Perhaps it’s a sign of the times – a relatively minor conflict on the contemporary political landscape turns into multimedia melee. Former Air America and current MSNBC host Rachel Maddow used a newspaper ad to respond to an email blast from Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) that used her name for fund-raising purposes.
Brown suggested that even though he’d barely gotten used to working in Washington, Maddow was already being recruited by Massachusetts Democrats. According to The Daily Beast, his email said, “It’s only been a couple of months since I’ve been in office, and before I’ve even settled into my new job, the political machine in Massachusetts is looking for someone to run against me. And you’re not going to believe who they are supposedly trying to recruit — liberal MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow.”
Maddow said the claim was untrue, and used her MSNBC program to refute Brown’s email. She then took the additional step of putting a letter on the topic in the Boston Globe in a full-page ad.
“Senator Brown never even tried to find out if it was true, before using the made-up threat of me running against him, to try to scare donors into giving him more money,” she wrote. She said many of those contacted were activists from out of state who helped him in his campaign to get into the Senate in the first place.
She concluded, “My show airs at 9PM Eastern time in Massachusetts on MSNBC. So far, Scott Brown refuses to come on. Maybe he’ll change his mind – I hope he does.”
RBR-TVBR observation: This will soon blow over, and some other minor media kerfuffle will rise up to take its place. But in this particular instance, the billboard industry is probably wondering why it didn’t have some small level of involvement.
