Anti-Gun - Bribe the Senate - (2013) 2:00 (USA)

Fun fact, the United States is a republic, not a democracy. Accurately defined, a democracy is a form of government in which the people decide policy matters directly, though referendums for example. Like Sweden. Where the population voted against driving on the right hand side of the road at least four times, until the politicians said sod it, we're switching to right hand traffic anyway in 1967. See, true democracy isn't all that easy, people keep voting wrong. ;) A republic is a system in which the people choose representatives who then in turn make policy decisions for them.

I guess that's why a group of creatives at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners came up with a personal project hoping to influence the senate to at least discuss gun reform. And they're all ad agency finger on the pulse trendy people, so of course their solution called "Bribe the Senate" is an indiegogo crowdsourcing project. How hilarious! But wait... There's a (faked?) snag. Seems you can't crowdsource a big fat bribe any ol' way these days. You have to build a PAC, silly.

The Goodby Silverstein and Partners creatives Jacob Sempler, Andrew Livingston, Simon Bruyn and Emil Tiismann spoke to Adweek about their idea, where they say they were (honest) seriously intending to fundraise bribes via IndieGogo. But those killjoy lawyers informed them it was oh-so-illegal, so instead they quip clever soundbytes like this to the press:

"Please don't send us to jail for this. We'd hate to have to share a cell with a mentally ill killer who bought his murder weapon at a gun show without a background check." ~Emil Tiismann

Now the plan is to flood twitter with #bribethesenate hashtags and tweets sent directly to six senators who could swing the vote. To quote the team:

"The mission On July 26th, one hundred days after the Senate voted to keep background checks from even being discussed, we're making sure the issue gets to the floor. This time, the lobbyists will have America to contend with - assuming our lawyer peeps give us the green light on bribing the Senate."

As an aside... I wonder how much they had to bribe IndieGoGo to set up that fundraising page they were so very clearly never going to actually use.

Creatives: Jacob Sempler, Andrew Livingston, Simon Bruyn and Emil Tiismann
NOT a Goodby Silverstein & Partners project.. They just work there.