GM’s new celebrity spokesperson

September 29, 2006

I know GM has been having a rough time of it lately, but to stoop to hiring Sean Hannity is just low.

To stimulate consumer interest in its line of American-built cars, General Motors has turned to radio and Sean Hannity. Beginning Sept. 25, Hannity will serve as the spokesperson for GM’s You’re A Great American Car Give-Away, offering radio listeners the chance to pick and win one of five GM vehicles. […]

GM’s multiplatform campaign combines Hannity’s syndicated radio show broadcast on more than 500 radio stations, including 50 in the top 50 markets, with his Web site, where listeners will be directed to register their names. During his radio show, Hannity will announce one contestant’s name per hour. Listeners will have until 6 a.m. the next morning to send Hannity an email to confirm they’ve heard their name read on the air. The contest runs for five weeks through Nov. 6, when the final car is given away.

Great, Hannity not only gets a lucrative GM contract, his radio show gets a boost right up through the day before the election.

As TP noted, the beleaguered company couldn’t have picked a worse choice to put a patriotic spin on their cars.

Hannity has a long history of divisive remarks and has repeatedly questioned the patriotism of his political opponents:

* Hannity said a Democratic victory in the midterm elections could be a “victory for the terrorists”

* Hannity said that “making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn’t become the [House] speaker” is “worth…dying for.”

* Hannity defended Ann Coulter’;s attack on the widows of 9/11 victims, whom Coulter described as “broads” who were “enjoying their husbands’ deaths.”

* Hannity compared voting for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) to voting for terrorist groups Hamas or Hezbollah.

This is the man GM wants as their spokesperson? Why, was Coulter too expensive?

TP is encouraging readers to contact the company to express public concern for the move. Sounds like a good idea to me.

I can hear it now… “Buy a Ford and you’re a terrorist!”

I hope my Chevy doesn’t puke up a connecting rod when it hears about this.

  • I guess GM is changing some of it’s advertising slogans:

    Instead of “Like a Rock” it’ll be “Like a Crock”

    Instead of “See the USA … in your Chevrolet” it’ll be “Screw the USA … in your Chevrolet”

    Being from the (formerly) proud state of Michigan, I am truly ashamed of the right-ward lurching being pursued by those that hold us in their sway. Dick(head) DeVos will truly land us in the American Taliban nightmare if he should somehow be declared the winner as governor on November 7. With the two main state papers (the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News), and most of the larger city papers (for example, the Flint Journal and the Lansing State Journal) now solidly in the radical conservative category, there isn’t much hope of getting accurate and unbiased news — let alone progressive opinions — in the papers. Talk about voting against our economic interests. It is a crying shame.

  • My comment has no political content, but for what it’s worth: I imagine the ambiguity in You’re A Great American Car Give-Away is deliberate, but it’s also pretty damn stupid. I hope it doesn’t catch on, or we may see new ads for You’re a great mom brand diapers, No, you don’t look fat at all brand candy bars, and Wow, you’re great in bed generic brand Viagra.

  • It’s a conspiracy to get Progressives to openly advocate the purchase of foreign-made cars (for the milage, of course) and then slam them as being un-American.

    Well, this may be my last Saturn.

  • So they get to pick from five cars? Hmmmm…Suburban, Tahoe, Silverado P/U, H3? How does one choose? I think they should use the Hannidate love connection part of the promotion too. They pick one person of each gender off the Hannidate site and then contestants of teh opposite gender see if they can stay in teh same ropom withthem for 1 hour without puking, hitting the Hannitader or trying to harm themselves. If you can deal with the level of stupid you get a free car!

    What teh hell is next? Joe Lieberman for Winchester Rifles? “Take it from Joe a Winchester will take out a terrorist!”

  • GM is coming out with a slew of commercials using John Kitten Mellencamp. They’ve timed the commercials to the release of his single that is being manipulated to go to #1.
    GM and “Kitten” will be working together to push a certain monster SUV down everyone’s throats.

    I believe the kick ass slogan is: Your Country. Your Truck.

    So it is no surprise to me that they would hire Hannity.

    Still it surprises me that the slogan isn’t:

    Your Country. Your Truck. Your right to fuck the atmosphere.

  • GM is brilliant

    come next year when Toyota knocks them from the #1 automaker in the world they can blame Hannity …….

    Nothing like alienating 50 percent of the market GM…..

    I hear Coulter is going to shill for FORD next…..

  • Any chance that GM ever had of getting my business (and before today it was pretty good) just evaporated.

  • Well, if “making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn’t become the [House] speaker” is “worth…dying for”, then let’s hope he’s only the spokesman until, oh, about November 7th…

  • Given GM’s perfect record over the past thirty years in misjudging every single twist and turn in the car industry, I consider this a good sign for the left.

  • Hey, GM makes mostly SUVs now and they don’t want to change. You have to be dumb to buy one. Who has a bigger dumb constituency than Hannity? Bush, maybe, but they’re mostly the same people and Bush is too expensive right now. Maybe after he’s convicted…

  • I think Dodge would have been a better choice since that’s what Hannity tends to do with the truth.

  • #11, BC, has it exactly right.

    No more “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country,” that’s for damn sure.

    I haven’t bought a GM product in 40 years, and this pretty much insures no such purchases in the 25-30 I have left.

  • So—you’re saying that I can get a chance to win a free GM vehicle by listening to Sean “the Yawn” Hannity—or settle on buying something, if I don’t listen to him?

    Say hello to my Volvo, Sean!

  • Well, I was considering a large Chevy pick-up to replace my beloved S-10 that was wrecked. Not any more … I’m off this weekend to the Ford dealer.

  • I guess this means GM believes that only idiots and dittoheads would think of buying their cars, since they’ve just written off everybody else.

  • Politics aside, why is everyone here set on this being a “dumb” move by GM? Alienating 50% of consumers? Are you serious? This is a targeted marketing campaign towards Hannity’s conservative audience of 10 million or so. Ten million people whom Hannity has market influence over! Ok, consider Hannity’s relatively small liberal audience. How many of THAT group will refuse to purchase GM vehicles in the future because of Sean’s involvement? Maybe 0.000000001%. I bet I could assign a much higher percentage to the number of people who will be turned on to GM because of this. And that’s the point. That’s precisely why businesses regularly pay Hannity and other radio personalities alike to personally speak on behalf of there products. I would guess they do this because IT WORKS.

  • Humm, Looks like Lefty Liberal Land here! Chevy never had a chance with you Volvo, Volkswagen, Honda driving, tree-hugging, rainbow hair colored freaks anyway. Like you people needed a reason not to drive Chevrolet. Go peddle your anti-right, anti-GOP crap elsewhere, were are talking cars…free cars.

  • DO YOU NOT HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO DO??? REMEMBER ONE THING,, BUSH IS CLEANING UP CLINTON’S MESS. IT IS SO EASY TO BLAME THE RESIDUAL EFFECTS OF CLINTONS REIGN ISN’T IT!!!

    OBVIOUSLY THESE CAR COMPANIES KNOW WHO AMERICA WILL TAKE SERIOUSLY AND WHO NOT TO PROMOTE THIER PRODUCTS.

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