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“Morning, Brock! I see you were reading the Wall Street Journal in your Town Car on the way to work!”
“Hullo, Trip! Indeed I was. Can you push the elevator button for the executive suite? Thanks. You know, I happened to notice that there was an op-ed by Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards in there.”
“Really. I haven’t been much paying attention to those liberals out in Iowa. Can you imagine spending the New Year in Des Moines?”
“There aren’t even mountains there. Where do people ski? And more important, where do they après ski? The Wal-Mart parking lot? Ha-ha! Oh, dear, you’re stepping on my Bally briefcase with your Ferragamo loafer, it seems.”
“Sorry, my boy. Anyway, what does that old Edwards boy have to say? He does have good dental work and trustworthy hair. Maybe he’s finally appealing to us, his own income class?”
“Let’s take a look, shall we? Hm… ‘the bargain of America’ … ‘skyrocketing education and health care costs’ … ‘foreclosure crisis’ … wait a minute! Listen to this: ‘The problem is … forty percent of all economic growth over the past 20 years has gone to the top 1% of families.’ That’s the problem? Egad. Someone page Mindy. I need a Mylanta!”
More from Edwards:
• “Not everyone in America is struggling. Investors on Wall Street took home a record-setting $48 billion in bonuses this past year, even after losing millions in the credit meltdown.”
• “In 1960, the average CEO made 41 times what the average worker made. But in 2005, the average CEO made over 400 times the average workers salary. The share of corporate profits going to CEO pay has doubled since the 1990s. Meanwhile, the value of the minimum wage has plummeted 30% since 1979.”
• “We must renew America’s basic bargain with the middle class and remove the stranglehold that entrenched corporate interests have on Washington.”
• “In order to fulfill our obligations to future generations of Americas, we must restore balance between America’s corporations and America’s working families.”
Hey John, FYI, it’s not just Brock and Trip who read the Journal. It’s 2 million other people with household incomes averaging well above $200,000 a year. If you were aiming for the middle-class readership, you shot a little bit high. Maybe it’s time to rethink your press strategy, before you end up placing an ad for Alaskan oil drilling in Mother Jones.
