Heh! Right Observation, Wrong Venue

Back in May we had this to say in regards to BCRA and how technology is gong to invalidate the Act. Well folks is looks like it is going to happen. Sadly not against BCRA but against the wiretap provisions in the latest update to the Patriot Act.

The best laid plans of the Pols have yet again been placed asunder. That bipartisan effort to ‘cure’ campaign finance, BCRA, will be totally destroyed by this. BCRA puts a gag order 30 days before an election. It was generally targeted at 527 groups and other financially well healed political groups.

Here’s what is happening –

The grassroots group Get FISA Right has created a 30-second spot critical of the surveillance bill passed by Congress earlier this month. It’s placed the spot with a Los Angeles startup that buys ad time in bulk from cable providers and resells off slivers to individuals willing to pay for airtime in markets around the country.

The mashup means anyone who supports the repeal of the controversial law can pay online with a credit card to run the advertisement in any of eight cable TV markets around the country. By August 15, 22 markets will be available. The cost of spots varies from six dollars for placement on CNBC between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. in Cleveland, for example, to $1,856 to run on CNN in New York City between 6 p.m. and midnight.

The wiretap protest movement started life as a group on Barack Obama’s social networking site My.BarackObama.com. The group was dedicated to deterring Obama from voting for a measure that legalized President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program and granted retroactive legal immunity to the phone companies that cooperated with the spying when it was illegal. Membership swelled to more than 24,000 ahead of the July vote, but it still failed to deter Obama from supporting the unprecedented expansion of U.S. domestic spying powers.

Put aside your political leanings for or against Obama. In fact don’t even worry at the message either as us ole Baby Boomers are want to say. In this case it is the vehicle that is important. Imagine being able to fund a political ad of any stripe for any purpose. I whip out my credit card and fund an advert in Dallas for McCain. Who is going to stop me? The Feds? Hell I won’t even appear on their radar scope. Nor would thousands of others. Spread the message via email and IM’s. The funds trickle in by the individual thousands.

A revolution ensues. Thomas Jefferson would be proud

The point to all this of course the singular observation that BCRA is dead. But I have one other as well. Though mass marketers are dead, the mass market medium may not be. When I can narrow cast on cable to a specific audience for pennies that is a sea change in the marketing medium.

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