Politics Archive
Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
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Way back in 2006 I posted about some strange comments I was receiving on a post about Katherine Harris and her Senate campaign. The comments that I received, as well as others who blogged about Katherine, originated in India.
I wondered if this was a new type of outsourcing? There were even some media stories about it. Now a few years later I receive this spam comment:
It's an Indian firm promoting their campaign outsourcing. Interesting.
BTW, I deleted the spam comment but kept a screenshot of the e-mail.
The photo below is one of the most powerful images I think I've ever captured. It's a moment between Elizabeth Edwards and Jen Lemen. Jen was sharing a personal story with Mrs. Edwards. They spoke for quite a long time and as you can see there is a tremendous amount of emotion there.
I'm in the closing keynote session at BlogHer '07. It's a room full of hundreds of women bloggers talking to Elizabeth Edwards.
It's interesting to watch the ongoing Twitter coverage of Elizabeth Edward's closing keynote at BlogHer '07. Almost all the tweets I see are micro-coverage of the Q&A. It's really cool to see the use of Twitter in this way.
I'll be unavailable all day tomorrow since I am working as a precinct clerk for the Florida general election. If you're in Precinct 337 be sure to say hello :-)
I'll snap a few photos my my polling location for the AIGA Polling Place Photo Project.
Bob points out this great example of how not-to launch a blog. A Florida candidate for Attorney General 'launched' his blog with a 'Coming Soon' post on July 20th. As of today, it's still 'coming soon'.
If you can't launch a blog with at least one substantial post, then don't even bother to turn it on. Following that basic advice will help you avoid embarrassing snafu's like Skip's non-blog.
I typically advise clients to have at least 1-2 weeks worth of posts in the system before you go live. When you do launch, you can post a 'We're here....' post and then talk about the subjects you'll be covering on the blog with links to previous entries that represent those subjects. This way the initial readers will get a good overview of the purpose of the blog with relevant examples of content.
The Orlando Sentinel posted an item on their political blog about the Katherine Harris comment spamming I received. At this point Talking Points Memo and TPMCafe have picked up the story. Perhaps we'll finally get to the bottom of this mystery.
Comment from a friend:
Outsourced sock puppet maybe my favorite new phrase.
The Orlando Sentinel ran an article today about Facebook's new feature that allows members to list their preferred candidates in political races.
The popular online meeting place for college students recently unveiled a new feature that allows users to list the political candidates they support alongside their pet peeves, favorite quotes and goofy or inappropriate pictures of themselves and their friends. The site then takes users' political preferences, totals them and displays them in a poll that shows the support candidates are getting among Facebook users.
The new feature is the latest sign that everyone -- from corporations to universities to political candidates -- is tapping into social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. And though it might not be popular enough yet to have a major impact on this election, one expert predicts it could become a crucial tool in future campaigns.
This past Monday, I spent some time talking to Etan Horowitz, the reporter responsible for the article. None of my quotes made the story, but much of what he and I talked about echoed the comments by Phil Noble of
PoliticsOnline.
In Florida you can review who supports Jim Davis (D) or his opponent Charlie Crist (R) in the Governor's race
On Tuesday afternoon, Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist had 54 percent of the Facebook vote, while his Democratic opponent Davis had 46 percent of the vote. A little more than 3,000 Facebook users have listed their preference in the governor's race.
Some of the local campaigns are looking at the poll data from Facebook, but the percentages are not the real power of this new tool. Campaigns can now quickly identify individuals that support their candidate. The next step is to begin the outreach program. How does a campaign convert somebody who supports a candidate enough post it publicly on Facebook to an on-campus resource?
Now, who should do this? Well they shouldn't be over 30 to start with. The campaign outreach programs via social networks should be led by people in the same peer group as the users. Like any blogger relations program, the goal is to build a relationship and not to pitch news or events.
This new feature and story really highlight the research/listening power of social networks. Previously, to identify people interested in a particular topic you needed them to come to you, or spend some serious $'s on research. Now with a few minutes on Technorati you can find a few dozen or a few hundred people that share a common interest. Now all you have to do is connect with them.
My post earlier this week about the Katherine Harris comment spam from India has drawn quite a bit of traffic and media interest. One of the big questions was if anybody else had received similar comments from India. Turns out there are two other examples.
First up, Idyllopus left a comment on my original post. All the the comments they received never made it through their Wordpress spam filter, but they were all left by an IP from India. Idyllopus has a post about their experience with the Katherine Harris comment spammer.
