City Council president Joan Shannon is crying foul over a television campaign attack ad that targets, quite literally, Mayor Miro Weinberger, a fellow Democrat.
Greg Guma, an independent candidate who considers himself a peace activist, has been running on WPTZ an ad, produced by his son, that criticizes Weinberger as being overzealous about developing Burlington.
In an email to reporters Friday afternoon, Shannon described Guma’s claims as “absurd and inaccurate,” but she said she was particularly offended by a still image (pictured above) of Weinberger with a target on his face. A gunshot goes off as the video cuts to a view of the city, and a menacing voiceover states, “Development Mayor Weinberger is putting a target on the entire city for speculators, corporate vultures and chains only interested in profits.”
Shannon wrote in her email, “I urge Greg Guma to stop airing the ad immediately, so we can go back to the kind of honest, fair, civil debate that Burlingtonians expect from their politicians. Debating the issues and visions for Burlington is an appropriate debate to engage in. Putting a target on anyone’s head followed by the sound of a shot is something we all should be speaking up against, no matter our views on the mayor or development.”
Guma pulled the ad from YouTube, saying the Burlington Free Press contacted him over copyright concerns regarding a photo he used. He said he was considering removing the target image from the ad altogether.
The target superimposed on Weinberger’s face is the logo for the Target retail chain. It’s a reference, Guma explained, to investor Don Sinex’s suggestion that he’d like to bring a Target to the Burlington Town Center mall as part of a $200 million redevelopment project.
Before he pulled the ad, Guma defended it to Seven Days, saying, “It is a humorous ad that uses images that are exaggerated to make a serious point.” As for that gunshot? Guma dismissed it as one of multiple special effects featured in the short video. “There’s the bulldozer special effect, there are birds tweeting. It is one special effect.”
“If Miro feels threatened by that certainly he could tell me that,” Guma added.
No word on whether he’s threatened, but the mayor — like Shannon — did not find it funny. Asked to comment, his campaign manager Jen Kaulius responded, “Mr. Guma’s ad is offensive and inappropriate and has no place in our community.”
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Politicians in Vermont have to be a little thicker skinned. If your going to run with the big dogs, you can’t pee like a puppy. Every time someone outside their circle challenges the status quo, they cry foul.
Mayor Miro spending tax payers time doing corporate and upscale private developers business these last two years are quite offensive!
It was a stupid thing to do when Sarah Palin did it and it is even more so when a progressive runs a threateningly negative spot like that in an election. Guma regularly tries to grab some of the Bernie “glow” but I can’t remember Bernie ever running a negative ad.
Burlington deserves better.
This stupid classless ad posted so early in the process confirms my thinking that my dog will be mayor before Mr. Guma. Move along, your 15 minutes is up.
Well, Miro and Joan. Your empty pretentious moral displeasure over a shoestring budget clumsy ad seems that it might have been better utilized serving justice and decency if you’d expressed it when the BPD was imposing real violence on demonstrators in front of the Hilton a few summers back. Or how about the mind-numbing, morally obscene violence on behalf of empire that will be unleashed on the world’s people by the F-35 that you both proudly support………….your consistent sychophantic service to the 1% makes us all proud
If everyone finds the depiction of the current mayor as a corporate whore instead of a representative of the citizens of Burlington, offensive, then maybe you should think about who it is you are supporting. Time for the two party system to go!
Well Albert Petrarca, in trying to de-code your post it sounds like you’re suggesting that an ad with a target over Mayor Miro’s face with a gunshot in the background is simply payback for the BPD incident (90 days after Miro was in office — and the protesters were not just hanging out, they refused to listen to the police commands to clear the area and actually incited the police to go into defense mode) along with the Mayors public support of the F-35’s coming to BTV. BTW, you can like or not like any Mayoral support of the F-35’s but in reality, the Mayor’s support (or not) is symbolic. The F-35’s are coming. Deal with it. But don’t suggest the ad is simply stupid while seemingly suggesting it’s adequate payback. Like I said before (and it is much ado about nothing), Guma is not going to be Mayor and if anything, he & Mr. Ploof will pull votes from Mr. Goodkind, the only possible challenger to Miro, thus ensuring Miro another term. That’s reality and so it goes.
I never once suggested Mr. Guma’s ad was “payback”. I was simply highlighting the profound lapse of moral consistency in either Miro or Joan Shannon. You created this “payback” strawman so that you could avoid the fact that both these Democratic Party “leaders” are morally vapid when it comes to really confronting power whether that’s the domestic security forces or the national perpetual war state………….don’t be so sure the F-35 is a done deal.
it’s a dumb thing for any candidate to do.
self-defeating.
oh, well.