by Frank James
Former Democratic U.S. Congressman Joseph Kennedy III has gotten a lot of attention, much of it negative, for his ads praising Venezuela for providing low-priced heating oil to Kennedy’s company, Citizens Energy, which provides low-cost fuel to hard-hit low income Americans.
Last year, when he ran the first ads lauding Venezuela and Citgo, the nationally owned oil company, Kennedy ran into a conservative buzzsaw and he was criticized for acts tantamount to treason for aiding and abetting an enemy of the Bush Administration, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, a big fan of Cuba’s maximum leader Fidel Castro and a man of whom it can be fairly said doesn’t embody the best notions of democratic leadership.
Such hardline conservative feelings may be impossible to change. But ads running now that are similar to those that ran last year can evidently have an effect on the persuadable, which appears to be what is shown by a new study of 404 people, including self-described Democrats, Republicans and Independents, who were surveyed over the Internet by HCD Research Inc, using its MediaCurves.com technology.
What HCD found was that the ads with Kennedy do appear to win over some viewers who see Venezuela in a more positive light after viewing the ad than they did before. Of course, that is exactly the impact Venezuela means for the ads to have. For instance, when asked if they believed that Venezuela was an ally of the U.S., the percentage went from 10 percent who answered yes beforehand to 26 percent answering yes after seeing the ad.
It’s worth noting that the percentage who said no was 47 percent both before and after the ad.
Asked if they thought Chavez was sincerely interested in helping low-income Americans, the percentage of those saying yes rose too, rising to 29 percent from 13 percent.
So the ad seems to work to some degree, although it didn’t come close to erasing Chavez’s high negatives with many if not most of those who viewed the ad.