Jon Stewart Reveals Kool Cigarettes as the Source of the GOP’s Minority Outreach Plan

Jon Stewart did the mainstream media’s job, and revealed that GOP minority outreach strategy is the same one that Kool cigarettes used to target African Americans.

Video of Part 1:

The Daily Show host called the RNC autopsy a “one hundred page report to reassure Republicans that they don’t need to change what they are saying, just how they are saying it. Whenever you tell a gay person that their love is too unnatural for society to recognize, smile.” Stewart told America what the GOP’s minority outreach was all about, “Let me break this strategy down, if I may. After pretending minorities didn’t exist proved a loser, the Republican Party has decided to go into these areas and engage person to person, or as it’s known on the streets, talking….There you go. Go into minority neighborhoods, do a little market research, then send paid spokespeople back into those minority neighborhoods with retargeted message. Hey, it worked for Kool cigarettes. Why not for another organization that has seemed indifferent to the overall health of minorities.”

In Part 2 of the segment, Stewart shows how this GOP’s new minority strategy already went off the rails at CPAC.

Stewart was right on about the RNC’s minority marketing strategy. Here is how a Campaign For Tobacco Free Kids report described the tobacco companies marketing to African Americans, “The tobacco industry has also used symbols and events held in high esteem by community members as another tactic to reach this community. For example, in 2004, Brown & Williamson started an ad campaign for their Kool brand cigarettes clearly aimed at youth—and African-American youth, in particular. The Kool Mixx campaign featured images of young rappers, disc jockeys and dancers on cigarette packs and in advertising. The campaign also included radio giveaways with cigarette purchases and a Hip-Hop disc jockey competition in major cities around the country.”

The Republican Party thinks they are going to fix their demographic issues by following the lead of an industry that got people hooked on their dangerous product by lying to them about the health risks of that product. That sounds about right. When your party is in such bad shape that you have to take marketing tips from an industry that professional creates addicts to kill, you’ve got real problems.

As CPAC demonstrated, before the RNC can think about getting minorities hooked on their bad for their health toxins in their party platform they have to not be destroyed by the destructive behavior of their current addicts.

It isn’t a coincidence that the RNC would be inspired by Kool cigarettes, because both smoking and the beliefs of the Republican Party are bad for your health.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association