The Chosen People

During Barack Obama's campaign he surrounded himself with phenomenal people such as David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and many more. The one aspect that I noticed about Obama's strategists and campaign manager were how real they were.
Robert Gibbs would always do interviews on Morning Joe and other news stations. Yes, in most of his interviews he talked about the campaign and answered questions, but he also managed to fit in a few jokes. I think these qualities (being professional yet humorous) are quintessential for a campaign's well-being. I believe that the press fell in love with Obama not just because he is who is, but he also had likable people working the press.
Bobby Jindal needs to find the RIGHT people to help his campaign gain the media's respect and positive attention. Most assume that Fox News likes all republican candidates, but in this campaign we learned that is just not true. Fox News likes the Bush campaign/administration because they liked Karl Rove.

Clearing the Air

This article was posted today by David Horowizt on the Historical News Network. It discusses how conservatives such Alan Keyes are still trying to push Obama out of office. It seems absurd that a small group of people have so much time on their hands to wine about this issue all day. Horowitz says that 64 million people voted for Obama, and the did not seem to care if he was born on American soil.

Yes, it is a rule that the U.S. president must be born in the United States, but it always seems that republicans try to ruin everything. It is also a rule that an election must follow the electoral college, and the republicans did not follow that in 2000. Just let it be, and most likely Obama will do something in office that republicans can pick on.

Graduation Speaker

In order for Bobby Jindal to be embraced by the youth and pop culture, he needs to be the commencement speaker at upcoming college graduations. Over the years many presidential candidates volunteer their time to address the graduates.
Ted Kennedy was supposed to speak at Weslyan's 2008 graduation, but he was diagnosed with his brain tumor around the same time. Barack Obama stepped up to the plate and took Kennedy's spot. Obama doing this created even more exposure to the youth vote, and also showed that he was willing to take some time off his campaign to help a fellow politician.

Glamorizing Jindal

In 2006, when Obama was planning his campaign Michelle and him had a completely different look from their current look. They were not as glamorous as they are now. Many people think that a president should not care about their wardrobe or designer labels, but who are we kidding? What makes celebrities and other individuals in the spotlight so intriguing is that they own things that the general public cannot afford. People react to these possessions differently some with envy and others with admiration. Take Palin for example, even though there was controversy over her shopping spree at Nieman Marcus, this created attention and the public grew a curiosity.

Bobby Jindal and his wife will need to have signature looks, so that public realizes that he is an established politician. This sounds very superficial, but in the beginning of the race the image is a crucial factor. Also think of the Kennedys, people still discuss Jackie's famous sunglasses or other items in her wardrobe. Bobby needs to look presidential and revamp his style but not let it define him. The reason why it defined Palin was because she did not have that much more going for her.

Jindal TV

In order to gain recognition, Bobby Jindal needs more national exposure. In 2006 Obama had a TV channel website called barack-obama.tv. The editors of this website posted up to the minute videos of Barack and other election related items. The website is carefully outlined, categorizing videos to specific themes, and also by date. Not many people knew about this website, or maybe they did and I just was out of the loop.
In 2010 when Jindal announces his plan to run in 2012, he needs to publicize the Jindal TV channel. This could be a major contributor to spreading his message besides his campaign website. He could categorize the videos toward different viewers. If he is trying to attract the youth vote he should show a video of him on The Daily Show. This is a technique Jindal could use to create his own press and media coverage.

Jindal's Dreams from My Father

When Obama spoke at the DNC in 2004 the public was provided with a visual of Obama's life, which included his family. After he spoke America's curiosity over Obama flourished, and Random House re-published Dreams from My Father.
This book inspired many, and became a bestseller. It portrayed Obama's life as the American dream. Besides Obama's speech at the DNC, I think this book really answered a lot of questions the public had about him, and prevented Obama from fading out of the public's eye.
Bobby Jindal needs to do something similar. He does not need to have a full fledged campaign before 2010, but he needs to have a subtle message so that the public can learn about him, and eventually like him.

Advice for the Atlantic

Yesterday in class we discussed various ways The Atlantic could revamp their multi-media component to their website to gain more viewers. Colin stated that when he reads an article he wants closure/follow-up not more information. I responded by saying that the journalist should post a weekly vlog on The Atlantic's website. We then looked at the hideous vloggers that were good citizen journalist, but bad on camera. I think my idea was misinterpreted. I was thinking more of a webinar structure. This is when the journalist is vlogging live (in appealing lighting and clothing) while viewers are able to type in questions to the journalist and he/she can respond live. It would be similar to a letter to the editor section but with a faster response. Also it would be weekly component to the website with hype throughout the week to gain more viewers. Here is the description from Wikipedia of what I am trying to explain. Sorry for the confusion.

