Say you’re one of the least popular governors in the country. Say the local papers have run several unflattering reports about conflicts of interest among your staffers. Say someone at a publicity event gives you an open-ended question while you’re sitting in a fighter jet simulator. What would you say?

Here’s a hint: do NOT say that you’d like to “blow up” the Portland Press Herald’s offices.

Maine Governor Paul LePage is a proudly outspoken political figure taken to insulting his opponents with crude sexual comments and telling students that newspapers are his “biggest fear”; political advisors call that “red meat for the base,” but we wonder about the wisdom of his media relations strategy.

@PressHerald Threatened? It was a joke, folks!

— Paul R. LePage (@Governor_LePage) August 9, 2013

Well, duh. But it won’t win you any of the new fans you need for re-election.

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“So Bill, what you’re telling me is that Napoleon was a short, dead dude.”

He was! But he may also be the founding father of PR as we know it today—at least according an article in Investors Daily this week.

After the French revolutionaries overthrew the monarchy in the late 18th century, Napoleon was just one of many generals leading armies as they fought to take control of land throughout Europe. But he came up with a great idea to further his own power: commandeer media outlets and use them to his advantage.

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Last week, online retail behemoth Amazon received the kind of PR boost that any brand outside the Republican Party would kill for: President Obama visited its massive Chattanooga warehouse and used his media megaphone to promote the company for creating jobs fit for every politician’s favorite fallback character: the “middle class” American.

This is all well and good, but Amazon’s recent reputation management challenges are far more complicated…and less complimentary.

The real purpose of the President’s visit was to propose a bargain between the two political parties in which he would trade a cut in corporate tax rates for increased government investment in “education, training, and public works projects” designed to facilitate the creation of those precious middle class jobs. The event unsurprisingly attracted critiques of both the company and the President that highlight their unique PR struggles.

It’s true that Amazon’s planned hiring wave will create as many as 7,000 American jobs, but Obama’s visit raised several questions that the company would rather not address:

• Are these jobs truly “middle class?”
• Is Amazon the sort of company that will help strengthen the American economy at large?
• Will this PR stunt facilitate any truly meaningful political activity?

That’s easy: no, no, and…no.

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Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill into law that bans ”propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” and threatens openly gay or “pro-gay” citizens and foreigners with fines, arrests and possible jail time. Another new law restricts adoptions of Russian children by people in countries that allow same-sex marriage.

With the 2014 Winter Olympics set to take place in Sochi, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) says it has received assurances ”from the highest level of government in Russia that the legislation will not affect those attending or taking part in the Games.” It pledged to ensure there would be no discrimination against athletes, officials, spectators or the media during the games.

Many equal-rights activists are unimpressed with the IOC’s response, and feel that whether or not the laws directly affect the games is far from the point. ”They should be advocating for the safety of all LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) people in Russia, not simply those visiting for the Olympics,” said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin. ”Rescinding this heinous law must be our collective goal.”

In order to make their voices heard, activists have been writing petitions and staging boycotts.

The “Dump Russian Vodka” campaign, started by internationally syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage, has prompted bars across the US, UK, Canada and Australia to stop serving Russian brands like Stolichnaya. In response, Stolichnaya’s CEO Val Mendeleev wrote an open letter last week condemning the recent laws and reaffirming the brand’s commitment to the LGBT community. The brand’s website has also undergone an overhaul, and now features a rainbow block of text boasting that the brand “stands strong and proud with the global LGBT community against the attitude and actions of the Russian government.” (We’d call this a winning damage control response) Read more

The chattering classes were all abuzz yesterday about a sponsored post on everyone’s favorite site to visit for kitty pic listicles and condescending literary rants. (Wait, what?)

Here’s the story: In an amusingly blatant attempt to push its talking points to those young folks who will determine the future of politics in this country, conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation illustrated its distaste for the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, with BuzzFeed‘s trademark combination of one-liners and GIFs.

OMG CUTE LOL! But will it work?

We say meh. :-/

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Because nothing about Anthony Weiner’s campaign for mayor is sane, of course his communications director went on a profanity-laced tirade with a Talking Points Memo reporter about a former intern.

ICYMI, here’s a link to that story, in which the comms director Barbara Morgan completely loses it over a New York Daily News tell-all cover story written by a college student and former intern for the campaign, Olivia Nuzzi. According to the Nuzzi, a number of people joined Weiner’s campaign to get closer to his wife Huma Abedin and, by extension, Hillary Rodham Clinton. And she goes on to say that Weiner had trouble getting high-level people to work on his campaign. She dismisses comms director Morgan’s prior experience, saying she “last worked as the press secretary for the New Jersey state education commissioner.”

She adds, “There were a lot of short résumés around the office.”

