The Administration has been very vocal in its failure to “present” healthcare reform to the American people. They have constantly asserted that if they had just explained it a little better we would all have fallen in love with the legislation and would fall in line. Presumably then Obama’s approval ratings would not be trending downward, the economy would turn around, and the sky would open to reveal miracles not yet realized by us lowly plebs.
But that didn’t happen. So now the strategy has shifted somewhat. If you were to head on over to Google right now and type in “ObamaCare” to the search, its quite interesting what happens.
Thats right Save Jerseyans, the Obama Administration is purchasing sponsored search results on Google to combat the fact that their landmark legislation is most commonly known by a name that is less than flattering. The link takes you right to Healthcare.gov, a glorified information website that reads like a puff piece on the controversial measures.
Aside from this being an outright acceptance of the term “ObamaCare” as a name for healthcare reform by the Administration, my interest lies with who is paying for these ads? The executive branch has an unquantifiable amount of media attention at its disposal, they have free services like YouTube and Facebook that (while in campaign mode, at least) they used with great success in previous years. They have e-mail listservs and entire organizations of young zombie drones willing to do their bidding. But for some reason they now see the need to spend money on Google ads.
When people search for ObamaCare, they are looking for the truth about the legislation, not some government funded and government written website about all the benefits and not the costs. And fortunately, this doesn’t seem as though it will fool anyone with half a brain. As word of this begins to spread, look for the Administration to back track and pull the ads, they cannot really afford too much more negative press on this issues, especially when its popular repeal is imminent.
