Celebri-Politicing

December 10, 2007

The campaign fodder this weekend will proabably provide more ink to US Weekly than it will the economist - and there’s already plenty of video of the latest camera-friendly endorsers of various candidates:

30,000 turn out to see Oprah pitch The Audacity of Hope in South Carolina.

The New York Times covers Chelsea Clinton’s turn on the campaign trail in response to Oprah/Obama theatrics.

Curt Schilling brings the heat for John McCain in a new campaign ad.

And Obama goes beyond Oprah and Hollywood - pursues critical Bollywood vote. (Thanks, CM)

Also, Rudy Giuliani got plenty of TV time this morning on Meet The Press:

The only guest on Russert’s “Meet the Press,” Giuliani endured the most exhaustive and at times withering examination of his personal character and business dealings of his campaign.

To the glee of fellow Presidential contenders who’ve grudgingly marvelled at his political staying power, the Republican frontrunner spent nearly all of an hour playing defense, attempting to deflect a flurry of questions about his relationship with indicted pal Bernard Kerik and Kerik’s mistress Judith Regan, controversial corporate clients and his own tangled personal life.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out in the press tomorrow and into next week - Russert did do his best to grill him, but personally I observed two things: 1. Russert isn’t that good at ‘grilling’ anymore and 2. Giuliani wasn’t squirming and did well to answer questions about tough subjects (as opposed to tough questions). My personal favorite was Giuliani straight-up laughing at Russert’s assertion that he ‘worked for Hugo Chavez’ simply because Citgo was a client of his law firm. Ridiculous. Giuliani should have countered that Russert worked for Donald Rumsfeld since NBC is owned by GE who also makes jet engines for the Department of Defense.

No Comments » | Campaign Advertising, Clinton, Giuliani, McCain, Obama | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett

Weekend Wrap

December 3, 2007

Just some links to wrap-up some of the themes that wound their way through the weekend talk shows and wider press.

It’s NYtimes.com’s most-emailed story, so you’ve probably read Frank Rich’s Sunday piece - but the salient theme, that Barack Obama is poised to “upend the beltway storyline,” is important because of how it emerges in other contexts.

For example, Garrett Graff in the Washington Post opines about the importance of technology policy for the next presidency and wonders why we’d want someone in office who can’t “work the machine.” He also mentions this interesting fact: “Part of the problem is simply generational. According to the Senate historian, the Senate is the oldest it has ever been, with an average age of 62 during the 110th Congress.” As I’ve said before, Obama is leading the candidates when it comes to tech. policy and as Andrew Sullivan has made clear, the candidate pundits are really talking about when they talk about generational change is Barack Obama.

This all makes me wonder how helpful it is to be billed as the revolutionary candidate? Perhaps it is in the primaries, but my bet is this ’storyline’ kills any candidate who makes it to the big show.

Meanwhile, plenty of talk about the Republicans going after each other on immigration following last week’s debate and The Wall Street Journal [no link, subscription only] does that debacle justice in today’s editorial while getting in their usual pot-shots:

When not fielding questions from Democratic moles at last week’s GOP Presidential debate, Anderson Cooper and CNN had a grand time portraying Republican voters as Bible-thumping, gun-wielding Confederacy hold-outs. On immigration, however, the candidates didn’t need any media help as they continued their descent into self-parody.

Mitt Romney persisted in attacking Rudy Giuliani for turning New York into a “sanctuary city,” an accusation that even the restrictionist editors at National Review have come around to dismissing as “spurious.” Mr. Giuliani shot back that Mr. Romney ran a “sanctuary mansion” as Governor of Massachusetts, because the landscaping company that maintained the grounds of his home employed illegals. Mr. Romney replied that he couldn’t be expected to verify the immigration status of everyone with a “funny accent.” Normally, you’d have to seek out a high school cafeteria to hear such repartee. Well done, gentlemen.

The GOP exception continues to be John McCain, who is calling for reform that balances stepped up border enforcement with a guest worker program for future labor flows. And Mike Huckabee, who’s been rising in the polls, at least tried to explain to Mr. Romney why it’s inhumane to punish the children of illegal immigrants “for what their parents did.”

Interestingly enough, Mr. Huckabee appears to be the only candidate not going after his opponents. He passed up taking down Rudy for the Hampton Fling Security Detail scandal and didn’t battle back against Romney (who said Huckabee lacked vital private-sector experience) in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC Sunday. However, he did a nice job of subtly attacking Mormons, gays, and women when talking about Romney, Giuliani, and Clinton respectively. Huckabee will charm the pants off of an influential minority of this country and it’s comical that these folks think he is fit to lead the US in the global arena.

