Commentary by TrueDialog.org's Founder, Carl Lindemann

July 28 - Clouding Minds with Simple Slogans

As promised, let's take a look at how spin killed and political compromise (or progress) in one of the central issues of the recently ended legislative session in Maine. Republican State Senator Peter Mills and Democrat Representative John Piotti , House chair of the Taxation Committee speak directly to how spin obstructed tax reform efforts in their opinion piece “Sever tax reform from spending cuts.” 

They observe that "special-interest groups opposed to tax reform can win only by clouding people's minds. Simple slogans and incomplete information do Maine a great disservice." The spin in the negative propaganda campaign achieved this by what Mills and Piotti see as derailing the discussion. "It is both disturbing and dangerous to see the tax reform issue re-cast by its opponents as a debate over spending," they say. 

Of course, they are being polite not mentioning the key special interest group here - Maine Heritage Policy Center. Of course, MHPC does not see themselves as a special interest group that engages in propaganda campaigns to obstruct vital public dialog and discussion on such issues - far from it! 

MHPC's Bill Becker went on at great length before the state Ethics Commission last Fall to differentiate his organization's work and that of Democracy Maine. Democracy Maine became highly visible opposing the Taxpayer Bill of Rights ballot initiative with full-page ads titled "Hurricane TABOR" featured in newspapers across the state. Becker wanted to be clear that he was not like that  group:

(Let’s) draw a distinction between what we do (and what Democracy Maine does)....we have PhDs economists, masters economists that study this stuff on a on a regular basis, on a daily basis. Our reports talk about the economic benefits with reports that use computer-generated models. (October 31 Ethics Commission transcript, page 52)

His "public policy, research and educational organization which studies issues" puts out material that is fundamentally different from the "simple slogans and incomplete information" typical to political groups like Democracy Maine:

Mr. Crasnick's (Executive Director of Democracy Maine) organization puts out stuff like that....that's not stuff that we do. We don't put out that sort of material, never have, never will.  

Check the audio clip here - 40 seconds

Yes, MHPC cranks out pie charts, graphs and various other "computer generated" desktop publishing presentations. But in the last legislative session, they also produced this radio ad:

Tax Policy Shell Game (60 seconds)

All materials on this website are copyright © 2007 by TrueDialog.org. All rights reserved.