Some dude dropped by last week and left 3 comments on an old Katherine Harris post. I mentioned it then and how there were 3 different email addies but from the same IP. I nuked the comments.
Same person dropped by last night and left 2 more comments.
Stats Info:
Domain Name touchtelindia.net ? (Network)
IP Address 59.144.165.# (BTNL-DL-DSL)
ISP Bharti Infotel Ltd.
Location
Continent : Asia
Country : India (Facts)
State/Region : Maharashtra
City : Pande
Next up is the Last Chance for Democracy Cafe. Greg posted about his experience.
We’ve been getting some really odd spam in the Cafe comments. Most have been caught by the spam filter, but some made their way to the comments holding bin (which were then deleted with glee). They all have different email addresses, but the same IP (click the IP to see the whois info):
Name: Raymond | E-mail: raymraymond@gmail.com | IP: 59.144.165.232 | Date: September 7, 2006
What in the world is going on here?
Update: The old post has received two more comments from India. Bizarre.
Update 2: Two other blogs have seen similar comments from India.
This is one of those things that can only happen in the blogosphere. In March of last year I wrote a post that was critical of Katherine Harris' official Congressional blog (it's not a blog). Currently, Katherine is in a heated campaign for U.S. Senate in Florida against Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.
Anyway, that post about Katherine's blog has been out there for a year and does receive some traffic, but nothing worth noting. This morning however, that post received a comment, and then another, and then a third all within a few minutes of each other. All of the comments were positive towards Katherine. For example:
Katherine Harris is tested by fire. She is strong and determined and will not back down in the face of adversity.
Receiving three comments on a row on a post that is over a year old does draw some suspicion. (Click on the image to view full size)
Looking into things some more, I saw that all three of the comments originated from the same IP address, 59.144.165.232. Even though three different names and e-mail addresses were submitted with each comment, they all came from the same place within a few minutes of each other. So where was the IP from? I was half expecting to see house.gov, but it turns out to be something a bit more interesting. Looking at my stats I see this:
The IP address is registered to an ISP in India. So the question is, who in India is such a huge Katherine Harris supporter that they want to comment spam a post? Or can you outsource political blog commenting to India?
I will be unavailable all day on Tuesday, September 5th since I am working as a precinct clerk for the Florida primaries. No phone, no e-mail, etc.
See you on Wednesday.
Steve notes that the LAPD is blogging and says that local government will be ahead of the Federali's when it comes to blogs. As Jen pointed out in his comments, one of the first local government agencies with a blog was METROPLAN Orlando. Where is it now? Read the story.
There is still hope for Central Florida public policy though...a new blog will soon be launched to discuss growth issues in the seven county region served by MyRegion.org.
No, your local congressional representative will not be joining your network of friends (nothing worse than creepy old guy on MySpace). But what Congress is looking at is banning access to MySpace and other social network sites from schools and libraries. From the News.com article:
Now MySpace and other social-networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are facing a new threat: a proposed federal law that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category's most ardent users...
Fitzpatrick and fellow Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, on Wednesday endorsed new legislation (click here for PDF) that would cordon off access to commercial Web sites that let users create public "Web pages or profiles" and also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service.
That's a broad category that covers far more than social-networking sites such as Friendster and Google's Orkut.com. It would also sweep in a wide range of interactive Web sites and services, including Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo's instant-messaging features, and Microsoft's Xbox 360, which permits in-game chat.
Fitzpatrick's bill, called the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA, is part of a new, poll-driven effort by Republicans to address topics that they view as important to suburban voters.
Why?
Head on over to Technorati and do a search for "Charlie Crist" (Charlie is a candidate for Governor in Florida). Scroll down a little bit and you'll find a few interesting posts. One of which is from a girl that claims to be a regional data coordinator for Charlie's campaign. Please note that some of the content is Not Safe For Work (NSFW). Charlie's opponents will probably want to get some screen captures of this since it will most likely be gone very shortly.
Ever since Technorati started to index MySpace blog posts the results have been pretty interesting for a number of searches. Like I've said before any campaign that isn't using blog/CGM monitoring tools is going to always be behind the curve.
I was pleasantly surprised to come across the City of Leesburg blog while researching a blog post for Empirical Polk. The blog is written by the Leesburg City Manager Ron Stock. Looking over the archives, Ron started the blog in May of 2005:
So, why am I doing this?
