Alex Castellanos

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Alex Castellanos is a U.S. Republican Party political media consultant. He worked on Mitt Romney's presidential campaign,[1][2] and allegedly also met with Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson.[3][4][5]

Castellanos is a partner in National Media, Inc., and specializes in television advertising. He has served as a media consultant to numerous presidential, senatorial, and gubanatorial campaigns, both for campaigns and for outside political committees.[6][7] Castellanos has been referred to as the "father of the modern attack ad."[8]

During the 2004 presidential campaign, over half of all Bush Cheney '04 expenditures are reported to have moved through—or gone to—a Castellanos-associated firm, Maverick Media.[9]

Castellanos has also worked on issue advocacy campaigns for corporations and national associations. He has been a frequent guest on political shows, including the now-defunct CNN Crossfire and MSNBC Head to Head.[6]

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[edit] Personal background

Castellanos is a native of Havana, Cuba, whose parents were refugees who fled Castro's Cuba in 1961. Castellanos earned a National Merit Scholarship to the University of North Carolina.[6]

[edit] Romney work

In late February 2007, the Boston Globe obtained a leaked copy of an internal Romney campaign document describing the campaign's plan to win the Republican nomination.[1] That document, produced by Castellanos, drew attention by implying the campaign's poor view of the sitting president.[2] Specifically, the document advised that that Romney should create distance between himself and President George W. Bush by focusing on the separating factor of "intelligence."[1]

[edit] 2000 "Rats" Ad controversy

During the heated 2000 U.S. presidential campaign season, Castellanos produced an ad for the Republican National Committee attempting to discredit the prescription drug plan policy offered by U.S. Democratic Party presidential nominee and then-Vice President Al Gore.[7] Alongside images of Gore, the ad showed the word "RATS" for a split second, before the complete word "bureaucrats" appeared on-screen.[7] During the ensuing uproar, Castellanos claimed that the inclusion was "purely accidental."[7] Psychologists suggest that such brief messages can be processed by the brain but at an unconscious or subliminal level.[7]

[edit] 1994 Jeb Bush Death Penalty Ad controversy

Castellanos produced an ad in 1994 for Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush, who was seeking to unseat Democratic incumbent governor Lawton Chiles.[8] The ad contains an interview with the mother of a 10-year-old female murder victim in which she complains that Governor Chiles had refused to sign the death warrant for the convicted killer, "because [Chiles was] too liberal on crime."[8] The Chiles campaign quickly answered that Chiles had not signed the warrant because the case was still being heard on appeal, which prohibited Chiles from acting, and local newspapers sprang to Chiles's defense and accused Bush of lies and demagoguery.[8] This backlash may have been key in Chiles's victory, one of the closest such contests in Florida history.[8]

[edit] 1990 "White Hands" Ad controversy

Near the end of the 1990 U.S. Senate race in North Carolina, Castellanos produced an advertisement for incumbent Republican Senator Jesse Helms, who was then trailing Democratic challenger and Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt.[10] The ad depicts a middle-aged, working class married white man receiving and crumpling a job application rejection notice sent because the job had been "given to a minority."[10] The ad then references Gantt's supposed support for racial quotas and Helms's opposition.[10]

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an expert on political communications,[11] has written on the subliminal messages of racial fear encoded into this advertisement.[10] She believes that the signals may include a screen transition showing the hand's crumpling of the image of Gantt's head and a black mark on the rejection notice in the shape of an African-American hand holding a handgun.[10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Scott Helman, Document shows Romney's strategies, Boston Globe, February 27, 2007
  2. ^ a b Alex Castellanos's Cheap Shot, The Hotline On Call, February 27, 2007
  3. ^ Rich Galen, Thompson and Gore, CNSNews.com, March 28, 2007
  4. ^ Jim Geraghty, Thompson Bid May Fill a Void for the GOP Base, New York Sun, April 5, 2007
  5. ^ Rebecca Sinderbrand, The Mysterious Appeal of Fred Thompson, New York Observer, April 9, 2007
  6. ^ a b c University of Virginia Center for Politics, American Democracy Conference 2002, Panelist biographies
  7. ^ a b c d e John Egan, RATS ad: Subliminal conspiracy?, BBC, September 13, 2000
  8. ^ a b c d e Eric Boehlert, Going Negative, Salon.com, March 15, 2004
  9. ^ Open Secrets, Bush Cheney 2004 disbursements
  10. ^ a b c d e Hands, The :30 Second Candidate, Public Broadcasting System (2001)
  11. ^ Biography, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Ph.D., Annenberg School of Communications