Here at Bludgeon & Skewer we're always looking for new ways to exploit our opponent's weaknesses and slip something in under their radar. We had a recent success with the Tea Parties that happened last week as we were able to produce and publish the following posters that recieved wide spread distribution on the internet culminating with a 20 second exposure on "The Rachel Maddow" show on MSNBC on the evening of 14 APR 09.

 

First, here are the posters:

 

My favorite "New Boss" did not fit Ms. Maddow's template and was not displayed

 

 

Next, "Crack Pipe", somewhat tasteless, also not displayed

 

 

 

Next, "Shit Sandwich", very tasteless and not displayed

 

 

 

 

Finally, the template fitting, Hannitty Hatin', I'm not gonna read the bottom of the poster, Rachel Maddow pleasin', Screw Hannity spectacular!

 

 

 

 To give our readership (all 19 of you) a timeline on the development of the tempest in teapot, we'll recount the entire development cycle of this political message from project conception, thru copy development to final edit, graphics wash, and release to the internet via "Rogue LP elements".

 

OK, all that stuff on the last line took about 20 minutes (if you count hunting down images on the internet). The release was timed for the morning of the 14th with the intent to allow any interested parties in Atlanta time to print off their favorite(s) and use them as they saw fit. As with anything you post on the World Wide Web, the possibility that it might show up at places you did not intend was considered. This line of thinking was discounted because we just knew that those eagle eyed boys and girls in charge of agi-prop over there on the left side of the media would take the time and effort to read the bottom half of the posters to prevent their viewership's delicate thought processes from being exposed to the extreme rightwing radicalism of the notions of Defending the Republic, Supporting the Constitution and Voting Libertarian. On the flip side, "Crack Pipe" and "Screw Hannity" were considered to be pretty good bait for widespread distribution in the Left-O-Sphere as they were strictly bashing republicans. We knew that "New Boss" and "Shit Sandwich" wouldn't see the light of day in Lefty Land as they did mix in some of the more august members of our congress from both sides of the aisle, but we thought that some of our Libertarian brothers might get a chuckle out of them,

 

Fresh Loaf, an online branch of one of Atlanta's newspapers published our little missives on the morning of the 14th. During the course of the day, other blogs picked them up and by the evening of the 14th our handiwork was featured on the segment of MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow" as shown below.

 

 

 

 

Ms Maddow's show pulled about 1,149,000 viewers that evening according to the overnights. That's 1,149,000 hard core lefties that were exposed to the concepts of Defending the Republic, Supporting the Constitution and Voting Libertarian as a result of our little project. Quite a bang for the buck.

 

Additionally, our posters showed up at Wonkette of all places. We are not able to show you screen capture of that one as Wonkette is jealous of her work and my crude screen capture Kung Fu is not up to the job. I'm sure there is a cyber ninja out there somewhere that can figure it out and send it on over. Anyway, Alexa stats for the 13th of April show just under 15,000 hits (she is trending down from over 100,000 hits the previous week). We'll have an update for you later this week to see if "Screw Hannity" gave her a boost or not.

 

So in conclusion, homebrewed media can have unexpected reach, you just gotta design content with an eye towards whose template you want to fit. At some point in time we'll post the details of similar stunt we pulled on Jay Bookman over at the AJC. More political fun and games from your friendly neighborhood Libertarian Community Organizer!