{"id":1029,"date":"1997-11-29T08:34:03","date_gmt":"1997-11-29T08:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/?p=1029"},"modified":"2016-02-29T08:39:54","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T08:39:54","slug":"the-ad-campaign-attacking-a-constitutional-convention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/?p=1029","title":{"rendered":"The Ad Campaign: Attacking a Constitutional Convention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source:\u00a0Dao, James, &#8220;The Ad Campaign: Attacking a Constitutional Convention,&#8221;\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>, November 1,1997.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Citizens Against a Constitutional Convention, which includes unions, environmentalists, trial lawyers and abortion rights advocates, has begun running 30-second television commercials around the state.<\/p>\n<p>PRODUCER &#8212; Joe Slade White &amp; Co. <br class=\"br\" \/><br class=\"br\" \/>ON THE SCREEN &#8212; Two balding, overweight men, one holding a cigar, the other fondling a wine cooler, smirk. As the narrator speaks, they pop open a champagne bottle and sip while confetti rains down. The spot ends with white words on a black background: &#8220;Tuesday, Nov. 4, Vote No on the Constitutional Convention.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>THE SCRIPT &#8212; &#8220;The same old insiders, the bigwigs and the billionaires, want to rewrite New York&#8217;s Constitution. Is that a good idea? And they expect New York taxpayers to pay $50 million for their constitutional convention. Fifty million tax dollars? Your taxes, their party. It&#8217;s time to tell the bigwigs and the billionaires that the party is over. On Tuesday, Nov. 4, send them a message. Vote no on their constitutional convention.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>ACCURACY &#8212; The only billionaire clearly in favor of the convention is Ronald Lauder, a champion of term limits. But he has yet to spend a dime promoting it. Change-N.Y., an anti-tax group financed by Wall Street millionaires, opposes it. So it is fair to say that big money is on both sides. The cost of a convention is also unclear. Opponents put the cost at $50 million. But proponents say that delegates could pool staffs and forsake perquisites to keep the cost to $15 million.<\/p>\n<p>SCORECARD &#8212; Convention opponents worry that many voters are dissatisfied with state government and believe a convention could fix it. They are trying to send the message that a convention would be controlled by the same crowd that is causing Albany&#8217;s problems now. That message could backfire if voters decide that unions and trial lawyers favor the status quo because it favors them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source:\u00a0Dao, James, &#8220;The Ad Campaign: Attacking a Constitutional Convention,&#8221;\u00a0New York Times, November 1,1997. Citizens Against a Constitutional Convention, which includes unions, environmentalists, trial lawyers and abortion rights advocates, has begun running 30-second television commercials around the state. PRODUCER &#8212; Joe Slade White &amp; Co. ON THE SCREEN &#8212; Two balding, overweight men, one holding a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1997-cycle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1032,"href":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newyork.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}