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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

The Orchestrated Campaign to Shut Down Glenn Beck

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  August 14th, 2009 at 09:50 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The New York Times is now covering the boycott against Glenn Beck.

ABOUT a dozen companies have withdrawn their commercials from “Glenn Beck,” the Fox News Channel program, after Glenn Beck, the person, said late last month that President Obama was a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

This left wing campaign is being orchestrated by a group started by Obama’s Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones.

If they are successful, they will move beyond Beck to others.

Two of the companies, GEICO and Progressive, are run by liberals. But that’s not the case with all the others.

The best response is to remind all of these companies that there will be repercussions from our side if they are so willing to become pawns of the left.

SC Johnson:
Fisk Johnson Chairman & CEO
Phone: (262)260-2000

Petrell Ozbay
Senior Global Public Affairs Manager
Phone: (262) 260-2114

Progressive Insurance:
Glenn Renwick, President & CEO- (440)461-5000

Linda Harris, Advertising & Sponsorships
Linda_J._Harris@progressive.com

Geico:
Tony Nicely
Chairman, President & CEO, Insurance Operations
E-mail: tnicely@geico.com
(301) 986-2462

Chris Tasher, GEICO Media Relations
301-986-3271
ctasher@geico.com

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COMMENTS

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  • http://www.scottbomb.com scottbomb

    One that you know is NOT run by leftists? I really hate to drop Progressive because I have an excellent rate but it’s time to look elsewhere.

  • williemcbride

    As I’m reading the the “Non-Existent Provision” dairy…what catches my eye above the Red State banner? An ad for Progressive Insurance…

  • http://barnettlaw.org Frozen_Man

    can create a petition that could then be circulated to these companies so that they have the numbers of those of us who will remember their actions if they bow to the left.

  • mustango

    check out Infinity Insurance. I know the people who run it and they’re a very family-values company. They also run standard-auto Hillstar Insurance in California.

  • http://www.twitter.com/djdigdoug djdigdoug

    This happens all the time in this country, it’s nothing new. When someone in the public eye (media, personality, comedian, athlete) says or does something stupid, they pay the consequences in lost sponsorship money, etc. Let’s see… Don Imus, Kobe Bryant, Michael Phelps, Opie and Anthony… THe list could go on and on.

    Suddenly this is a big deal and a bigger conspiracy just because it’s Glenn Beck? C’mon! Give me a break.

  • Jon E. Schultz II

    …is based in my county here in Wisconsin. They are definitely run by a bunch of liberals. They very much have their own political agenda in the city and county of Racine.

    So this is not particularly surprising.

    - Jon

  • antisocial

    That will help…. I don’t read nytimes at all.

  • johnt

    Maybe if we scoured the toilet long enough we could get a little something on Keith Olbermann, just for starters.
    What makes it a big deal is the thug in the White House, who has spent a fair amount of time slobbering about particular, named, conservative commentators, thin skinned babe that he is.

    What makes it a bigger deal is that people, including executives in business, know that the thug plays for real and for keeps. The thug could in a moment do one of those Voltaire bits and call off his mini-thugs. He could even imitate the “fascist” Bush, Or BusHitler as he was known. But as of January dissent is no longer patriotic,[haven’t you noticed?} and free speech is not quite as important.

    Unless you are a black thug outside a polling place, armed and intimidating potential voters.
    Maybe you should give us a break.

  • janis

    in your eyes? That he is a racist who hates white people? Give me an example that refutes that notion, if you don’t mind.

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    …coupled with the mailed fist of government bullying (and we haven’t yet seen the DOJ and IRS let loose, but everyone knows they’re in the background waiting to be sent in to send a message), which is what is happening here, given how the administration’s usuption of power to date (firing CEOs, taking government control of private industry, rewarding friends, threatening opponents).

    It’s a quantum difference between loud non-governmental forces sitrring the pot and the government stirring the pot. The latter is an clear and present threat to our freedoms, the former is just a swing of the pendulum.

    Using the street tactics of political dissent when you’re in charge of the government is the fast track to tyranny.

