Election Unspun Oct 7 - Spinning The U.S. Financial Crisis

The seven hundred billion dollar bail out of the financial industry is not US law.  Who helped shape the plan, and who's promising to limit any new regulations? Diane Darsetta and Sari  Williams of PR Watch dot org. report. 

"Spinning the U.S. Financial Crisis"

Who boasted of having "the expertise and experience to help you and your members minimize the punitive effects of any new federal regulations"?  The major PR firm Edelman, in a pitch sent to financial companies in late September.  Though unemployment is up and home foreclosures continue, the financial meltdown has boosted the already-booming business of the lobbying and public relations industries.

Spinners and lobbyists worked furiously as Treasury Secretary Paulson and members of Congress crafted and then re-worked the financial bailout plan.  Though it was common to hear politicians blame greedy Wall Street, financial industry lobbyists were quite successful in shaping the plan.  They successfully pushed to extend the bailout to overseas banks with significant U.S. operations.  They took out a measure that would have allowed mortgage reductions for homeowners facing bankruptcy.  They softened language limiting CEO pay and allowing the financial industry to be taxed for the cost of the bailout.

No wonder, then, that grassroots groups on the left and the right strongly opposed the bailout plan.  But some politicians and PR flacks blamed the House's initial rejection of the bill on poor messaging.  "Bailout connotes failure, and Americans hate failure," noted the head of the PR firm Euro RSCG [link: ].  "What if this had been called a rescue from the beginning?  Or 'The Save Our Homes Act?'"

INTERVIEW

Yesterday and today mark the deadline for voter registration for people in nearly thirty states.  Florida, the country's largest swing state, the deadline was yesterday. All eligible voters might not have had the chance to register. One non-partisan group tasked with voter registration has concerns.  Veterans for peace says the Department of Veterans Affairs is preventing them from going into VA hospitals.   From WMNF Community Radio in Tampa, Sean Kinane reports