Biden Beats Bibi But That’s About It 

Cheer up, Joe. Things could be a lot worse. Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu would die for your polling numbers.

A mere 15 percent of Israelis think Bibi should remain in power, once he declares his rampage in the Gaza Strip over, according to a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute.

Biden tops that pathetic number, albeit just barely. Nearly one-in-five (19 percent) of Americans believe that he should run for another term.

Biden may beat Bibi in the polling game but that’s about it.

Seventy percent of us don’t want Joe to run again. Nearly half (47 percent) of those against Biden running again say he is just too old for another term.

Biden has aged considerably while in office. One sometimes has to do a double take when looking at a photo of the president to make sure that he is the commander-in-chief, and the guy who may lead America into the world of AI.

The 81-year-old president may think that wisdom comes with age. That may be the case but 66 percent of seniors don’t want him on the 2024 ticket, according to the CNBC survey.

There’s still a little time for Biden to do the right thing.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Joe and Jill Biden emerged from Air Force One on Jan. 2, looking like a pair of lobsters. That’s not a good PR look.

The super-sunburned First Couple had just returned from a seven-day vacation in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, where they were hosted by big time Democratic donors Bill and Connie Neville.

The scarlet skin optics are just lousy, especially for a guy who had to have surgery in 2021 to remove multiple non-melanoma skin cancers.

The president may have dodged the bullet two years ago but the American Cancer Society reports that melanoma rates have soared in the US, doubling from 1982 to 2011.

Biden’s age group of 80 years and up experienced the biggest jump in cancer rates.

The president’s crimson face showed he lacked the discipline to at least apply sunblock while basking in the bright and hot Caribbean sun.

It set a poor example. It brought back the message that Melania Trump sent when she wore her infamous “I Really Don’t Care, Do You,” jacket.

She donned that outfit while visiting a detention center on the Texas/Mexico border housing immigrant children who had been separated from their parents.

One hopes Melania hasn’t tossed the jacket. She will get lots of chances to wear it during her husband’s second term in office.

First issue of Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter July 10, 1968 (PDF)

“Young PR gal, $130, two years writing experience in PR dept. of ad agency,” read a job opening in the debut July 10, 1968 issue of Jack O’Dwyer’s Newsletter of Advertising and Public Relations.

Jack also reported that executive recruiter Larry Marshall was preparing an article “about how PR men should be paid.”

The recruiter—surprise, surprise— felt that PR pay levels were too low because “agencies are too interested in gaining accounts, rather than winning budgets that can support good men.”

Many of today’s PR people would agree with Larry, though they would swap out the word “men” with “producers” or “employees.”

The NL also included a social note. Idanna Pucci, a Lida Livingston staffer, was dispatched “to Italy to work on variety of projects (also visiting uncle Emilio).” Did the client know about the excursion to Emilio’s.

O’Dwyer was a right off the bat critic of the hypocrisy in the ad/PR world.

Issue No. 1 reported that the president of an ad agency that just landed a cigarette account sent out letters asking for donations to the American Cancer Society.

That sounds a lot like today’s greenwashing. The more things change, the more they stay the same.