Steve Poizner (R-Calif.) buys his way onto the NYT bestseller list

[Newsjock]

Source: Capitol Weekly

In early April, Matthew Donnellan received a copy of Steve Poizner’s new memoir, “Mount Pleasant,” in the mail from Amazon.com. But the San Diego area college student, who is active in local Republican clubs, said he never ordered the book.

“I wasn’t too sure if the book came in as a joke from a friend who was a Whitman supporter or as a gift from a friend who is a Poizner supporter,” Donnellan said.

But Donnellan also noticed that his name and address were listed not only as the recipient but as the buyer on the invoice. Wanting to make sure his credit card number hadn’t been stolen, he called Amazon. The Amazon representative he reached told him the book was purchased with a gift card — and that card had also been used to buy copies of “Mount Pleasant” for 249 other people, all of whom had first names that began with “M.”

... When the New York Times released their bestseller list on April 10, “Mount Pleasant” ranked a lofty No. 5. When the Times updated that list on April 15, it had dropped to No. 33. By April 23, it was off the list.

This quick rise and fall, an unusual trajectory for the list, led to speculation that Poizner or his gubernatorial campaign bought up enough copies to boost the book, briefly, to the highest echelons of literary success. The idea is that adding “bestselling author” to Poizner’s long list of accomplishments would garner positive press coverage as he tries to come back from a 28 point deficit in this race for the Republican nomination for governor against former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

Read more: http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?xid=ysyfbxbaesxv63

[virgogal]

1. Hate to say it,but this has probably been done before and will be done again.

[Tempest]

Palin did it with her book

Her PAC spent $63,000 on her book.

[Mz Pip]

2. Poizner has no chance.

And if he managed to squeak by Buy It Now Meg in the primaries he'll have alienated any moderates in the state by his hard turn to the right.

He used to be pro-choice, now not so much.
He used to be pro-gay rights, now not so much.


Go Jerry Brown!

[Tempest]

3. Poizner's flip flops isn't getting him any support

I live in highly conservative Kern County and he's doing poorly here. Conservatives see him as a RINO and are not buying his new found conservatism.

[izzybeans]

4. With a gift card?

Is this a way to shirk FEC or Congressional rules? Tax evasion?

If you are going to purchase books in bulk, why not directly?

[Wilber_Stool]

5. They put what they

call a"dagger" symbol by the book if it has any bulk orders. Maybe it's a way to avoid the symbol.

[izzybeans]

7. That makes sense.

So they buy them in the name of their mailing list.

Good call.

[Semi_subversive]

6. Please stop picking on poor widdle Stevie

I can't wait until the June primary is over and he is completely out of the picture. I'm assuming he will do a Palin and immediately bail as Insurance Commissioner and go off and sulk. I work for the Department of Insurance and would like to it return to something closer to normalcy. It's been a constant barrage of public record's act requests by opponents and the media and the info my staff have to provide winds up in Meg Whitman ads, except they skew whatever info we provided to suit their needs and lies.

BTW, I received an email from a relative back in 2006 who was in his frat at Texas. They were announcing that he had been elected Insurance Commissioner and thought it strange he ran a a repub since, in college, he was a Jimmy Carter Democrat.

[CreekDog]

8. I couldn't figure out why anybody would be interested enough in his book to make it a bestseller

and now I have an explanation.

[SoCalDem]

9. Since the Best seller list is being "used" for political advertiosing,

they should just change the way they report on books.

Bulk buys should not count. All the major booksellers are well into the computer-age, so there should be no problem figuring out how many actual books were purchased by actual individuals.

Astroturf-style book buys from the "authors"-agents-organizations should be excluded.

or maybe even a special list only for politicians is warranted.