  • Tbone

    He’s so small, even a caveman can do it.

  • JadedByPolitics

    http://supportglennbeck.com/

  • erp

    Beck should just begin each program with a list of the companies that are boycotting him and tell people contact information is available on his website.

    That should do it.

    Worked with AARP, they did a180 when their secret deal with Obama became public and people started canceling their memberships in droves.

  • djemi

    Also see

    http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/08/14/congressman-ive-got-facts-on-my-side-youve-got-glenn-beck/

  • streetwise

    http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

    NYSE ticker BRKA

  • streetwise

    http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

    NYSE ticker BRKA

  • http://www.lloydsgames.net LloydsGames

    Dear Sirs,

    It has come to my attention that your company has chosen to withdraw advertising from the Glen Beck television show on Fox News under pressure from a group called ?Color of Change?, founded by self-described communist Van Jones, who is now the so-called ?green jobs? czar in the Obama administration. Mr. Beck had recently done several exposes on Mr. Jones and, like millions of Americans is critical of the direction the Obama administration is taking this country.

    Mr. Beck?s recent comment about how he perceives the President?s attitude on race is sensational, to be sure, but when you consider the President?s past and current associations, 20 years as a member of a racist church, his choice for the Supreme Court, his comments about his white grandmother, his overzealous reaction to the Lawrence Gates arrest, and the constant implication from his supporters that criticism of him is ?racism?, I happen to agree with Mr. Beck. The President is not the post-racial healer that he was sold as in the campaign.

    Your decision to bow to the will of the President?s political hacks has caused me to re-think my long-time relationship with your company. I will be changing insurance providers as soon as possible and will advise my friends and family (and anyone else who will listen) to do the same.

    Regretfully,

    Lloyd and Tammy Bailey
    Conover, NC
    Policy: 0125XXXXXXX

  • johnt

    Glen should cite Scarface as his free speech example.
    Or maybe the golden years of Air America.

    Thru his representative, Van Jones, race profiteer and government employee, our thug-in-chief extends his tentacles. This is not a boycott, this is a crackdown on speech by the Executive Branch.

    Excuse me, I must listen for the howls of protests from principled liberals, all two or three of them.

  • AHALgal

    I called and let them know I won’t buy their cheese anymore. Period. I do A LOT of catering.

    Yeah Land O Lakes! Here’s their number –
    Sargento: 920-893-8484

    And a ridiculous slanderous quote from their “government affairs” person: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2009/08/14/company-decision-pull-ads-beck-tv-show-we-do-not-want-be-associated-hatef

  • http://www.thepoliticalclass.com The Political Class

    Here is the reply:

    Dear ,

    Thank you for reaching out to us.

    We place advertising on a variety of programming with the goal of reaching a broad range of insurance consumers who might be interested in our products. Because there is so much programming from which to choose and a limited amount of advertising dollars, we choose programs we believe will give us the best opportunity to reach our target audiences in a cost-effective way. We also seek to avoid advertising on programming that our customers or potential customers may find extremely offensive.

    For competitive business reasons, we don?t publicly disclose all of the considerations that drive our specific advertising decisions. I can tell you that The Glenn Beck Program has not been a program which we have targeted for advertising, and that any advertising that has appeared on the show was a result of an error. We are not trying to make a statement about this particular show; it simply is not one on which we have chosen to advertise.

    Thank you again for taking the time to share your views.

    Sincerely,

    Mary O.
    Progressive Internet Representative

  • DavidS1787

    start picketing them! If you do picket please call all the local media ,newspapers, cable TV stations! Make sure you get plenty of coverage!

    Also lets start an online boycott!

  • ciarrai

    Sometimes when you say truly offensive and stupid things long enough, it catches up with you. Weep not, fans of Glenn Beck. You probably deserve better. After all, do you really want be a follower of a guy who got his ass handed to him by the women on the TV show “The View”? He is a wimpy liar who relished creating controversies by lying like a rug with a straight face. Icky!

