I was recently described in print as a “spinmeister.”  I’ve been called worse, but it got me thinking about the nature of “spin,” especially as it applies to my profession.

“Spin” has become something of a pejorative, a euphemism for lying or covering up the truth. I don’t see it that way. To me, it simply means providing another side of the story. It doesn’t mean spinning a reporter as much as it means spinning the story around to reveal certain facts that the reporter doesn’t know about or is deliberately ignoring, facts that at a minimum provide greater context.

<< MORE >>

Back in February, I got a call from Shawn Moody . I had no idea who he was. He told me he owned Moody’s Collision Center, which I had a vague awareness of, and he wanted to come in to talk to me about something. I assumed it was a business issue, or a DEP problem.

He showed up in my office a few days later, a friendly, unassuming guy, dressed casually in jeans and a work shirt. He quickly told me the purpose of the meeting: he had decided to run for governor.
<< MORE >>

There was a lot of post-election analysis of the failed tax reform measure. But few of them touched on what I consider to be the major reason why this - and other - People's Veto succeeded yet again - the role of TV advertising.

The tax reform measure that was passed by the Legislature with almost no Republican support would have lowered Maine's top income tax rate from 8.5% to 6.5%, and paid for it by extending Maine's sales tax to a wide array of products and services that are not currently taxed. There are good reasons for doing this. When I worked in the governor's office, we frequently heard from CEOs who were considering moving their operations to Maine or expanding their business. It was the corporate taxes they were concerned about, it was the amount of personal income taxes they would pay by moving to Maine that influenced their decision.

That's why the Wall Street Journal called the tax reform measure "the Maine miracle" because it would have created jobs and encouraged growth. So how come that never made its way into a TV ad?
<< MORE >>

This is going to be ugly, and perhaps boring, but bear with me. I recently had trouble with my cable provider Comcast, and if it wasn't for Twitter the tale would not have had a happy ending.

It started after I moved from an area that was covered by Time Warner, which isn't available at my new address, and set up my internet and cable service with Comcast. The problem was that downloads of movies on Apple TV were really slowwwwwww. << MORE >>

The first term Democatic congressman from Florida who took to the House floor this week to accuse Republican opponents of health care reform of wanting sick people to hurry up and die is my new hero.

Not because he's right or that I even agree with him. It's because he's giving those right wing lunatics who absurdly championed "death panels" a taste of their own medicine.
<< MORE >>

I was amused recently when I saw former Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle offering commentary on MSNBC about the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy. He told a touching story of a period in Barnicle's life when he said he was at rock bottom, personally and professionally, and he was being hounded by the press, on the front pages of the New York Times. (The details of why this was happening were not mentioned) So he retreated to his home on Cape Cod.

While sitting there contemplating his defunct career and wondering if he'd ever work again, a knock came on the door. It was Ted, who offered support by supposedly telling Barnicle, "No one knows how to hide out better than a Kennedy."

I say "supposedly" because I find it hard to believe anything that Barnicle says. That's because I had a bit part in the drama more than 10 years ago that resulted in Barnicle being fired from the Globe for plagiarism.<< MORE >>

Well today, finally, the White House got serious and took on the most
outlandish claims by the critics of health care reform with a website http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

Still playing defense but it's a start.

Sent from my iPhone

        

It's amazing and sad to watch as skilled a communicator as Barack Obama do no better in communicating his health care reform proposal than Bill and Hillary Clinton did more than 15 years ago. Weren't there some lessons he could have learned from the previous health care debacle, some pitfalls to avoid? Did he really think that the opposition would be silent, that they wouldn't try to hijack the message and turn it into a debate over how government-run health care will be as mismanged as the Post Office, or how the private insurance industry will be abolished, or how the plan requires mandatory euthanasia for the elderly? (OK, maybe he couldn't have anticipated that last argument but really, should he or anybody else be surprised at how low the right-wing will stoop to hand Obama a major defeat?)<< MORE >>