 Finally, living within broadcast range of New Hampshire, I can assure you the campaign ads are cranking right now - you can get a good wrap-up and review of most of them at Slate’s Damned Spot. Slate’s review of Joe Biden’s latest campaign is favorable, though it took them long enough - it was apparent from the first debate that this should have been Biden’s strategy all along:

joe-is-right.jpg

No Comments » | Biden, Campaign Advertising, Clinton, Debates, Democrats, Huckabee, Immigration, Obama, Religion, Republicans | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett

“I’m not trying to go back to Reagan-Bush”

October 9, 2007

Finally, a candidate with the guts to resist Reagan:

…or maybe not.

No Comments » | Campaign Advertising, Republicans, Romney | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett

Texting For Voters

September 14, 2007

Follow-up to yesterday’s post on mash-ups, more on democratizing technologies:

 A new study released this week found that young people are more likely to vote by 4.2 percentage points if they receive a text message reminding them to show up to the polls.

The survey found that most of the recipients, and especially Hispanics, found the message helpful — unlike their reaction e-mail. But here’s the result that could be the most compelling to the campaigns: Each additional vote generated by the text message cost an average $1.56.

And this is really valuable, considering candidates have been stumbling to get hip to the Internets and mash-up debates are basically mashless talking-points delivered to Charlie Rose’s demographic:

…While turnout among young adults ages 18-29 is typically 20 to 30 points lower than that of older adults, concentrated efforts to reach this group have shown significantly higher voting rates. With voters ranging in age from 18-31 likely to comprise a quarter of the electorate in 2008, candidates are increasingly trying to reach out to this group, as evidenced by the proliferation of candidate profiles on social networking sites and low-dollar fund-raisers.

The down-side, more Dennis Kucinich debate-infomercials where he constantly chatters about what we should be texting and to whom:

Already, candidates have been SMS-ing all over the place. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich asked us to “text PEACE” for delivery to the Pentagon, and hardly a day goes by when we don’t receive a twitter message from Senator Barack Obama or John Edwards.

You can see the full report, academic jargon and all, here.

No Comments » | Campaign Advertising | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett

ygolohcysp esrever

August 20, 2007

This week, we need to welcome a new player to campaign 08: the double agent. Actually, double agent is an understatement, we already have evidence of agents spinning, flipping and reversing psychology so many times that I’m not sure what the appropriate suffix would be.

 Take Karl Rove for example. Some are speculating that he’s bashing Hillary because he actually wants her to win the primary. The thinking here is that the left will rally around Hillary to defend against the evil turd blossom, push her campaign further left and make her easier to skewer for even the weakest of a Republican candidate (hmm…so many to link to…). That’s at least a double-reverse.

Exhibit B: Gays For Giuliani. The number of spins behind this campaign depend on who you attribute it to, but we can at least chalk it up to a single turn of sarcasm and assume this message was not approved by Rudy Giuliani. Ok, then let’s say a group of gay men from New York are really behind this and are eager to allow their own sexuality to be exploited in the interest of sabotaging their former mayor’s presidential campaign. I suppose we have to consider this a possibility, but realistically:

These are baby turd blossoms taking a page from a playbook with a triple reverse: take down Rudy and remind the Right that homos from New York are actually voting. Get to the polls middle-america!

No Comments » | Campaign Advertising, Giuliani | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett

Electoral Reform

August 11, 2007

This New York Times article highlights a nascent, nationwide movement afoot to reorder the processes through which the president is elected. As dull as electoral procedures sound, they have a huge impact on how presidential candidates run their campaigns, and are ultimately elected. So file this under the “utterly dull yet vitally important” tag. Currently, the electoral votes of most states (consisting of the sum of the votes in the two houses of Congress) go to the presidential candidate receiving the plurality of the vote on a statewide basis. The problem with this system, however, is that it encourages presidential candidates to focus the bulk of their attention on a few states whose electoral votes are judged to be “in play.” In other words, a candidate thinks, if I am likely to get a plurality of the vote in a given state anyway, then why spend time and money campaigning in that state which is not “in play”? Thus, as the article points out, in 2004, 13 states with a total of 159 electoral votes were considered to be in play by both political parties and that was where they focused all their attention.

 

If presidential candidates calculate that they can ignore the voter preferences of significant chunks of the population, then this is less than what a democratic system should aspire to. So recent initiatives considered in 8 states have considered bills that give electoral votes to winners of the national popular vote, rather than to the presidential candidate chosen by the plurality of state voters. Obviously, this means that whoever gets the most votes from the public gets the electoral votes of a given state, essentially sucking out the juice from the electoral college and giving primacy to nationwide electoral results. MD has gone as far as to overtly pass legislation that would abolish the electoral college altogether.   

