Daily Archives: July 19, 2016

Adventures in bad banner design

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You know how online advertising works. You shop for something on the Internet — socks, refrigerators, hotels — and you get a torrent of related banner ads wherever you browse.

So me, politics. I’m getting a load of banner ads from candidates. Ironically, mostly Republicans. (The tracking software doesn’t detect sarcasm.) And, given the relative rate of spending, mostly about Bruce Lisman.

My conclusion: whatever he’s spending all that money on, he’s getting screwed on graphics. Just look at this.

Lisman banner ad from Politico

Ugh. Looks like a quick cut-and-paste job by a hyperactive five-year-old with a rudimentary grasp of Photoshop. Cluttered, random, doesn’t stand out, doesn’t guide the eye, too many messages. And then there’s that terrible photo crammed into the middle: why would you want to show your candidate squinting?

More bad banners… after the jump.

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Jobs for the Boys (and Girls)

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Patricia Moulton just became the latest high-ranking rat to leave the Good Ship Shumlin. The Commerce Secretary, under whose watch the EB-5 scandal went on undetected for years, has herself a soft landing spot as interim president of Vermont Technical College.

Moulton is one of those seemingly unmovable fixtures of Montpelier life — a species that moves effortlessly between government, private sector, and government-related nonprofits. She’s served in the last two administrations, Douglas and Shumlin; and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she turned up in a hypothetical Phil Scott cabinet.

What are her credentials to lead an educational institution? Pish tosh. Who needs relevant experience when you’re one of the cross-partisan In Crowd?

“… I can bring to that institution great knowledge about education and workforce for the state of Vermont,” Moulton said in an interview Thursday.

Well, that’s one way to spin it.

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Why won’t Bernie talk about his finances?

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Big story on VTDigger a few days ago, detailing the weird secrecy around much of Bernie Sanders’ campaign spending.

The campaign funneled a cool $82 million through an obscure media-buying firm located in a suburban DC house. Old Towne Media LLC did the media buys for Sanders — despite having no track record to speak of. $82 million is roughly 40 percent of Bernie’s total campaign expenditures.

The ad agency, established in 2014, has almost exclusively served the Sanders campaign, and the company keeps a low profile. It has no website and no listed phone number. A full list of principals isn’t publicly available.

The principals of Old Towne are two longtime colleagues of Jane O’Meara Sanders who have worked on some of Bernie’s past re-election bids. But it’s a big leap from staffing a slam-dunk campaign in little old Vermont, to playing a crucial role in a bid for the presidency

But hey, perhaps Bernie values loyalty over experience.

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