If DIY personalization retailer CafePress.com is to be believed, November's election is both Obama and McCain's to lose: "Merchandise for the Obama-Biden ticket was outselling McCain-Palin items until the Republican National Convention ended in September. Sales for both are now neck and neck, much as the candidates are in the polls." When sales of Obama paraphernalia spiked against Hillary goods in January, so too did Obama's poll rating. [NYT]
Despite Barack Obama secretly meeting with Rupert Murdoch, and despite the New York Post's semi-recent turn to support Hillary Clinton, the News Corp. tabloid has gone ahead and "enthusiastically" endorsed John McCain for president. Not that the Post is ready to pour cement shoes for Obama: "None of this implies an iota of disrespect toward Obama. It took a formidable candidacy to defeat Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - a candidacy, by the way, which we strongly supported earlier this year. And the intelligence, the organizational skills and the ability to communicate that Obama demonstrated from the beginning dramatically underscore the history that is being made by the first African-American to head a major-party presidential ticket."
When accepting a party's nomination, presidential candidates hope to do two things: excite their base and woo potential swing voters. We fear John McCain may have done neither last night.
This week's Us Weekly took aim at Sarah Palin, turning her maybe-controversies into full-blown scandals. The questioning over whether her fifth child is actually her grandchild; her husband's DUI; the investigation about the attempted firing of her former brother-in-law — all wrapped together it became Janice Min's "Babies, Lies & Scandal" cover. And taken with Us' prO-bama cover, as well as owner Jann Wenner's donations to the Obama campaign and his repeatedly putting the Democratic candidate on the cover of Rolling Stone, it's easy to see this week's Us as yet another Wenner-orchestrated hit job on the GOP. Except it sooooo wasn't, Min insists. CONTINUED »
Yes, Rudy Giuliani's speech about the qualifications of mayors ran long, which meant the RNC had to cancel the 15-minute "Meet Sarah Palin" video it wanted to show before the VP nominee took the stage. And yes, we were all a little anxious to see what the woman who could be a "heartbeat away" from the presidency had to say. But that doesn't mean we all took the pre-released notes about what Palin would say in her speech to whip together articles about what she actually said on stage — and then whip together articles for the wires before she even began talking. But there went Reuters and AFP, distributing copy about Palin's remarks prior to her making them. Sound familiar? That's because the Associated Press pulled this stunt at the DNC, running a precursory article about Barack Obama's speech before he took over the podium, leading to a pretty inaccurate summation of what went down that evening. (The AP even got the length of the speech wrong in its preemptive report; it had to update its copy to reflect the number of minutes Obama actually spoke.) And that whole thing got Keith Olbermann all riled up.
It's not that we frown on celebrities getting involved in the political process. Watching Ben Affleck and Susan Sarandon anoint themselves Hollywood's liaisons to Barack Obama is a comforting spectator sport, because it means we don't have to busy ourselves with making movies, getting famous, and securing access to the celebrity politician. Then there's Chuck Norris, who probably just wanted to show John McCain how to use the Total Gym and got roped into backing the Republican party. But when starlets who've done little more than turn high-profile DUIs and high-profile box office bombs into a career, well, it makes us long for the days of … unregistered voter Paris Hilton encouraging us to vote. CONTINUED »
John McCain's campaign supposedly broke news of Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy to ease attacks from the liberal blogs, which drummed up a conspiracy theory that Palin's fifth child was actually her granddaughter. But now McCain — seen here in an intentionally cropped photo — is turning on his "base," saying it's more than the blogs causing him migraines, but the mainstream media as well. And taking a misguided cue from Hillary Clinton, he's gone on the attack against the press. Again. CONTINUED »
You have to appreciate all that Diddy has done for American politics. His "Vote Or Die" campaign ignited a fury of publicity and, hopefully, new voter registrations. He got young people genuinely interested in the political process and selecting the nation's leaders.
It's sad, then, to see this video — his best effort at punditry, criticizing John McCain's VP pick Sarah Palin.
If he's trying to reach America's youth with talking points to take on the GOP, Diddy failed. He did succeed, however, in making us nauseous and working in at least two Ciroc vodka plugs.
In the just-announced news, John McCain has selected Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. So shocking was the official word, it may have even crashed Drudge Report. (Even a certain website thinks so.) But the McCain campaign's announcement is more than just about who might be the second-in-command of the U.S. come January, but about the mechanics behind these type of announcements. First, he chose a woman. Also, he announced the news today, on a Friday, before a long holiday weekend. Is this man crazy?
Nope. CONTINUED »
A DNC pass holder thought he was doing the world a service when he used his Pre-Convention pass to take YouTubers on a videotaped tour of Barack Obama's staging at Invesco Field, where tonight he will formally accept the Democratic party's nomination. Instead, he recorded footage that John McCain was able to use to mock Obama, since the structure Obama's camp is erecting looks like a Greek or Roman temple (or perhaps just much of Washington D.C.).
So who is this guy who snagged a coveted pass and set up his candidate for attacks from the right? He's Denver's own vlogger "SeeSwan," the "Mile High New Yorker," and boy does this guy know how to abuse video editing software: CONTINUED »
So if you watched last season of Mad Men (and you did), there was that whole subplot of Nixon vs. Kennedy in 1960, and how to market a candidate (Nixon) that was less media-aware than his opponent. The presidential debates coincided neatly with the rise in personal televisions and mass media, meaning for the first time Americans could watch the great debates unfold from home, which some speculate is the reason Kennedy won. Kennedy was way hotter than Nixon.
