Giuseppe Verdi

A few days ago, The Politicker referred to Ellis Verdi, Freddy's new adman, as having had an "abortive cameo" in Hillary Clinton's 2000 race, which isn't quite right, and which is a reminder about not being glib about stuff one doesn't know that much about.

Verdi, who now seems to be one of a few new hands, had more than a cameo on the campaign, producing an ad which got attention Upstate by casting Rick Lazio as an ostrich on the topic of the local economy, accompanied by a guy in an ostrich suit at Lazio events.

The "abortive" reference, though, was to an interesting little fight within the Clinton campaign in which Verdi was on the losing side. As Mike Tomasky writes in his book on the race, Verdi wanted Clinton to address some of the knocks on her, notably "carpetbagger," directly.

He proposed, for example, a spot that showed her policy agenda emerging from a carpetbag.

But Clinton's main media advisors, Mandy Grunwald and Mark Penn, pushed back, and persuaded Clinton to stick with a more traditional media campaign.

"Penn and Grunwald's strategy was not a great hit with the press," Tomasky notes. "But it's the voters who matter."  read more »

Which is to say that we in the press are looking forward to Freddy's next round of ads.

Yesterday's item on adman David Doak's all-but-official departure from the Ferrer campaign prompted a funny pair of responses: firm denials from the campaign that Doak is out, and also a number of tips as to who will replace him.

The likely choice is apparently a respected Madison Avenue guy who dabbles occasionally in politics, Ellis Verdi.

The new faces from the corporate advertising world will be working with Ferrer aide Jonathan Prince, a Clinton administration hand. Prince, according to several Democrats, been Ferrer's point man on the television campaign, and will continue in that role.

Doak's firm had been reduced to serving as the production company, not the usual place of a high-payed media strategist, and has apparently lost interest in playing that role.

Several Democrats suggested that Verdi, who had a role (more to come) in Hillary's Senate run and is close to Prince, will have a hand in producing Ferrer's next round of television spots. Verdi also has a running relationship with the Ferrer consultants over at the Global Strategy Group.  read more »

Ferrer spokeswoman Jen Bluestein emails: "DCO's contract runs through the primary and we're currently talking to them and other firms about how we structure our team to ramp up to beat Mike Bloomberg in November."

So look for an word soon of a new team to "join" Doak on the campaign, and read "replace" for "join."

The setting was Cleveland's vast Public Auditorium; the opera was Verdi's La Forza del Destino ; and  read more »

Isaiah Berlin, in his essay "The Naiveté of Verdi," describes the Italian composer as "the last gre  read more »

That Verdi was the most Shakespearean of composers was no accident.  read more »

Met's Brilliant Young Singers Offer Pleasure-and Hope In all the talk about how to rebuild in the ru  read more »

Classical music lovers do not, as a rule, follow their favorite performers with the obsessive attent  read more »

At New York City Opera a few years ago, there were cries of worry in the always fretful tribe of ope  read more »