Debates in future elections

In the 2008 election the debates had more viewers and coverage than ever before, particularly the vice presidential debate. Many will agree that the debate formats need to be revamped before the 2012 presidential elections, especially the town hall format. Most viewers blamed Tom Brokaw for being a weak moderator, however I believe that it was the time constraints placed on the candidates and Brokaw. This article from FreePress.com has an analysis of the debate including criticisms.

Crackberry for the President?

Lingering on the same topic we discussed in class yesterday, what the media will discuss after elections, I came across an article in the NY Times discussing Obama's forms of communication. I found this article to be quite interesting because I had never thought of how a president communicates in this day in age. It would make sense for a modern day president to receive abundant amounts of email, however the privacy matter does play a role in all of this. The article discusses how Obama is the first president to have a laptop on his desk in the oval office. This is a huge deal, and is an introduction to a "new" kind of president. If Obama does not follow through with any of his other "change" promises, he certainly is opening doors in terms of technology in the White House. Do you think Obama should keep his beloved blackberry?

More Speculations: Women in the limelight again

In this op-ed piece Gail Collins discusses the possibility that Clinton (Hillary) will be Obama's secretary of state. Since the election is over with, and the press can no longer pick on Palin the press will spend most of their time speculating on who will in Obama's cabinet. The press seems to always need a woman to target, and now they are back on Hillary.

White House Bedrooms

Joe Scarborough Drops the F bomb

ONION takes it too far

In this article the Onion says how a Black man gets the worst job in the U.S. At the end of the article they make a statement that takes it too far: "a Black man still can't catch a break." I know the paper is pretty left and is a satirical newspaper, but I still think that any articles written about Obama and African Americans being president should be discussing the history behind it.

This is Disgusting

What if Palin was Liberal?

Politicalchill.com has made a satirical video of how the media would treat Sarah Palin if she was on the democratic ticket. They have taken the interviews and pundent remarks and flipped them around in favoring ways.

Media Wars

Media Groupies

This is pretty self-explanatory. However, this cartoon came out during the primaries, not much has changed in terms of the media's love affair for Obama.

A Newspaper Remains Silent

An Absent Bush

Election after election, presidents have campaigned for their party's nominee. Even President Clinton campaigned for Al Gore in 2000, while he was dealing with the scandals of his presidency. I am wondering if Clinton's campaigning for Gore affected the 2000 elections that much. I think that if the president wants to campaign for the nominee he should be allowed to. McCain said he wanted to take the politics out of this election, but every single one of his decisions have been political.

Palin Punk'd

SNL Campaign Ads

Will and Tina reunite

Almost falling off the stage....

Joe the plumber=Joe Six pack

Last night in the debate McCain used a tactic that did not workout so well: Joe the plumber. If the plumbers name had been Robert would this strategy still be used? Not for the McCain camp. The McCain campaign seems to have an infatuation with the Joes of America. I think they just wanted to put a face to Joe Six Pack who Palin continues to use as describing the average American. What about the Johns, toms and heaven forbid even the women in America?

who knew New Hamshire was in the great north west?

Palin makes another blunder while at a rally in Dover, New Hamshire. Take a look at this

The Women In McCain's life

After tonight's discussion on a woman's role in the elections I did some research on the mysterious roles the women play in McCain's campaign. Here is an article I discovered in Elle magazine.

Debate 2 round 1

While watching the debate I was looking through articles about the debate. I found this one, which speaks about the debate in past tense, it was written at 10:04. The tone of this article shows how the media has proconceived notions of the way the debate is going to go. The media knows how they are going to report the debate before it even happens, why have debates at all? The media is the one forming the candidates, and how voter view them, not the debates.

Keating Economics and Fighting Back

The Inner workings of Palin...Who has the time to figure this out?

Sarah Palin healed by witch doctor

Even Homer Simpson cannot work a booth

Dictator McCain

why did she call him joe?

I am still confused as to why Governor Palin asked Senator Biden if she could call him Joe. The media has not picked up on it as much as I would have expected. I thought it was extremely disrespectful, and not once did Senator Biden call her Sarah.

similar responses

Men Reporting on Men

When watching Hardball tonight and the commentary on last night's Veep debate I found that Chris Matthews and the other male pundents had no clue how to comment on a man (Joe Biden). They discussed how energetic Palin had been, but as a woman I feel that Biden showed just as much energy and charisma as Governor Palin, and men have a more difficult time as picking that up or articulating it. It made wonder if when men talk about Palin's energy are they referring to her sex appeal.