Similarly, today the race to the White House is being fought on different technological battleground than it's been in previous years. And like JFK, Barack Obama knows how to play the new mediums to his advantage. The MSM may not always like it, but Obama's camp is changing the face of electoral process in a way that Marshall McLuhan would have been proud of. Here's how: CONTINUED »
Hit-and-runner and brain tumor sufferer Robert Novak just retired. Like, just this month! But here he is, back in the public debate, because the potential of John McCain picking Joe Lieberman as his running mate is too critical an issue to lay in a hospital bed and keep quiet. Even Brett Favre waited longer to return from the dead. CONTINUED »
The cable nets were fishing for a "buyer's remorse" story last night, and their hook caught something.
Leading up to Hillary Clinton's speech, anchors and pundits were wondering whether the ex-candidate was going to 1) heal and unite the Democratic party; 2) get fully behind Obama; 3) remind Democrats of what could've been. She accomplished all three, and CNN found this Hillary supporter to make the case that after seeing Clinton's speech, some Democrats still aren't behind Obama and wish it would be Clinton heading to the White House. An even better "get," of course, would've been an Obama supporter who listened to Clinton speak last night and suddenly turned to her side, casting off his Obama vote and wishing Clinton had been named the nominee. But we can't make ratings miracles, people.
A friend of mine expressed frustration with Michelle Obama's convention speech last night, saying that he wished Obama didn't have to prove that she's "normal" to ease white America's anxiety over her. I didn't have that exact same reaction, although that was definitely one of the goals of the speech. It was definitely a requirement that she prove she's "normal," but the reason I didn't have a problem with that was because she is normal. Yes, she's an exceptionally successful, well-spoken, and composed normal person, but normal nonetheless.
Barack Obama promised supporters he would tell them his VP pick before anyone else if only they would hand over their cell phone number and agree to download five ringtones a month for the low price of $9.99*. (* This last part is not true.)
Too bad the Times and the rest of the MSM broke news that Joe Biden was Obama's choice before anyone received their super-special 3 a.m. text from Team Obama. That, and pranksters managed to fool some into thinking Michael Phelps and Mickey Mouse was Obama's running mate, thanks to 1) the ease of sending texts; and 2) the gullibility of Americans.
When the text finally did go out, a whopping 2.9 million people got Obama's note, which would've cost the average thumb puncher some $290,000, assuming a 10 cent-per-TXT fee. Maybe Barack got a discount; maybe he had a bunch of people in his campaign send out the message and then let them use it as a tax write-off.
But having been beat by the press and been subjected to devious hoaxes, one might argue Obama's cell phone gimmick became a poorly orchestrated publicity stunt. Nope, it was so much more CONTINUED »
So far, ya know whose DNC coverage we're enjoying the most? Not MSNBC's, even with the in-fighting. Not the Washington Post's, even with Howard Kurtz is talking about his makeup. Rather, it's Playboy magazine's, which truly understands the "man on the street" approach to this clusterfuck of politicos, reporters, and party crashers is the best way to cover the beast. CONTINUED »
'A day after Sen. Barack Obama chose Biden as his running mate for the Democratic ticket, Biden's "Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics" was in the top 10 on Barnes & Noble.com and in the top 40 on Amazon.com. It was so in demand that on Sunday it was listed as out of stock by both booksellers.' [AP]
News that a Kansas printer was processing a run of Obama-Bayh bumper stickers made its way to Matt Drudge on Friday, via a KMBC-9 News report, leaving the link dump site all but confirming the Democratic contender would be picking the Indiana senator as his running mate. That's not how it happened, of course; at 3am that night (early Saturday morning), Obama began a 15-minute blast of text messages announcing Joe Biden as his running mate, with on-lookers noting the timestamp very carefully.
Before that happened, though, the printing company found it had mere hours to capitalize on the publicity of the rumor, which it may or may not have started. This meant endless reports that got its name, Gill Studios, in the press. And you know what's the best way to keep a false rumor alive? Refuse to confirm or deny it, which is what Gill Studios did.
And now that they've been exposed as having no official role in the campaign? They're disappointed in the media for running the very rumor they could've quashed. CONTINUED »
Shepard Fairey is known for his nonsensical, DIY street art OBEY (which originated with the "Andre the Giant has a Posse" stickers) of the late 90's. Now, the once anti-establishment skateboarder is making posters for the Showtime's new season of Dexter and has become the unofficial artist of Barack Obama's Hope campaign. Much like Godard in his Maoist period, Fairey's decision to make his return to the limelight a political statement gives a new sort of street cred to the artist's work.
Though let's not pretend that Fairey is only motivated by change: CONTINUED »
Lukewarm book seller David Carr has assumed his secondary role at the New York Times this convention season. For the next few days, he's eschewing his business reporter role for his Carpetbagger mask. "What!" you exclaim, realizing it is not quite Oscar season and, thus, do not understand why Carpetbagger is getting bylined. It's because the Times has caught on to something about the DNC in Denver: It is actually not a news-making event, but one of glitz, glam, and endless parties. (It also explains why Carr has already told you how to spend your time at the RNC in St. Paul.) The DNC is just like the Oscars, so who better to throw into the mix but Carr. Especially when there's a Cindy Adams nugget to report: CONTINUED »
