The Super Bowl was no different: to the surprise of anyone consumed by anticipation of the Tim Tebow abortion ad, CBS's DC feed carried a political ad criticizing U.S. debt, featuring American children pledging allegiance to the Chinese government.
If the Tebow ad was demurely apolitical, this ad was anything but.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/02/the-other-political-super-bowl-ad/35519/
It was run by the Employment Policies Institute, a Rick Berman endeavor that seeks to influence the discussion of economic and employment policies. It's part of Berman's pro-business issue advocacy network that has produced ads against the Employee Free Choice Act and health care reform.
EPI says it spent over $100,000 to air the ad in DC during the Super Bowl. The ad had aired before Sunday, and it's part of a multimillion-dollar effort aimed at pointing out how much America owes, centralized at the website DefeattheDebt.com. The Defeat the Debt initiative has brought a billboard to Times Square, and bedraggled Uncle Sam posers begging for $12 trillion to the streets of New York, DC, and Boston (EPI says it dispatches about 15 at a time).
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/02/the-other-political-super-bowl-ad/35519/
