A lot of questions are being raised about this “public service announcement” (PSA) from Florida’s Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum.
For one thing, why did he skirt Florida’s procurement laws to hire his own 2006 campaign media consultant to produce the PSA and buy the media? The tab, so far, is $1.4 million.
The other thing is, what’s the ad, er, PSA, really selling? According to McCollum’s office, the spot publicizes a web site where parents can get help with the questionably “rampant” problem of online sexual predators. McCollum’s name hangs on the screen in huge letters at the start of the piece while the web site URL is grayed out at the bottom of the screen and typed in fleetingly at the end.
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum appears in nearly every frame…
McCollum said he hired his former campaign consultant, Chris Mottola, because the state’s competitive bidding process was ”very slow, very complicated.” He cited an exemption in state law that allows him to use a no-bid contract for “artistic services.”
The ad shows McCollum speaking directly to the camera…
”The development of the ad is artistic. It’s how you present it,” McCollum said. “You got 30 seconds to be able to tell somebody something.”
But what’s he telling them?
McCollum’s career in politics has been disappointing at best. He is the perpetual candidate, almost always out-gunned. He hitched his star to the Bill Clinton blow job scandal and expected to see it rise like…well, never mind but the point is, he’s ambitious. At the very least he will run for reelection in 2010, but if Charlie Crist throws in for the Senate seat currently held by Mel Martinez (who recently announced his retirement after one term) McCollum will likely run for governor.
So Florida’s Democrats, and others, can be forgiven for noticing how our attorney general conducts his affairs with the media. You wouldn’t even call it nitpicking that they requested an accounting of the payments for the spot and seized on the $550 make-up fee for making McCollum look tough on cyber sex offenders.
McCollum defends the expenses by noting the money came, not from taxpayers, but “settlements with companies accused of hiding the costs of cellphone services.” And here I thought such penalties were supposed to punish and discourage abuse, not to be used as campaign slush funds by politicians. Silly me.
- Topic: News & Comment
- Topics: Congress, Fox News
[...] Pensito Reviw (Trish): The PSA That Wasn’t: Bill McCollum Runs for Something [...]
Paula Dockery is possibly the Chief Executive that We the People need to get our state back on track. Bill McCollum’s record as State Attorney General should be closely examined. The State AG’s office is known to be incompetent and has failed to enforce the law. The mortgage fraud in this state was rampant under McCollum’s watch, the result severely damaged the Florida economy. All McCollum did in response was put together some fraud “task forces” that did nothing more than create an “illusion of motion” that some law enforcement action was being taken. Bill McCollum is a lifetime politician who exemplifies how non-performing government employees manage to keep their jobs through political jockeying. McCollum’s economic goals detailed on his candidacy web site are “bullet points” in which he has no experience in creating one job, let alone millions of high tech jobs necessary to build a real economic future for this State. Paula Dockery is a candidate worth considering.