Charlie Sheen, Glenn Beck and the ATF

Gordon,

I know we totally disagree here. And if you want to call Beck a nut case or a fruitcake, that's entirely your right.

In my opinion, he's a very smart cookie and an outstanding marketer.

Why?

Certainly not because he rants or cries ... which he does, on occasion. But more for 2 reasons:

1. He has targeted conservative Americans as his market, and that is a very large, very underserved (by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, Washington Post, etc., etc., etc.) market.

2. What makes him effective is that he lets the real crazies in our society do their own talking. And luckily for him, they LOVE to talk. They don't say so much wild stuff when Brian Williams is interviewing them. But when they're at a gathering of their own kind, they let their hair down, and they tell you what their real plans and goals are.

And then, this being the internet age, someone posts that video on youtube or someplace else online. And Beck's genius is that he has an army or researchers looking for those videos. Over the past few months, he has played very, very revealing videos by people like:

• Cass Sunstein, Regulatory Czar
• Van Jones, former "green jobs" czar
• Valerie Jarrett, Obama senior advisor
• Barack Obama, President
• Joe Biden, VP
• John Holdren, Science Czar
• Richard Trumpka, Pres AFL-CIO
• Andy Stern, Pres Emeritus, SEIU
• George Soros, billionaire funder of left-wing causes
• Jesse Jackson, left-wing preacher
• Al Sharpton, left-wing preacher
• Anthony Weiner, left-wing NY congressman
• Janet Napolitano, Dir Homeland Security
• Rahm Emmanuel, Mayor of Chicago
• Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader
• Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader
• Barney Frank, left-wing MA congressman
• Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman of GE
• Ron Bloom, Obama "car czar in charge of GM"
• Brian Williams, NBC anchor
• Katie Couric, CBS anchor
• Whoopi Goldberg, actress
• Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State
• Hilda Solis, Labor Secretary
• Ken Salazar, Interior Secretary
• Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary
• Todd Stern, Climate Czar
• Carol Browner, Energy Czar
• Wade Rathke, Executive Director of Acorn
• Bertha Lewis, NY ED of Acorn
• and many, many more

They say things that would get them in deep, deep trouble with the public if their comments ever appeared in the mainstream media. But, of course, they can count on their media brethren to cover for them.

But Beck just runs the video on his show, and these guys are hoist by their own petard. For a lot of them, Beck doesn't need to say a word. The craziness of these folks is self-explanatory.

And maybe more than that ... the more of these videos we see on Beck, the more we understand how biased and in-the-bag-to-the-left the mainstream networks and print media are. And that inspires a lot of people to support Beck even more, because we see zero truth coming from ABC, CBS, etc.

So Beck's marketing genius is NOT his own words. It's that he continually locates and leverages video of the crazies. It can't be too hard, becaue there's nothing they love to do more than talk about how smart they are. And THEIR rants have elevated Beck in record time to unhead-of heights for a 5 pm TV commentary.

Pretty good marketing.

Richard Dennis

[GordonJ]

Originally Posted by Richard Dennis

Gordon,

I know we totally disagree here. And if you want to call Beck a nut case or a fruitcake, that's entirely your right.

In my opinion, he's a very smart cookie and an outstanding marketer.

Why?

Certainly not because he rants or cries ... which he does, on occasion. But more for 2 reasons:

1. He has targeted conservative Americans as his market, and that is a very large, very underserved (by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, Washington Post, etc., etc., etc.) market.

2. What makes him effective is that he lets the real crazies in our society do their own talking. And luckily for him, they LOVE to talk. They don't say so much wild stuff when Brian Williams is interviewing them. But when they're at a gathering of their own kind, they let their hair down, and they tell you what their real plans and goals are.

And then, this being the internet age, someone posts that video on youtube or someplace else online. And Beck's genius is that he has an army or researchers looking for those videos. Over the past few months, he has played very, very revealing videos by people like:

• Cass Sunstein, Regulatory Czar
• Van Jones, former "green jobs" czar
• Valerie Jarrett, Obama senior advisor
• Barack Obama, President
• Joe Biden, VP
• John Holdren, Science Czar
• Richard Trumpka, Pres AFL-CIO
• Andy Stern, Pres Emeritus, SEIU
• George Soros, billionaire funder of left-wing causes
• Jesse Jackson, left-wing preacher
• Al Sharpton, left-wing preacher
• Anthony Weiner, left-wing NY congressman
• Janet Napolitano, Dir Homeland Security
• Rahm Emmanuel, Mayor of Chicago
• Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader
• Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader
• Barney Frank, left-wing MA congressman
• Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman of GE
• Ron Bloom, Obama "car czar in charge of GM"
• Brian Williams, NBC anchor
• Katie Couric, CBS anchor
• Whoopi Goldberg, actress
• Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State
• Hilda Solis, Labor Secretary
• Ken Salazar, Interior Secretary
• Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary
• Todd Stern, Climate Czar
• Carol Browner, Energy Czar
• Wade Rathke, Executive Director of Acorn
• Bertha Lewis, NY ED of Acorn
• and many, many more

They say things that would get them in deep, deep trouble with the public if their comments ever appeared in the mainstream media. But, of course, they can count on their media brethren to cover for them.

But Beck just runs the video on his show, and these guys are hoist by their own petard. For a lot of them, Beck doesn't need to say a word. The craziness of these folks is self-explanatory.

And maybe more than that ... the more of these videos we see on Beck, the more we understand how biased and in-the-bag-to-the-left the mainstream networks and print media are. And that inspires a lot of people to support Beck even more, because we see zero truth coming from ABC, CBS, etc.

So Beck's marketing genius is NOT his own words. It's that he continually locates and leverages video of the crazies. It can't be too hard, becaue there's nothing they love to do more than talk about how smart they are. And THEIR rants have elevated Beck in record time to unhead-of heights for a 5 pm TV commentary.

Pretty good marketing.

Richard Dennis

[GordonJ]

I agree with you Richard. My fruitcake reference was one Glenn made about himself very recently...so far, his crazy view of the middle east of 6 weeks ago is pretty much unfolding exactly as he said it would...

back when Obama was cheering on the "protestors" in Egypt.

Obama wasn't so vocal about the rights of the shia in Saudi Arabia, or the "students" of Yemen, Bahrain or for that matter, for the first few days of Libya "day of rage"...

I guess you just got to know who the "bad" guys really are...considering we did great business with Egypt and Libya for decades while these cruel dictators were taking in billions of American dollars. Whoda thunk?

No Richard, I'm not anti Glenn Beck and you are right, his remarkable rise to riches is something of a template.

In fact, it fits in nicely with my OLD work, How to Start a Cult for Fun and Profit.

Some of my favorite cults to watch today:

Charlie Sheen WINNNING.
Bill O'Reilly SARCASM for big bux.
Howard Stern...truly the KING of all media (new contract worth half a billion?)
Rachel Madow...and the queen of cult...Sara Palin.

And about 1001 other media pundits and talking heads.

Their secrets:

Be loud and be heard. Radio is a great start.
Have a message, you can't appeal to everyone.
Choose an audience with money to spend.
Be a tout for something.
Get the "first follower" and let him/her do the heavy lifting.

Glenn Beck has taken the American Dream and has given us a blueprint to success, he certainly is no fruitcake, even if he calls himself that.

Gordon Alexander