  • DavidS1787

    N/T

  • Jack_Savage

    “He is a wimpy liar who relished creating controversies by lying like a rug with a straight face. Icky!”
    Barack Obama is gonna be really, really mad at you, buddy.

    Enjoy your end-of-life counseling, which should be arriving any minute.

  • Robert A. Hahn
      Sometimes when you say truly offensive and stupid things long enough, it catches up with you.

    Sometimes very quickly. Blam.

  • Tbone

    5 days of silent stupidity and then a single flash of idiocy.

  • nessa

    Geico called me a while back and asked if I would like a quote saving me money on my auto insurance. I said I had USAA insurance and the guy on the phone said, “Oh, uhm, sorry, we can’t beat them” and hung up.

  • nessa

    nt

  • http://www.the41stvote.org rcov092

    Is the prime financier of Moveon.org and several notches to the left of Joseph Stalin.

  • DavidS1787

    Can call a white policeman stupid for arresting a black professor that was creating a disturbance and say so on national TV but Glenn Beck has no first amendment rights to say what he believes?

  • The_Rebel

    believed that castrating men was humorous and entertaining:

    http://www.menstuff.org/archives/progressive.html

    Apparently that ad didn’t qualify as something that their “customers or potential customers may find extremely offensive”.

  • jjrakman

    Lefty boycott succeeding in getting advertisers to drop Glenn Beck

    http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/14/lefty-boycott-succeeding-in-getting-advertisers-to-drop-glenn-beck/

  • http://theminorityreportblog.com David Hinz

    then it is time that we let those lefty companies know that we are NOW going to boycott them!

    Geico, owned by Warren Buffett?s Berkshire Hathaway; Procter & Gamble; Sargento Cheese; and Progressive Insurance

    All questionable lefty controlled companies — that want to put pressure on Glenn Beck — so WE let them know we will boycott them!

  • GregInFla

    Van the Green czar is paid by you and me. So there should be some FOIA requests going in soon to see his activities for the past week. Any lawyers out there (and Lawyers.com need not apply.)

    Did you hear about the guy who pretended to be a lawyer. They found out he was a liar. And surprisingly, he also was not a lawyer.

  • JX12

    I’ve been with USAA for over 20 years. Absolutely nobody touches them. A few years ago I got the same response from Geico that you got.

    USAA is a complete financial institution, and we have…well, pretty much everything with them. If one qualifies, it’s a smoking deal.

  • OccamsRazor

    Such is life. The world ebbs and flows. It so happens that we are ALL caught up in the stream. Let ‘em play their reindeer games.

    Tomorrow, the sun will rise nonetheless. :)

  • Ausonius

    Check this out from snopes.com:

    http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/youscareme.asp

    “You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O’Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

    You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

    Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.”

  • izoneguy

    Glenn Beck:

    What the Media Refuses to Tell You About Rahm Emanuel

  • ColdWarrior

    Then there’s Jamie Gorelick.

    And Franklin Raines.

    Etc.

    http://www.redstate.com/rod_patrick/2008/09/17/corsis-article-mccain-was-right-since-2005/

    Just plug raines and gorelick into the Redstate search pane and you can read all about it.

    After we retake the House in 2010, we must demand this be investigated and the thieves be sent to jail.

    They cause the meltdown of our financial system and then take home unwarranted gobs of cash on top of it. Disgusting.

    Thank you.

    ColdWarrior

  • DavidS1787

    Sargento Foods Inc.
    One Persnickety Place
    Plymouth, WI 53073

    Barbara Gannon
    Sargento Foods Inc.
    Phone 920-892-3530
    email: barbara.gannon@sargento.com

  • Menlo

    I’ve always been in good hands with them.

    In Texas, I also hear a lot of local radio ads for insurancemakesmesick.com. I don’t know how good they are, but I am fairly certain they are not run by leftists.

  • lewincolorado

    By the way, this appeared July 25, 2009 on American Thinker http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/obamas_a_racist.html It appears to me that Glen?s opinion is shared by more than one of us.

