When fans gathered for the 102nd rose bowl in Pasadena they were ready for several hours of prime time football. The event was a sell out – the 95,000 seat stadium was packed ready for the Stanford - Iowa showdown.
A huge crew of journalists and reporters were there too, providing live TV coverage on ESPN to an audience off millions. The TV cameras, however, were heavily outnumbered by the huge array of students’ smartphones, so when skywriting aircraft hired by Millionaire Stan Pate took to the sky there were plenty of cameras focused on his work. And while the game may well have been the main focus of the afternoon, the skywriting was the non-game hit of the day – leaving huge anti–Trump messages in the sky that were immediately shared on social networks by watching cameras below.
Although Pate is a Republican supporter, having donated more than once to Rubio’s campaign, he really, REALLY dislikes Trump – which is why he funded the sign writing campaign that went viral on social media. “Quite frankly, if it was Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton, I would vote for Secretary Clinton,” he told the Breitbart news network. “I will accept anybody but Trump.”
Flush from his success at the Rose Bowl, he booked the same planes to appear at the NCAA football finals match between Clemson and Arizona, hoping for an even bigger social media uptake. Unfortunately for Pate, (who is only a millionaire, not a billionaire) he was outgunned this time and had the plug pulled on his campaign.
Pate told reporters that just hours before his campaign was due to start he was advised that one of AirSign’s largest clients had threatened to pull their contract with the skywriting company if they continued with the anti-Trump mission. Pate told Breitbart News that he was informed
GEICO was behind the threat to the company.
GEICO is a major user of AirSign’s services. Pate also theorized that Warren Buffet, a keen Clinton supporter, wanted Trump to win the GOP nomination. His contention is that a Republican partly lead by The Donald will be an easy target to beat for the Democrats.
This, it seems, is the end of the line for the skywriting campaign that Pate had planned to take to the Super Bowl.
It’s not a speed bump, it’s dead,” he told the team at Breitbart. But he has more anti-Trump plans "You’ll see it,” he said. “I’m involved and I’m going to stay involved.”
(Bloomberg)