However, these are germinal movements, still in their early stages. A drastic overhauling of the entire presidential voting system before 08 is highly unlikely. What is possible, however, are resurgent state proposals to allocate their electoral votes in a way that does not depend on the rest of the states in the Union following suit. Thus there is a proposal afoot in California that would award electoral votes based on number of congressional districts carried, rather than statewide vote. A Republican measure that would primarily benefit a Republican presidential candidate, it is being carefully watched by the Democrats who are likely to respond with similar initiatives in other states. Keep an eye on this development because if within the year such proposals are successful (and the Republicans are making a concerted effort in California) it could result in a lot more electoral votes being cast one way or another… 

No Comments » | Campaign Advertising, Money | Permalink
Posted by AAH4

I [Heart] Awful Videos

July 16, 2007

Here’s the thing about the “[Insert Candidate] Girl” viral (albeit a virus you force down someone’s throat) video craze: they simply are not funny. Alas, in a post-Obama Girl world, that simply doesn’t matter. Additionally, they just might be working. Take note in the Washington Post’s Campaign ‘08 blog today:

A few weeks ago, Linnie Frank Bailey, a 51-year-old self-described “older soccer mom” in Corona, Calif., and Isaac Burbank, a 20-year-old mechanical engineering student at Colorado State University, both did something for the first time.

They gave money to a political campaign — $10 each to Sen. Barack Obama — and they gave it over the Internet.

The Illinois Democrat’s second-quarter fundraising haul of $32.8 million far outpaced the rest of the presidential field, including his chief Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. About a third of it — $10.3 million — came over the Internet, according to the Obama campaign, and 90 percent of the online donations were under $100. Half were $25 or less.

Last month I argued that the candidates’ attempts to produce their own viral videos were thus far both pathetic and ultimately ineffective. I’ll stand-by that, but will agree with the Washington Post’s analysis that Obama in particular has made head-way on the Internets. I would even concede that Obama Girl had something to do with it, but I’d reiterate that it was not candidate-produced.

Crush on a Candidate videos are just as pathetic as what the candidates themselves were producing but they are probably exposing candidates to new, potential, donors. So, in case you couldn’t get enough of Obama Girl, McCain Mama, and Hot For Hill, meet Giuliani Girl:

I await Mitt’s Mistress with bated breath.

No Comments » | Campaign Advertising, Obama | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett

Misunderestimation of the Internets

June 21, 2007

I think that ODB might be a bit too blase about the viral potential of YouTube clips for the candidates.

The problem with typical campaign ads is that they are boring. Perhaps it’s that they’re all focus-grouped to death, or maybe just that they rotate incessantly in the same commercial break during the final stretch until you are willing to throw your shoe through your TV and move to Zanzibar to get away from the damn repetition driving you crazy.

*Ahem.* Flashbacks to ‘04. I’m better now.

YouTube vids are cheap to make - and they can be distributed for free!

Let’s give it a shot. Kids, do try this at home.

First, we had the very clever dig at Hillary’s inevitability inserted in the greatest commercial of all time. Extremely well produced, and spawned a week of comment before being attributed to someone working for Obama.

Then, we had a pair on Richardson. Some thought them inane, but I liked the sly humor and his ability to poke fun at himself. Clever way to put his info out there without sounding pompous.

And maybe that viral thingie works:

The New York senator’s campaign said two videos on her Web site garnered a combined one million hits, and the competition drew 200,000 votes.

Here it is:

I haven’t seen the Sopranos, so I didn’t get the pop culture reference, but again it’s a chance to make the candidate more accessible and human.

And, for old time’s sake - the equivalent from the pre-YouTube era, now available through the magik tubes. Those were the good ol’ days.

1 Comment | Campaign Advertising | Permalink
Posted by cdog

Whose Tube?

June 15, 2007

Howard Kurtz today with coverage of the coming YouTube Wars: John McCain is gunning for Mitt Romney on these here Internets. Kurtz also mentions HillaryHub, the epicentre for HRC-approved web 2.0 media.

The way these candidates are trying to penetrate the world of viral video is almost laughable - it’s like your dad trying to skateboard. I haven’t seen anything yet that’s candidate-produced that doesn’t appear either desperate and obvious or overly-polished. Let’s face it, Dick in a Box was neither of these (Box in a Box on the other hand…). My basic summary of a few candidates and their YouTubing so far:

McCain: Barely had a legit and productive website until a few months ago and has since attempted to elbow his way into the Internet. He will go down like Homer on Bart’s skateboard.

Romney: Hollywood on the web. These are some well-produced videos that will have an impact on your casual web-surfer who is as new to the Internets as John McCain.

Hillary: Operating on an Intranet. Love her improvisational video chats and the way she smiles when she says “we’ll be live-blogging this…” 10 points for good gatekeeping.

Barak: YouTube needs him more than he needs YouTube.

In the end, I think web-based initiatives in campaign advertising will have more effect if CNN covers them and delivers news of the hippest candidate to those who aren’t spending all day on blogs (who would do that?). The rest of us will continue to be unimpressed by anything we don’t produce.

No Comments » | Campaign Advertising, Clinton, McCain, Obama, Romney | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett