Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) became known during the 2008 presidential campaign for his affability, a guy willing to leaven his conservative politics with a quality joke or two, putting him into sharp relief against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on both fronts. Huckabee parlayed that likability into a TV show on Fox News, and, more recently, into acting as a paid spokesperson.
The Times drew attention to one gig Huckabee accepted: promoting dubious informational packets on how to "reverse diabetes." You can view the spot at a Web site maintained by Barton Publishing. "I used the same techniques" as those in Barton's materials, he says, "to lose 110 pounds of fat, get my own blood sugar under control, and completely reverse my type 2 diabetes."
Huckabee is not the first former presidential candidate to shill for an iffy product; and neither is this the first iffy product for which Huckabee has shilled. (Earlier this year, his email list plugged a cure for cancer based on the Bible.) But it may be the worst combination of high-profile and low-quality that American politics has seen.
And we say that after actually having done the research to back it up. Here are other politicians' ads, ranked on a scale of 1 to 10 on two metrics: The questionability of the product and the level of recognition of the spokesman. Huckabee's diabetes system gets an 9 on questionability and a 7 on recognition, for a score of 15. As you'll see, that's the high.
see more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/03/16/the-long-dorky-history-of-politicians-shilling-for-products/
No comments:
Post a Comment