MSNBC objective is to reassure democrat voters

When watching the Rachel Maddow show one thing came to mind: is her goal to reassure democrat voters that the republican ticket is going to fail. There are many aspects of her show content that make me thing that. The one thing that stands out to me the most is that Maddow keeps showing conservative journalist bashing Palin. It is quite clear to the general public that people think that Palin is not ready to be Veep, but I don't think we need to keep being reminded.
Fox News does not keep saying how Sarah Palin was bad decision, they assume that we are aware, and display her mistakes. If NBC was a child its dialog would be on the lines of "haha even those conservatives think she was a bad choice, we were right you wrong."

Side by Side Comparison

The Gotcha Game?

Luke Russert on Young Voters

This week the Today Show showed a segment about young voters

Rachel Maddow does let McCain write her Headlines

Tonight's feature topic on the Rachel Maddow Show was the "suspension" of McCain's campaign, and not the economic crisis. Rachel interviewed Keith Olbermann and both claimed the McCain has been writing his own news headlines. If you haven't noticed the headlines involving McCain have a rapid turn over rate, much quicker than Obama. Can you believe that he claimied "he invented the Blackberry" last week? If you can't, it's because McCain has made so many other statements and "decisions" since then so that the media would steer away from his many "intelligent" comments.

Letterman

Letterman Says...someone is putting something in his metamucil

McCain was supposed to appear on the Late Show tonight...however McCain has suspended his campaign.
Letterman started off his show by saying what an honorable man McCain is because he gave up everything except his life for America, but....something does not smell right. Letterman made a good point...you cannot suspend your presidency when there is a crisis...you hand over the reins to the VP. Why doesn't McCain trust Palin....I wonder?

McPanic Duh

Obviously we are all writing about the reasons why McCain is suspending his campaign and asking for the Friday debate to be postponed. Is it because he is afraid of David Letterman? This decision process feels awfully familiar to the one he used when picking his VP, and the media is reacting to it in the same fashion. Yesterday McCain showed no signs of suspending his campaign when he was dealing with energy issues, and today he drastically changed his mode.
Obviously the cable networks are interviewing democrats and republican congressional leaders, and there are mixed opinions. While the National networks just show the main points and let the viewers make up their own opinions.
McCain claims that his decision is to redirect America's focus onto the economic crisis rather than the election, however America is now focusing more on why McCain made such a panicky decision...
McCain has done it once again he is forcing the media to pull away from the "real" issues and discuss his campaign decision making skills instead just like they did with his Palin pick.

Lies Lies and More Lies

It came out today in a New York Times "Alert" that Freddie Mac paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis. This completely contradicts a statement McCain made on Sunday night. This information could say many things about McCain: that he is too old and forgetful, that he does not even know what is going on in his own campaign, or that he is just a VERY bad lier.

Spain in Latin America?

Today John McCain had an interview with a radio talk show host based out of Miami. The host asked McCain if he would be willing to meet with Zapatero, the prime minister of Spain. It became apparent during the interview that McCain did not know who Zapatero is and thought he was "a few" leaders. McCain also made a statement later on claiming that Spain was in Latin America.

Fired HP CEO Crticizes her Candidate

On September 16 Andrea Mitchell interviewed former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. Those of you who are not familiar with Fiorina she is a surrogate for McCain she also was a major speaker at the RNC. Earlier that day Fiorina stated over a radio talk show that Sarah Palin was incapable of running a major corporation (like HP). MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell followed up with this statement by asking Carly to explain herself and Carly replied: "Well, I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation." Is Fiorina really that narcissistic to think that running a major coorporation is more difficult than being the commander in chief of one of the world's most powerful countries. I would like to see her do it. Many commentators also claimed that Fiorina would reiterate her comments to Mitchell by the end of day, but she didn't.
Today Mitt Romney was interviewed on several major networks including MSNBC's Morning Joe. Coincidence, I think not. Mitt is the perfect person to clear the air of Fiorina's prior comments, with him having run several SUCCESSFUL corporations and also having governed Massachusetts. Romney said the obvious that both McCain and Palin were knowledgeable and experienced enough to run companies.
I still wonder why Fiorina would make those statements I mean HP did fire her....I guess we won't be seeing her for a while!

Maybe McCain's economic state is strong!

Yesterday (September 15), one of the worst days for the economy in decades, McCain made a statement basically claiming that the economy is stable and even strong. Could this be why individuals say McCain is out of touch with American society? Without a question the media is narrowing in on the subject of the economy, and each of the candidates' reactions to the crisis on Wall St. This is the first time since Palin was put on the ballot that the candidates' policies are actually being discussed and the race is between Obama and McCain rather than Obama and Palin. Could the economic crisis answer Obama's prayers and get him back on top?