  • DavidS1787

    Please follow the link to their targeted Sponsors

  • DavidS1787

    Color of Change is targeting the following :

    ConAgra (maker of Healthy Choice products), Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, and RadioShack

    Men’s Wearhouse, State Farm and Sargento LexisNexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, SC Johnson and GEICO

  • DavidS1787

    companies gave to last election cycle!

  • citizen1949

    I wrote to SC Johnson yesterday letting them know that I had advised all my friends, removed their products from my home and never intended to buy their stuff again. Julie very cordially replied that not only did they not withdraw advertising from Glenn Beck, they never advertised on his show in the first place. I sent an apology.
    To be certain, this was my fault because I relied on you and failed to vet your information on my own. Nevertheless, I’m sure, Erick, that you’ll understand why I am removing my name from your mailing list. There’s already enough people out there that I can’t trust.

  • citizen1949

    I don’t know about the others, but Men’s Wearhouse, Progressive, Geico stand cheek-by-jowl with George Soros in the line of liberals. Why would they be targeted?

  • DavidS1787

    the change of color……….

  • DavidS1787

    http://colorofchange.org/beck/release-conagra.html

  • penguin2

    I made that call too. And got a little more uncertainty from the customer service rep. As to your question above, of why they would be targeting that group, the Color of Change is a known leftist group and can apply pressure however they choose to. Those corporations will bend because they are on their side and don’t have any backbone to take a stand for freedom of speech.

    Back to your above comment, maybe you aren’t very sincere in being here if in 9days you decided that this site could not be trusted. Why did you decide that the spin a corporation’s PR department may be putting out would have more credibility than the facts reported in the news? And yes, this does affect advertising for Fox News, so take a look there.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    http://www.opensecrets.org/

    You’ll find out a lot about who is in whose pocket, especially when it comes to big business. Then compare that to who is getting bailouts and kickbacks…

    It’s enough to make you guffaw every time you hear a lefty spout off demonizing corporations and CEO pay.

  • http://www.scottbomb.com scottbomb

    I found this out when I applied on their website. Fine with me I guess, considering they’re buddies with the company I’m trying to get away from. Here’s the message I got:

    “USAA auto insurance is not available due to membership eligibility requirements ? but we can still help. USAA General Agency has a 20-year relationship with Progressive Insurance. Call the USAA General Agency’s dedicated number to Progressive listed below ? it’s the number that has been created specifically for you.”

  • robertw

    I wish I had Geico insurance. I would drop it. I will absolutely boycott all of these companies and let them know every chance I get.

  • lwe6576

    Try Travelers. I go through esurance.com to get prices on policies. USAA wanted $809 every 6 months and we’re paying $572 every 6 months with Travelers. For our bikes, we went through Harley-Davidson.

  • roguepolitics

    Is there a good conservative site that has boycott lists with fact checking?

  • roguepolitics

    Is there a good conservative site that has boycott lists with fact checking?

  • mom2oneson

    I never would have seen that without reading your post. :)

  • mschmitt

    The thing to keep in mind is that these businesses have already calculated potential losses of revenue from their reduced exposure plus any possible counter-boycott. They’ve gambled that the crazies at Daily KoS, etc., are more organized and have more buying leverage than you do — it’s nothing personal.

    Personally, I’d like to prove these companies wrong, but not necessarily by proving that we can hurt them (that is pride-worthy only to the Statists — and like I said, it’s nothing personal); but by SUPPORTING, vigorously, companies that advertise on the programs that we watch.

    If both boycotts are highly successful, all that has happened is certain companies have been seriously damaged (do you really think Statists are running to Geico/Progressive or Walmart in droves because they stopped advertising on Beck?). The companies that are hurt are those that the Statists targeted for boycott in the first place — and, I’ll note — the companies that have been targeted so far seem to be the ones that traditionally advertise on conservative channels (eg., Geico) or are traditionally hated by Statists (eg., Walmart).

  • misterh

    So much for free speech!

    Sounds to me like the Left is running scared and views Beck as a mortal threat.

    Mr. H
    http://www.allhands-ondeck.blogspot.com/