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Government & Politics

Political Notes

As Super Bowl Sunday approaches, Americans are gearing up for the big game and all the clever ads, which companies pay a fortune to air knowing that the audience will be huge.

Anheuser-Busch will tout its work providing clean water to communities in need. Super-model Cindy Crawford will reprise an iconic ad for Pepsi that aired during the 1992 Super Bowl. Amazon CEO will be appearing in an ad for his booming company for the very first time.

And you want star power? Danny DeVito will be appearing in a commercial for M&M’s. David Schwimmer will be in a Skittles ad. Bill Hader will be hawking Pringles potato chips. Morgan Freeman is pitching Mountain Dew.

Viewers in Iowa will get a bonus during the Super Bowl telecast: The first ad of the 2020 presidential election cycle, courtesy of Maryland Rep. John K. Delaney (D).

The 30-second spot jokingly warns that Delaney is using a dirty word as he campaigns throughout the Hawkeye State: Bipartisanship. It then shows clips of him uttering the offending word a few different times on the campaign trail.

“It may be a dirty word in Washington, but it seems to be awfully refreshing in Iowa,” a narrator says as the ad concludes.

Delaney told the Des Moines Register that his campaign is spending about $1 million to air the ad in four Iowa media markets over a four-week period. He added that he plans to hold a total of 400-500 events in the state by January 2019.

Sinema Vérité

Speaking of Maryland and national political races, a group of politically-connected Marylanders hosted a Capitol Hill fundraiser earlier this week for U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who is running for the U.S. Senate.

Sinema

U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema

Among those on the host list were former Anne Arundel County Councilman Jamie Benoit (D) and the three principals of the Annapolis lobbying firm, Capitol Strategies – David Carroll, Robert Johnson and Sushant Sidh.

Joining them as hosts were national Democratic operatives Michael Stratton; Al Mosur, a lawyer and lobbyist; Laurie Moskowitz, a senior director for U.S. campaigns at the ONE Campaign; and Steven Rabinowitz, a former Clinton administration official and media strategist. Moskowitz and Rabinowitz are married; Stratton is a mentor of Johnson’s.

The event was held at Barrel, a Capitol Hill whiskey bar.

Sinema is running for the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R). Arizona Republicans have three well-known candidates competing for the nomination. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the Arizona race as a tossup.

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Political Notes