We’re all rooting for America’s cities these days.  They’re coming back. Maybe it’s the sports, the aversion to lengthy car commutes or the nightlife, or a stubborn pride dating back to the classic 1970s the classic Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

After bouncing around several other American cities, Aaron Perlut settled in St. Louis with his family, and along with partners Brian Cross and Andy Barnett, headquartered their agency Elasticity there.

Perlut in particular believes wholeheartedly that the city doesn’t suck. The need to plant deep roots in the community to grow the firm and the fondness for his region spurred a Forbes.com column to fight against the notion of suckitude. With 158,000 views and counting, “St. Louis Doesn’t Suck” became  jumping off point for a not-for-profit crowdsourced and crowdfunded platform Rally Saint Louis to address the city’s reputation issues. The column begins as a rant and ends as an outline for an integrated marketing plan, complete with SEO kicker.

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Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-Fl) took the “full Ginsberg” to a whole new level yesterday, appearing on Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week, Fox News Sunday, and State of the Union as well as on top Spanish-language shows on Univision and Telemundo to bilingually tout the bipartisan Gang of Eight’s proposed immigration legislation, expected to be unveiled tomorrow.

The presumably well-hydrated junior Senator  received good marks for the blitz, which some see as a risky gambit given the Beltway’s distaste for anything truely bipartisan. We see it as a fete of messaging, logistics and negotiation to get the job done, though it is questionable how much of a difference it makes to do seven shows instead of one or two. That’s perception, yo and the there’s the GOP’s problem regarding latino voters in swing states to contend with. A recent survey found the bloc more likely to vote Republican if a bill goes through.

You can watch the highlights in 3 minutes courtesy of The Fix:

Breaking news: Political spokesmen sometimes bend the truth! Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart devoted six minutes to shooting those messenger(s). Stewart lambasted Barack Obama’s first press secretary Robert Gibbs for the way he came clean, during his new gig as an MSNBC analyst, on his stonewalling two-step over the administration’s use of remote drones to kill suspected terrorists.

Stewart compared the glib Gibbs with the seemingly emotionally damaged Scott McClellan, George W. Bush’s second spokesman, concluding that neither are any good at protecting the POTUS in their respective retirements. “Either way, secrets spilled,” Stewart finds. “What you need is a jaded believer. Boom.”

When McClellan came out with his admissions of lying, guess which Bush surrogate went after him? Boom, Ari Fleischer.

Consultant/speaker/PR expert Peter Shankman has announced that he will no longer be associated with journalist-to-source matching service HARO (Help a Reporter Out), which he created less than five years ago. He will leave Vocus (NASDAQ: VOCS)–the company that acquired HARO in 2010–at the end of March.

According to an email to PRNewser, Shankman will continue his speaking schedule–he will be “doing some high-level consulting on some major brands in the customer service/marketing arena” as he awaits the birth of his first child and prepares for the coming launch of his third book, Nice Companies Finish First.

To review: like all good publicists who understand relationship equity, Shankman often helped journalists find sources even when he had no dog in the fight. As Facebook attained liftoff in 2008, Shankman created a group to help journalists crowdsource their needs by submitting queries for PR pros to refer them to experts on given topics. It was similar to the older, staid Profnet, but it was free–and Shankman employed his Karmic rules to keep the desperate, spammy flacks away from his media subscribers.

HARO quickly outgrew Facebook’s ceiling at the time, and Shankman adjusted, moving the membership to a sign-up site HelpAReporter.com and ostensibly turning his network into a business.

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ASGK Public Strategies, founded by former White House advisor David Axelrod and Eric Sedler, has acquired most of Plesser Holland Associates. New York-based boutique Plesser Holland was founded by former Rubenstein exec Andy Plesser in 1992. Plesser’s longtime right hand Kent Holland became a partner in 2005.

Plesser launched a video blog and consultancy called Beet.tv in 2006, while Holland relocated to Washington, DC to focus on the core PR offerings for existing clients in the higher education, financial services and technology sectors.

ASGK  Managing Partner Eric Sedler said, “Kent’s exceptional media relations skills and client base were very attractive to us. We saw lots areas where Kent could enhance our firm’s work.”

The terms of the deal are undisclosed. Holland becomes Managing Director; he will continue to manage the accounts absorbed by ASGK including CNET, the Villanova School of Business, and Butler University.

(Disclosure: The author was employed by Plesser Holland from 2000-2006.)

As they do each year, the folks at Sunshine Sachs–the biggest firm with no public profile–used a news tie-in as the hook on their holiday invite: “100% of you are invited | 47% of you like free alcohol enough to come”.  Six years after this blog began, Ken Sunshine and his partner Shawn Sachs still don’t have a website–and only the latter Tweets sporadically.

‘Tis appropriate that the firm with Democratic party roots chose to use the Mitt Romney hook as its own, though we hear the current client base is fully diversified to extend beyond the original politics-and-celebrities two-step.

And as is tradition, every member of the staff gets to invite who they want–and receives a mention on the invitation. Some quick math tells us the firm is indeed still growing. This year they’ve added 14% to the headcount. Not bad considering the invite showed 50 percent and 29 percent growth in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

Today in Things You Should Probably Remember News:

• Don’t bother bears, drug dealers, or wasps.
• Don’t tempt piranhas, serial killers, or rattle snakes.
• Don’t eat rancid things or take bad medicine.

The Melbourne Metro just issued an almost unbearably cute cartoon PSA starring bean-shaped characters who die in these and other adorable ways. Their point? Don’t mess with trains. The spot’s folksy song, written by McCann executive creative director John Mescall, is catchy enough to stick with you all day–and it’s free on Metro’s accompanying website, DumbWaysToDie.

Why did the Metro feel the need to make this precious, violent PSA? According to a writeup by local affiliate WTVR, Australia’s second-largest city does not suffer from a shortage of stupidity:

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Looks like public opinion has turned decisively against Lance Armstrong. According to a statement issued today, prime sponsor Nike (NYSE: NKE) officially terminated its contract with the cycling star.

Nike’s reversal of support for the embattled biker came after a report released yesterday indicated thatKathy LeMond–wife of that other American cycling legend Greg LeMond–testified under oath that, in a separate suit filed against Armstrong in 2006, Nike coughed up a $500,000 payoff to former Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) president Hein Verbruggen in order to cover up a positive Armstrong drug test.

Another day, another aftershock stemming from the reams of evidence made public by the USADA.

One bit of silver lining in this dark cloud: the sporting goods behemoth (and extremely spendy sponsor of countless athletes and causes) will continue supporting Lance’s Livestrong foundation: Read more