Audio By Carbonatix
The federal government is dropping some serious coin on a Super Bowl ad, and John McCain doesn’t like it.
The ad, which stresses the importance of participating in the U.S. Census and encourages people to mail in their census form, is costing the U.S. Census Bureau about $2.5 million. McCain thinks that’s a waste of money.
“While the census is very important to AZ, we shouldn’t be wasting $2.5 million taxpayer dollars to compete with ads for Doritos!” McCain “tweeted” yesterday.
The $2.5 million buys the Census Bureau a single, 30-second ad on CBS
during the NFL’s season-ending showdown Sunday between the Indianapolis Colts
and the New Orleans Saints.
The feds are using Christopher Guest of Spinal Tap fame to direct the 30-second spot, which will feature actor Ed Begley Jr.
The $2.5 million for a Super Bowl ad is just a fraction of what the
federal government plans to shell out to promote the national head-count.
Between January and May, the Census Bureau plans to spend $133 million
to promote the 10-question census form.
It may be all for naught, however. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center finds that only one in five people plans on participating in the census this year. Many of those who said they would not participate cited a distrust of the federal government as the reason why. When the feds are still using the term “Negro” on the census form, we can’t really blame them.
