October 7, 2015

Former Top Obama Adviser Calls New Joe Biden Ad “Tasteless”

David Axelrod isn’t a fan of the Draft Biden campaign’s latest commercial.


Draft Biden, the super-PAC agitating for the vice president to enter the 2016 presidential race, released its first TV commercial Wednesday morning. And boy, was it a maudlin doozy. The 90-second ad features a Biden voiceover, taken from a 2015 Yale commencement address, with the vice president detailing the car accident that killed his wife and daughter shortly after he won his Senate seat in 1972. As Biden speaks, the ad flashes black-and-white photos of Biden over his career in the Senate leading up to his time in the Obama White House. The ad ends with a solemn black screen and the plea, “Joe, run.”

Draft Biden plans to dump six figures into broadcasting the ad, including during the first Democratic debate next week, per NPR. But not everyone was a fan of Draft Biden using Biden’s personal tragedy for political ends. David Axelrod, Obama’s past chief campaign strategist, took to Twitter, suggesting that ad was “exploitative” and “tasteless.”

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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