 |
|
Blog
|
|
Welcome to the Holtzman Vogel Law Blog. We aim to keep you
up to date on important legal developments and other items of interest. On this
blog, we'll track developments in the news and changes to the rules and regulations
affecting political committees, corporate PACs, trade associations, non-profit groups
and advocacy organizations. We'll also keep you updated on the lobbying and ethics
arena. The Law Blog is designed to supplement our regular newsletter.
On behalf of the Holtzman Vogel team, I hope you find this site helpful and interesting.
And we hope you'll become a regular visitor. (If you'd like to receive our newsletter,
please click here to sign up.)
Jill Holtzman Vogel
|
Sunday, March 21, 2010
NY Times on New Type of Campaign Ads in California
From the New York Times: "A new chapter of campaign attacks is unfolding in California this election season, in which highly sophisticated, fairly low-cost technology is being used to create nasty — and just plain weird — ads and videos that are intended to shock and draw large audiences on Internet sites like YouTube and Facebook. It began last month, when Carly Fiorina, a Republican running for the Senate, released a Web video portraying her main opponent in the June primary, Tom Campbell, as a demon sheep. It was an instant Web hit. The Fiorina campaign followed up with another video, more than seven minutes long, depicting Senator Barbara Boxer, the Democratic incumbent, as a crazed blimp, floating across the country."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Interesting New Development in Dishing Campaign Dirt
The San Francisco Chronicle has this article about the new website WikiMeg.com. According to the article, WikiMeg.com is "a labor-union-funded independent campaign aimed at billionaire Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman breaks new ground in how it conducts 'oppo research.' Wikimeg.com invites the rest of the world to shake the bushes for information about Whitman and enables their new research assistants to post the results on the Internet, Wikipedia-style." The website is run by "Level the Playing Field 2010, the independent group led by Democratic strategists and funded by labor unions."
As for the defamation issues that will likelky arise, well, the site's "legal disclaimer" notes that "nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information" and the site's operators take no responsibility whatsoever for the material that appears on their website: "Please be aware that none of the contributors, sponsors, administrators, or anyone else connected with MegWiki in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of any inaccurate or libelous information or for your use of the information contained in or linked from these web pages."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
AP: NYC mayor takes voter targeting to the extreme
AP reports "Mayor Michael Bloomberg has spent millions of dollars to get inside the head of every New York City voter, hundreds of thousands of whom will get pre-recorded 'robocalls' narrowly targeted to appeal to their tastes and urging them to get out and vote. . . . Automated calls to get out the vote are nothing new in political campaigns, but the Bloomberg campaign's specificity is rarely seen at the local level. Campaign officials estimate they will have 75 calls reaching 890,000 people. . . . And how do they know what matters to each voter? Using an approach known as microtargeting, the Bloomberg campaign collects comprehensive information about voters and uses that to build profiles to predict what messages might appeal to them."
Click here to read the entire post.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
NYT: Bloomberg Sets Record for His Own Spending on Elections
The New York Times reports "Michael R. Bloomberg, the Wall Street mogul whose fortune catapulted him into New York’s City Hall, has set another staggering financial record: He has now spent more of his own money than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office."
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
National Journal: Campaigns Continue Targeted Ads Amid Privacy Concerns; Behavioral Targeting Continues In E-Campaigning Despite Public Opposition
National Journal reports "Political campaigns' use of behavioral targeting technology, an effective but controversial online advertising tool, shows no sign of slowing down, despite pending privacy legislation in Congress and a new report showing public distrust of the practice.
Long used by online retailers and more recently taken up by political candidates, behavioral targeting lets Web sites put a small file known as a cookie onto every visitor's Web browser. With cookies aboard, campaigns can follow users around the Internet to figure out their likes and interests -- and target them with issue-specific ads."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Hill: Republican Party launches new website
The Republican National Committee has overhauled its website. According to The Hill, the site "featur[es] a flurry of blogs, social-networking tools and information on party history."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Marc Ambinder (The Atlantic): Exclusive: How Democrats Won The Data War In 2008
Marc Ambinder has a three-part blog series on "the data war" of the 2008 election. Ambinder's report begins, "Get-out-the-vote operations mounted by the Obama campaign, the Democratic Party and progressive organizations mobilized more than one million dedicated volunteers on Election Day. But it was buttressed by a year-long, psychographic voter targeting and contact operation, the likes of which Democrats had never before participated in. In 2008, the principal repository of Democratic data was Catalist, a for-profit company that acted as the conductor for a data-driven symphony of more than 90 liberal groups, like the Service Employees Union -- and the DNC -- and the Obama campaign." He also makes available Catalist's post-election report, which was allegedly confidential.
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Politics Magazine: 72 Hours Is So 5 Years Ago
According to this article in Politics Magazine, "When it comes to getting out the vote, 72 hours just doesn’t cut it anymore. Five years ago, the GOP’s meticulous 72-hour program was cited again and again, particularly in Ohio, as a driver behind the party’s success in what strategists say was largely a base election. Now, as campaign strategists prepare for a volatile midterm cycle, they say there’s really no such thing as a 72-hour program anymore."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
RNC Has DNC Ads Pulled From Cable Stations' Rotations
According to this report in The Desert Sun (Palms Springs, CA), the RNC convinced 5 stations to pull a DNC-sponsored ad attacking Republicans on Medicare. FactCheck.org labeled the ads "not true." (This story was first noted by Eric Brown, Political Activity Law.)
Click here to read the entire post.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Politico Ranks "The best e-mail lists in politics"
According to Politico, it's Organizing For America (Obama's list), MoveOn, the RNC, American Solutions For Winning The Future (Newt Gingrich's organization), and a tie between Hillary Clinton and John McCain. The DSCC, Team Sarah, Barbara Boxer, and the American Family Association earned honorable mentions.
Click here to read the entire post.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Washington Post: Major Front in Va. Race Is Online; Candidates Court Facebook, Blogs in New Political Era
The Washington Post has this article on the role of the Internet in Virginia's gubernatorial campaigns.
Click here to read the entire post.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Rove Writes on White House's Political Machine
Karl Rove, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, has some interesting information on the White House's political activities: "Senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett and her chief of staff, Michael Strautmanis, are in regular contact with MoveOn.Org, Americans United for Change and other liberal interest groups. Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina has collaborated with Americans United for Change on strategy and even ad copy. Ms. Jarrett invited leaders of the liberal interest groups to a White House social event with the president and first lady to kick off the lobbying campaign. . . . Team Obama is also ginning up the Democratic National Committee. A special group at the DNC has been created called 'Organizing for America.' It is headed by Mr. Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, and is lobbying for the administration's spending proposals."
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Tech President: New York Congressional Campaign Used Rare Google Ad Tactic
The Personal Democracy Forum's Tech President reports that "From late Sunday night through noon yesterday, ads for Democratic contender Scott Murphy blanketed Web pages viewed by residents of the district, which encompasses Saratoga Springs, Lake Placid, Glens Falls, and Oneonta."
Click here to read the entire post.
|
 |