Well a friend of mine, Scott, has been persistently encouraging me. Scott is an "early adapter" and has been blogging for years--even before the term was defined. He apparently believes in the old adage "tell your story, or someone else will tell it for you." But he has updated it to "Blog, or be blogged."
I will attempt to post something on my blog almost evey workday. I hope you will find it entertaining, informative, and useful enough that you will return again and again!
While Ron has not been able to blog everyday, he has picked up some steam in 2006. His posts contain city news, discussions of growth & development and educational issues. The one caveat about the blog though is the lack of comments. I plan on adding the
feed to my reader and watching what's going on in the
City of Leesburg.
I've been contacted by a few local political campaigns to help with their web sites. Which ones? More on that later :-) The question is, what elements does the perfect local campaign web site contain? Remember these are not statewide operations with a significant budget. The focus is on easy-to-use content management tools that empower the campaign to do a lot with very little. I am also assuming we have the standard Bio and Issues section. Here's my initial list:
1. Blog - Big surprise there huh. Obviously a blog allows the candidate to converse directly with the visitors, in his/her own words. Make it real conversation and not the standard stump speech stuff. I would suggest that the campaign have a blog editor. Somebody that can continuously post and link to relevant content. The meta-blog content should be balanced with post from the actual candidate.
Here are some Florida examples. The Jim Davis campaign has a blog that is frequently updated by an editor, but unfortunately we've yet to hear from Jim on the blog. One of Jim's opponents, Charlie Crist, has a blog that he actually posts to, but as of today, his last post was on January 6 and all his posts are boring.
A blog can become a catchall for content items that don't always fit in the traditional site as well. The blog should also feature comments that allow visitors to talk directly to the candidate and discuss the issues among themselves.
2. E-Newsletter - Yes I realize that not all users get the 'blog thing' so the blog will be supplemented with a traditional e-mail newsletter. Luckily you can draw much of the content from the blog.
3. Event Calendar - Nothing too complex, just a way for people to find out where the candidate will be and when. Post-event wrap-up will be handled via the blog. Perhaps a quick post from the candidate sharing some thoughts about conversations he/she had, plus some pictures. Users should also be able to sign-up to receive notifications of future events in their area.
4. Photo Gallery - Why not just use Flickr? Yep why not. Just keep publishing photos. People love looking at real photos, not staged ones. If a campaign posted a photo of you and a candidate you might just send that photo to some friends.
5. Online Donations - This is a necessity for any campaign. Appeals for money need to be made, but make them in a tasteful fashion.
6. Volunteers - This one has two parts. First off a section that asks people to volunteer. The second part is a regular feature item about the volunteers themselves. So much of a campaign focuses on the candidate, but what about the people that are supporting him/her? This is a great way to humanize the campaign. Why does 73 year-old Leslie and 23 year old Steve support this candidate? What do they do as volunteers? All this could be posted in the blog as an ongoing thread. A college student might not easily relate to a 55 year-old candidate, but when they read how one of their peers is helping out (and why) it just might build a connection.
I'll post a few more later, but what are your thoughts?
Here's an interesting example of why you need to create watchlists in RSS. Last week I discovered the web stats for Florida gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis. It took the campaign 41 hours and 3 minutes to discover their snafu via another local blog.
Had they been using a watchlist via PubSub or Technorati they would have known within a few minutes. Which is better, 41 hours or 5 minutes?
You can add these RSS feeds to your reader:
- Technorati watchlist for any blog post that mentiones "Jim Davis"
- Technorati watchlist for any blog that links to http://www.jimdavis2006.com/
- PubSub feed for any blog post that mentions "Jim Davis"
If you run a political campaign contact me. I can give you quite a few more tips.
Adrian Holovaty announced the launch of his first project since joining the Washington Post. It's a database of all Congressional vote activity since 1991. This is cool, very cool, and exactly what newspapers need to do more of (no big surprise that Adrian is behind it).
Users can browse by bill, Representative or Senator and subscribe to RSS feeds for an individual. For example I can watch all activity for my local rep, Adam Putnam or subscribe to the RSS feed.
If you are a public agency and you launch a blog which immediately achieves success with a high number of daily readers that leave scores of comments to discuss the posts and for the first time truly opens a public discussion on a topic what do you do next?
Shut down the blog of course!
