You know what their excuse will be, of course. “We never meant to imply this was a real Wisconsin teacher. We meant for her to be SYMBOLIC of all those excellent Wisconsin teachers who now are being forced to be paid exactly the same as horrible teachers because of the EVIL TEACHERS’ UNION.”

You will logically ask “Why not, then, simply speak in generalities? Why show stock footage of an actress playing a teacher and say ‘SHE has reason to leave Wisconsin,’ rather than just saying ‘Wisconsin’s best teachers have reason to want to leave’?” To which they’ll answer “Because we’re smart, slick PR people, and we know that reducing our message to what looks like a personal story about ONE wonderful teacher will tug more at the heart than speaking in generalities about a bunch of faceless teachers out there.”

Because that’s why they did it, you know. This is their version of the trick Ronald Reagan used to use: Tell personal stories about individuals, and they’ll catapult the propaganda much more effectively. Even if the person you tell them about doesn’t even exist in real life. And he was right. Don’t we all remember the nonexistent welfare queen driving around in her Cadillac?

That’s what the RSLC is banking on here. You’ll never remember a statistic about a bunch of good teachers who are supposedly getting paid only as much as bad teachers, but you will remember poor dedicated Susie Stockfootage who wants to take her talents to some right-to-work state because she just can’t stand the unfairness of the mean old Wisconsin teachers’ union anymore.