Timing of the ads: Is this a dirty trick?

I decided to run the ads to get the information out in front of the American public so they can make an informed decision.

Unfortunately, by the time I finished analyzing the RAND conflict, the press had "moved on" to other stories and viewed the RAND story as "we already covered that."

The obfuscation from the RAND PR office and CEO has lasted long enough. Even the very bright editorial writer from the Washington Post (she was the most knowledgeable writer I spoke with) was fooled by the Republican attack on the latest RAND report.

If I had gotten any traction from the press, I wouldn't have done this. But everyone seemed to think this was too complicated to prove and that they had "covered it already."

• See details in the press section below. I found this "lack of interest" pretty hard to believe. But if you ask anyone in the working press or PR agency, they'll explain it to you (or see below).

Bush has known the gains are unrealistic for a long time

• He knew he was going to get nailed on his record sooner or later. 

The NAEP test data has been publicly available since 1999

• Plenty of time for Bush to analyze it and it and prepare his defense

Prominent Bush supporters have known about this since November 2

• Very prominent Bush supporters were e-mailed the contents of the ad on Nov 2.
• None of them pointed out any factual or other errors in the content of the message.
• The reason for the delay (vs. the press notification) is that it took me a while to draft an argument that was compelling and short that was suitable for a mass e-mail. I went through about 30 drafts. I pulled one all-nighter in that period because time was so short. I wanted the e-mail to get out sooner because the sooner the e-mail went out, the more people it would propagate to.

The press has known about this since October 29

• I e-mailed the results of the analysis to reporters for the Wall St. Journal and New York Times on Sunday, October 29. They looked at it, but didn't act on it. I also contacted other press, CNN, ABC News, etc. The general response was either: (a) I'm too busy to work on this, (b) we've already run 2 stories on the RAND report, and (c) it's too complicated a story to explain to people (say vs. DUI conviction). 
• I e-mailed all the press in my address book on November 2. 
• I called CNN and they said to just e-mail it public.information@turner.com which I did. My high school friend who anchors the news there was too busy to return my calls.
• I've been calling around to everyone I know to try to get them to cover the story. No takers. The best I got was an editorial writer at the Washington Post who really knew her stuff and listened to me. And an editor at ABC News.com who I sent the info to on November 3.

All of this stuff has been publicly available to anyone on my website since October 25

• I've been constantly updating my website. It's publicly available for anyone to view.

RAND has known about this since November 3

• I e-mailed the CEO and the PR contact on November 3 with my analysis asking them to make it clear to the public about the conflict between the reports.
• They replied by pointing to the letter in the LA Times from the RAND CEO. 
• By continuing to obfuscate the issue, they are being partisan. They are hiding material data from the American public. The facts are unambiguous: if you look at the NAEP data starting from 1994 onwards,  Texas has shown no improvement relative to the rest of the country. Both reports authors confirm that. The reason the earlier report showed gains is that the gains happened prior to 1994 and the earlier report said there were gains in the period from 1990 to 1996. This fits the facts and there is no other explanation that does.

Steve Kirsch Political Home Page