on Gore's new ad campaign, launched officially with an appearance last night on 60 Minutes.
I haven't see the ads yet and I didn't see last night's program, but from news reports, the campaign appears to incorporate the types of necessary strategies that I've written about at this blog, in articles, or that I have highlighted in talks over the past year. Gore and his Climate Alliance specifically:
a) Attempt to reach non-news audiences, the type of people who have been tuning out the really good science coverage.
b) In commercials titled "strange bedfellows" and "unlikely alliances" they try to fashion messages and use spokespeople that will try to reach beyond the Democratic base that was mobilized by Inconvenient Truth.
c) They try to take advantage of opinion leader networks and mobilization, linking the spots to a buzz marketing campaign.
I will have probably much more to post about this new campaign once I am back from Princeton and after I have been able to see all of the ads.
But for now, from a Boston Globe article on the campaign:
"The whole idea of the campaign is to be inclusive and to be bipartisan and to bring people together to a place where meaningful change can happen," an organizer said. "It aims to be a game-changer in terms of the politics of climate."
The alliance already has more than a million e-mail addresses, and the goal is to sign up more than 10 million global warming activists.
"For the new Congress and the new president to get something meaningful done, it will take the American people demanding change," the organizer said.
In addition to the ads on television, in print and online, the campaign will include a huge grass-roots mobilization effort.
"It's going to be much more of a referential, network-focused campaign as opposed to high-profile people telling you what to do," the organizer said. "Hopefully, it's going to be your friends and neighbors encouraging you to get involved."
I suppose this fits in well with the idea of Gore not endorsing anyone. I certainly think building a bipartisan coalition to work on issues of global warming or climate change is important. However, there is still resistance from the other side, even among those who are "helping." Just look at what a spokesperson for Robertson's CBN said about the commercials here:
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/03/gore-robertson-and-sharpton-hit-beach-c…
Good for Gore. He's a true patriot, history will put him up there with the founding fathers. He stepped aside after the election debacle of 2000, much to my displeasure, but averted a constitutional crisis that might have really destabilized the US. He allowed George Bush to become the worst president in US history, thereby forcing a brisk pendulum swing towards non-governmental actions and inciting the once impossible dream of a green movement, partly through $3 gasoline, another good outcome that would never have happened with 'good' leadership. While it's probably all in vain, at least mankind is waking up. Thank you for showing the world how not to behave, George. Long Live Al Gore and the scientist.