This is the story of METROBLOG Orlando Don’t bother clicking on the link, it’s gone. Of course if you know what a Google cache is you'll be able to see some of it :-)
The following is a recap of the events that surrounded the launch and demise of a client blog. The purpose for telling this story is to help others learn. However, I can’t really say ‘learn by our mistakes’ since we didn’t make any. Nonetheless it is an interesting story.
Continue reading "Death of a Blog" »
Charlie Crist, a candidate in the 2006 Florida Governor's race has launched a Campaign Blog. The first and only post so far is dated October 4, 2005. The inital post is standard announcement stuff and doesn't really provide any exciting 'conversation' from Charlie. His blog does allow comments and the first one posted noted that the blog lacks a RSS feed.
With a low post volume and no RSS, it will be tough to keep-up with Charlie's blog.
Update: Jeremy has posted some good comments.
I think one of the big things people will be watching is if Charlie is actually writing the posts. Remember all of Katherine Harris' blog posts are written by the 'Harris Press Office'.
I usually don't mention political items on this blog, but RatherGate was a defining moment in the blogosphere. For better or for worse, the debate over the 60 Minutes story put the word 'blog' into many people's heads.
Power Line Blog notes that today is the first anniversary of the little post that started it all.
Chris Gent of the Kissimmee Utility Authority let me know about a local blog dealing with the disputed Osceola County Convention Center. Unconventional! is a blog written by John Caparella, Senior Vice President & General Manager of the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center.
Until recently, the Osceola County Commission was set to decide between two offers to expand the local convention center. John Caparella represents one of those options.
The Unconventioal! blog presents John's viewpoint on why Osceola county should only have one convention center, his. There is an obvious bias to most of what John writes but it is some interesting reading.
At first it was difficult to tell who was writing the blog since none of the posts are attributed to an author. In addition, the TypePad based blog does not provide comments and limited trackbacks so it is difficult to tell how much 'discussion' there is on this subject. Perhaps John doesn't want to hear any criticism. A Technorati search for the URL shows no links to the blog.
What is interesting is that John/Gaylord Palms felt strongly enough about the issue to buy some Google AdWords. A search for 'osceola county convention center' yielded a 'Sponsored Link' for the Gaylord Palms blog.
I am going to attempt to contact John to get his comments on how he decided to create a blog, what feedback he's getting and what impact he thinks it might have had so far.
This morning's News Chief has an article about a new web site that 'blasts' the Lake Wales Charter School System. (Registration required for News Chief article - BugMeNot Login) The web site, BreaktheCharter.com is a homegrown effort of the husband of a teacher who was recently fired by the Lake Wales Charter School System, so there might be some bias :-)
Nothing shocking there, just citizens wanting to be heard. I will question the validity of some of the comments on the site since they are posted anonymously, but that is a discussion for later. Also the web site creator should have used a blog format rather than a traditional web site format, but once again that's getting off the subject.
The comments from Lake Wales Charter Superintendent Clint Wright sparked my interest though. According to the News Chief here is what Clint said:
"I am not going to give you a reaction to that, I don't have time for that. They can do what they want to do. If people want to talk to me about legitimate concerns, they can bring them to me. As far as I am concerned, I am not going to do anything with the Web site.
Clint looks like you have a ticket for the Clueless express.
There are two options for Clint's quote.
1. He was misquoted: In that case he needs a blog. A blog would allow him to fully present his side of the story/interview and provide his quotes in full context. Just ask Mark Cuban about this.
2. He was quoted properly and he meant it: Where to start?
a. "If people want to talk to me about legitimate concerns, they can bring them to me." Sorry Clint, we're kinda busy. We don't have time to come talk to you; you need to come to us. That line makes you sound a bit like an elitist. Somebody else has created a forum where the discussion is taking place, you should stop by some time.
b. Go buy a copy of The Cluetrain Manifesto and read it.
c. Start a blog, get your side of the story out there. Clayton Wilcox the Superintendent of Pinellas County Schools has a blog. So far the response has been overwhelming, most of it positive. Often the media will highlight the negative aspects of any story (especially with school systems). With a blog you can speak directly to the parents and tell them the good and bad. Perhaps you can answer one parent's question. "what will the future at lwhs (Lake Wales High School) hold for my incoming freshman and my outgoing senior?"
d. If you visit the site in question you will see that not all the comments are negative, some of the comments are positive statements about the program supposedly provided by those working in the system. Clint is missing a golden opportunity to embrace the discussion and put forth his views
e. You need to do something about this site since the media will always be looking at it. Sites like BreaktheCharter serve as a lightning rod for negative stories. Just ask Delta how much they love Ellen Simonetti's blog. Especially the story about how Delta jets are being sent to Mexico for service by non FAA licensed mechanics.
