Courage Campaign Wins Prestigious Pollie Award for "Yatcht Party" Ad

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 1, 2009

LOS ANGELES – The Courage Campaign, a California-based online organizing network with more than 700,000 members, today thanked the American Association of Political Consultants for awarding “Yacht Party” top honors at the 18th Annual “Pollie” Awards Ceremony held Sunday night in Washington, D.C.  The “Pollie” recognizes the best in political and public affairs communications.

“We are pleased that the AAPC recognized our efforts to make California more progressive and governable,” said Rick Jacobs, founder and chair of the Courage Campaign. “But more importantly, we are encouraged that the message of ‘Yacht Party’ reached a broad audience and helped close a tax loophole for wealthy yacht owners.”

The Courage Campaign won a bronze for “Yacht Party” in the “State Government Persuasion” category.  The goal of the ad was to expose the misplaced priorities of Republicans in the California state legislature and pressure them into voting to close a tax loophole that granted a tax exemption for yacht purchases — an action that would have netted the state $26 million, according to the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

While they were willing to vote for billions in cuts that would result in teacher layoffs, closed state parks and beaches, tuition increases, and downsized hospitals, Republicans legislators were withholding their vote — California requires a 2/3rds majority to pass a budget — to keep this tax loophole open. To highlight the GOP’s misplaced priorities, the Courage Campaign launched “Yacht Party” — a 30-second TV ad re-branding California Republicans as the “Yacht Party” for refusing to close a “yacht tax” loophole despite California’s then $16 billion budget deficit.

The ad attracted rave reviews, prompting United Healthcare Workers – West (SEIU-UHW) and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to team up with more than 500 Courage Campaign donors to fund the airing of “Yacht Party” across California, from CNN and MSNBC to “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report.” It also spawned “Yacht Party 2,” a one-minute ad that aired and received over 75,000 online views — at the time a record for online videos related to California politics. (That record was eventually eclipsed by the Courage Campaign’s “Fidelity” video, which now has more than 1 million online views).

The financial support for the “Yacht Party” ad from Speaker Nunez and members of SEIU-UHW catalyzed statewide newspaper coverage, forcing Republican Sam Blakeslee to defend his flip-flopping votes for and against the yacht tax “sloophole”. The yacht tax loophole was finally closed when the budget was eventually passed in September 2008.

“This award is the culmination of a lot of hard work by many people and we are honored to receive this distinguished recognition,” added Jacobs.

The “Pollie” Awards are the national showcase of Political and Public Affairs excellence hosted each year by the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC).

“Yacht Party,” created by Agit Pop Communications, can be viewed at: http://www.couragecampaign.org/success/131/yacht-party-tv-ad-campaign

“Yacht Party 2,” created by SK/AR Media, can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4QARWWmMLg

The complete list of Pollie award winners can be found at http://www.theaapc.org/conferences/pollies/2009/winners/