On the NSFWCORP blog, Nuzzi also says that Weiner’s campaign manager Jeremy Kedem resigned because Weiner wasn’t honest about the “timing” of his sexting scandal.

“It’s all bullshit,” Morgan tells TPM. “I mean, it’s such bullsh*t. She could f**king — f**king tw*t.” Oh.

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President Obama is spending a lot of time this week focused on reaching out to different demographics in an attempt to get back to the business of advancing his plans. Today, he returned to the scene of his first big speech as a new Senator, Galesburg, IL’s Knox College, to talk about his economic program (preschool, new energy sources, and spending on infrastructure, for instance), the needs of the middle class, and raising the minimum wage. It was an hour-long speech that brought back the familiar Obama voice — earnest, determined, passionate.

On the healthcare front, the President is speaking with a different voice. Actually, it’s not his voice at all that you’ll hear. To reach younger Americans with information about the Affordable Care Act, he’s turning singer Jennifer Hudson, Amy Poehler, Kal Penn and other celebs to give voice to the benefits of the new law and the insurance exchanges that will open up on October 1. Read more

Eliot Spitzer, who seemed silenced by a prostitution scandal and the end of shows on both CNN and Current TV, is barking again. This time he’s talking about a run for New York City Comptroller, a far cry from his days as governor of New York State, but still. He’s asking people to cast their vote of confidence in someone who had to give up office in shame and disgrace.

Of course, he first has to get 3,750 signatures by Thursday just to get on the ballot. “The public is forgiving. Whether that forgiveness extends to me is a separate question. I will ask for it. I will say to the public: Look what I’ve done in the intervening five years. Look what my record was as attorney general and governor,” he said during one of many interviews he gave today (five before noon, by the New York Daily News’ count). Despite some heckling, some say the campaign launch has been a successful one.

No doubt, he’s taking cues from Mark Sanford, who won a Congressional seat in South Carolina earlier this year after getting caught leaving his post to spend time with his then-mistress in Argentina. And, closer to home, he could be looking to Anthony Weiner, who’s now leading the pack of mayoral candidates in New York City alongside Christine Quinn. The Daily Beast also calls out President Bill Clinton, who overcame more scandal than a group of people have in a lifetime and maintains incredible popularity among Democrats into his post-presidency.

So how is it possible that politicians can thwart scandal with relative ease? Are the suits made out of Teflon? Are they wearing Wonder Woman Bracelets of Victory underneath those cuff-linked Brooks Brothers shirts? Do they have one of those crazy gizmos that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones use in the Men in Black movies to make people forget everything? We’re going to propose that politicians have the benefit of distance and low expectations.

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Let’s play the hypothetical game: Say you’re a government agency that many see as a necessary evil, but you still get singled out as an example of everything wrong with our system. It’s tough to be popular when your job involves insisting that everyone remove their shoes, belts, wallets, ice picks, meat cleavers, spear guns, brass knuckles, gasoline canisters, and any other vaguely metallic objects before entering a full-body scanner with an NC-17 rating.

What do you do to improve your public profile? Start an Instagram account to show the world what you’re doing right—because who reads things anymore?

Our point: here are some fun weapons that the Transportation Security Administration confiscated and featured on its brand new picture page. Oh hey, it’s a loaded pistol small enough to fit in your toiletry bag!

Next comes another tiny, poorly hidden handgun:

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Google is being criticized by the attorneys general of Oklahoma and Nebraska for allegedly profiting from ads associated with YouTube videos that promote illicit activities.

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt sent a letter (PDF) to Google general counsel Kent Walker, asking him how much money the company generates from ads related to illegal sales of prescription drugs and counterfeit merchandise, and requesting detailed information as to the steps it is taking to curb the practice.

The letter reads in part: “As we understand the process, video producers are asked prior to posting whether they will allow YouTube to host advertising with the video and, for those who consent, the advertising revenue is shared between the producer and Google. While this practice itself is not troubling, we were disappointed to learn that many such monetized videos posted to YouTube depict or even promote dangerous or illegal activities.”

Specific examples given in the letter include ads for “pharmacies” that promote the illegal sale of drugs like oxycontin and percocet without a prescription, videos providing how-to guidelines for the forging of drivers licenses and passports, and videos promoting the sale of counterfeit merchandise.

“Not only are the activities depicted or promoted in the above-described videos illegal in and of themselves, but in the case of document forgery,” the letter states, “the how-to guide could be instrumental in the commission of other crimes ranging from under-age drinking to acts of terrorism.”

The letter asks that Google respond within 30 days with detailed information about the monetization of such ads, and warns that although both attorneys general hope to work collaboratively with the web giant to find a mutually agreeable solution, they “take these issues very seriously, and are prepared to take appropriate action to safeguard [their] citizens.” Read more