It will be interesting to see how this saga plays out over the coming months. Will the discussion at BreaktheCharter continue to grow or will it fizzle out? Will the local media pick up on stories from comments posted by teachers and parents?
I'll keep you posted.
Transparency is a big buzzword among PR bloggers. The gist is that you leave no secrets about your intentions or how you arrived at a conclusion. To borrow a bad pun, you lay all your cards on the table. But how far do we need to (or should) go to achieve transparency?
Transparency is a favorite topic of Neville Hobson. Doing a quick search on his site shows 152 occurences of 'transparency' alone. In the name of tranparency sites like Boing Boing allow anyone to look at their web server stats. Back in March Steve Rubel posted a link to his stats because of, "my interest in transparency." In another step, Steve also asked to receive any pitches via del.icio.us.
I am doing this not only to cut down my mail but to make the PR pitching process transparent so that everyone can see what I blog/don't blog.
He picked up the idea from Nick Denton of Gawker Media.
These are all great steps, but is it real transparency?
Continue reading "Transparency, How Far Do We Go?" »
Chris Matthew's best buddy, Zell Miller, is coming to town. Zell is schedule to speak at Southeastern College's commencement on April 30. I am not sure why Southeastern picked Zell, perhaps to get some press.
Of course Zell gained a bit more exposure after his RNC speech last year. I wrote this post after his speech comparing Zell to a popular movie character.
According to Personal Democarcy Forum, San Francisco will vote on a city ordinance to regulate blogging.
(the ordinance) would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate.
Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney.
Slashdot has posted the story as well so the comments should be good.
Does this ordinance apply to local blogs only? What if a blogger based in another city or state blogs about the local San Fran elections?
Trevor Cook wonders about the 'ethics' of sponsored blogs and how as a reader we can detemine if the bloggers has any conflict of interest issues. From his post:
How do you really know if some blogger who is happily slamming microsoft or google or anything else really doesn't have some commercial conflict? Sure we can say people should declare these interests, but it could be as Hamlet said a principle "more honoured in the breach than the observance".
Sometimes doing a little bit of background reading may provide you the answers. Many times blog posts are spur of the moment thoughts or issues, and a blogger might not include all the relevant background information in a post. Go back to some previous posts, perhaps a few days, weeks or months ago and see if you can gain any clues.
This issue recently came up when I was showing a friend how to perform searches with Technorati. We searched for her husband who is a political candidate and some results came up from a local political blog. She clicked on the headline and read the post. It was nothing bad, but she wondered who this person was and perhaps was there any bias? The blogger profile only listed a first name and last initial and a place of residence, and nothing else major.
Other recent posts at the blog did not provide any clues. Looking back at posts from 2004 we learned that the individual was on the local Democratic Party executive committee (my friend's husband is a Republican). She was then able to put 2 and 2 together and determine who was writing this blog.
By doing a bit of research we were able to find out the 'origin' in a sense of the blog.
I have done this a number of times with other blogs. Usually just a few moments of investigation can turn up some important information.
Update 9.8.06: The three initial comments below are all from the same person, from India.
A few weeks ago the Lakeland Ledger pointed out that Congresswoman Katherine Harris has started a blog aptly named: Katherine's Blog. According to a recent New York Times article she is one of the first members of Congress to do so. The Ledger noted some issues with her blog when it first posted the news, for example there is no way to comment. I wanted to watch the blog for a few weeks before passing any judgement.
Many of the same issues remain (still no comments). First off there is no RSS feed of the blog content so I am forced to visit the site via a browser, so I do not check it that frequently.
The biggest issue is that the true author of the blog is not known. Is Katherine writing any of this? All the posts are signed 'Harris Press Office.' The language of the posts floats between first person and third person. The most recent post starts out:
This afternoon I met with a group of the Commissioners from Volunteer Florida and I wanted to pass along information about important work their organization is doing.
The writing is engaging and you are left to think that it is Katherine writing it, but is it? Perhaps she dictates the entries and the 'Harris Press Office' transcribes them?
