Potomac Flacks

McCain Camp Takes Lead on YouTube Hits

Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times details that McCain's celebrity attacks against Obama amuse the younger generation and have currently given his campaign a 'YouTube' lead.  According to the piece, McCain's series of brutal yet entertaining attack ads and Web videos mocking the press and Obama, and the combination of wit and insult has pushed McCain's YouTube channel to the sixth most watched on the site this week.   McCain has beat Obama's channel for seven straight days and 11 of the the past 14 days -- clearly a signal he intends to compete for the YouTube vote.  (The Washington Times)

Pompei Leads Johanns Senate Communications Effort

Sarah Pompei has landed a job after serving as Deputy Press Secretary for Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign. Pompei is now Communications Director for the Mike Johanns for Senate campaign, based in Lincoln. Last election cycle Pompei worked in Montana as Press Secretary for the Senate re-election campaign of Conrad Burns, who was narrowly defeated. Previously, Pompei was a spokeswoman for the California Republican Party. (PF Tipster)

Former Biden Press Secretary Goes to NYC

Former Biden for President National Press Secretary and veteran DNC operative Mark Paustenbach is heading to New York City. Paustenbach will become an Associate Vice President at Rubenstein Communications where he will focus on public relations and strategic communications. (PF Tipster)

NRCC Hires Karen Hanretty as Communications Director

According to GOP sources, the National Republican Congressional Committee has hired longtime Republican operative Karen Hanretty as their new communications director.  Most recently, Hanretty served as deputy communications director for Fred Thompson's presidential campaign and she also did a stint as Arnold Schwarzenegger's press secretary during his gubernatorial bid in 2003.  (Politico)

Go Mid-West Young Man

An organization familiar with the center of the presidential election universe, The Ohio Republican Party, is adding firepower for the 2008 election cycle in the form of young-gun Jason Levine.  Today, Levine will be leaving his current post as Client Services Manager at Crosslink Strategy Group in Washington D.C. to take over as the Ohio GOP’s Deputy Communications Director.  In July, Levine left his job as assistant to the campaign manager on John McCain’s presidential campaign when his boss, Terry Nelson decided to hang it up.  Jason is a graduate of Leland Stanford Junior University and is a native of New Jersey.  (PF Tipster)

Gov. Time Kaine's Press Secretary to Join Senate Campaign of Mark Warner

Kevin Hall, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's (D-VA) Press Secretary, announced this morning he is leaving the administration to join former Gov. Mark R. Warner's (D-VA) campaign for the U.S. Senate.  Hall said his resignation will take effect in November. He will likely become Warner's chief spokesman for the 2008 campaign.  Hall is a former radio reporter and Richmond-based Associated Press print journalist.  When Warner (D) was elected governor in 2001, Hall left journalism to become Warner's deputy press secretary in 2002.  In 2005, Hall became Warner's chief spokesman, a job he continued in after Kaine took office in 2006.  Warner's 2008 Senate campaign will be Hall's first foray into elective politics.  In the coming weeks, Warner is expected to ramp up staffing for his Senate bid, including hiring a campaign manager.  Monica Dixon, who had been deputy chief of staff to former Vice President Al Gore, currently serves as Warner's chief spokesman. Dixon is likely to become a senior strategist for Warner's Senate campaign.  No word yet on who Kaine will hire to replace Hall.  (Washington Post's Virginia Politics Blog)

Oil Industry Helps Start New Lobbying/Education Project at U.S. Chamber

First the oil industry launched a $100 million PR campaign to improve its image.  Now, National Journal reports that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is putting together its own "$20-million-to-$40-million energy-related lobbying and education effort."

The new project is modeled on the Chamber's "influential Institute for Legal Reform, which was created in the late 1990s to battle trial lawyers and to help corporations hit by the high cost of tort litigation."

Sources tell NJ that "ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil producer, has played a pivotal role in jump-starting the project, tentatively dubbed the Institute for Energy Security, Jobs, and Competitiveness."  Several other companies will probably join, and the Chamber is currently looking for an executive director for the project.

Oil Industry's $100M Campaign to Show They're Not So Bad After All

With congressional Dems looking to take on the oil industry next year, the industry's lead trade group, the American Petroleum Institute, is planning a $100 million PR "image and education effort," National Journal reports. 

The campaign, "much of which will be coordinated by the PR firm Edelman, will include expensive television, radio, and print ads, tours of oil patch facilities for lawmakers and opinion elites, and financial contributions to sympathetic think tanks and industry-friendly organizations." The API is asking other like-minded groups to ante up for the multiyear effort.

Lobbyist Welcomes Facebook, MySpace into Policy Campaigns

Dutko Worldwide Vice Chairman for Public Policy Gary J. Andres writes in this morning's Wash Times that "new media technologies, which started with political applications, are now quickly migrating to the lobbying world." (DC PR firms like mine are already helping companies navigate this world.) More Andres:

Expanding these tools [like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook] into lobbying and advocacy is already happening too, but a lot more is on the way...In the public-policy world, as with electoral politics, whoever figures out the best way to use new media and the Internet will possess a major advocacy advantage. Applying new media techniques more broadly to lobbying offers huge potential and is already well underway.

[A] post last week on the Personal Democracy Forum Web site underscored this point. It highlighted a campaign by a group called Campus Progress, which is advocating more funding for college financial aid. Advertisements in the campaign urge students to help "make college affordable now" by text messaging the word "Debt" to a code that sends an automated response asking for their e-mail address and ZIP code. A subsequent e-mail tells them how to get in touch with their representatives (based on ZIP code).

New Campaign: Gadgets vs. Record Labels

National Journal reports that the "Consumer Electronics Association, the public-interest groups Public Knowledge and the Media Access Project, and others in the high-tech sector are teaming up on a lobbying campaign aimed at blocking several anti-piracy measures that the Recording Industry Association of America is pushing on Capitol Hill."

The campaign is aimed at combatting "audio flag" legislation and the Perform Act, "which would require satellite, cable, and Internet broadcasters to pay 'fair-market value' to copyright holders if a song is copied and sorted into playlists."  The media, lobbying and grassroots campaign is scheduled to launch at the end of October, per Don Goldberg of Qorvis Communications.