We'll see how this blog develops over time with her possible run for US Senate.
Jeff Jarvis has posted a rather revealing piece about the FCC. Jeff sent in a Freedom of Information Act request about a recent fine the FCC imposed against Fox. The initial reports stated that the FCC received over 100 complaints. Well, it was more like three.
So folks, three uptight people are able to dictate what can and can't be said on television. Who said your opinion doesn't matter?
Scary stuff.
Jeff Jarvis offers his conspiracy theory:
We've spent the last four years making fun of Florida for its arithemetic inanity and its sad-sack weather.
Now it could be Ohio if they keep us up. Didn't Ohio cause the blackout, too?
Elections, blackouts?
It's a small blurb, but I made it on Wonkette.
Must be a slow news night :-)
Arrived at my precinct before 6am to work as a Voter Information Specialist VIS (lead up is detailed here). Set-up went very smoothly, and polls were opened at exactly 7am. We had voters lined up at 6am so the line was somewhat long from 7am till around 9am. There was a single Democratic poll watcher at our location.
A quick moment of apprehension when the first person to cast a ballot had it rejected by the machine, tried it another way, rejected again, but third time was a charm, and we're off and running! No more issues with the Accu-Vote OS machine for the rest of the day.
Continue reading "My Day At The Polls" »
Metacool, begs for Jonathon Ive and the Apple design team to develop voting systems. I agree.
Luckily we use the Accu-Vote OS system in my county and not the TS, which is the Touch Screen.
Just got back from working on at the polls. Full update coming soon. We issued six provisional ballots in our precinct.
As I mentioned before I will be working as a Voter Information Specialist in a local precinct. I have to be there before 6 am and then leave once all the votes have been cast. The polls officially close at 7 pm, but if you are in line at that time you may still vote. Hopefully we will not have a situation like 2000 where the governor ordered the polls to stay open till 9 pm. I am not sure if we are going to have any poll watchers at our precinct. The Ledger has an article about the poll watchers in our county.
I will post a report about my day sometime tomorrow evening.
Here is an intersting look at how US Senators outperform the market on a consistent basis.
After all what's the point on being on the 'inside' if you can't use the information?
That is my official title for this upcoming election. A VIS is just below the Precinct Clerk at each location. I will deal with any issue a voter has and make sure they get to vote, either at the precinct I work at, or send them to the correct precinct. If there is any dispute with their right to vote, i.e. no form of any ID or a few other circumstances we will issue them a provisional ballot. All these are returned to the Supervisor of Elections (SOE) for review at the end of the day.
Continue reading "Voter Information Specialist" »
I will be working as an official poll worker for the Polk County Supervisor of Elections this general election. Specifically, I'll be at precinct 409. I'll post details of the training and the actual election day in the coming week and a half.
So you think that Bush and Kerry repeated themselves quite a bit in last week's debate? I found this site that highlights phrases and gives you a total for each candidate. Examples:
"Hard Work" - Bush 11, Kerry 0
"Mixed Messages" - Bush 5, Kerry 3
"Wrong war, wrong time, wrong place" - Bush 7, Kerry 0
Let's stick to those talking points gentleman.
A recent Business Journal article, No Joke: Daily Show Viewers Follow Presidential Race, discusses the impact of the Daily Show on news/politics.
Viewers of late-night comedy programs, especially The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on the cable channel Comedy Central, are more likely to know the issue positions and backgrounds of presidential candidates than people who do not watch late-night comedy, the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey shows.
Bonus Item: Time Magazine: 10 Questions with John Stewart
Continue reading "Fake News, More Informative" »
I usually don't write about politics, but this is more pop-culture reference than politcal.
It's been a week since Zell Miller's speech at the RNC, he's very...well... passionate. For those not up to speed, Zell is a Georgia Democratic Senator that spoke at the Republican convention.
Many have compared him to a televangelist. New York Rep. Charles Rangel said, "When I heard Zell going on about how he once was lost and now is found, I thought I heard the strains of Jimmy Swaggart. I thought I might get him to touch my hurt knee to heal it. But he's such a mean bastard, I was afraid he'd just hurt the other knee."
Then of course there was his 'duel' with Chris Matthews later that night. Comparisons to Aaron Burr followed that appearance.
I think I have a better comparison. I can't remember the exact movie(s), but the same type of character has appeared a number of times.
Continue reading "I've Seen Zell Miller's Character Before" »
