The three most important lessons from the blogosphere, August 2006:
1.) Comments posted to blogs leave an IP address as a sort of “fingerprint.” If you don’t know this by now, then your campaign deserves to get caught when you try to be tricky (link via Glenn Reynolds).
2.) Candidates and spokesmen: Stop complaining about media bias and create your own outlet.
As you saw last week on johncombest.com, the Associated Press produced a pretty good piece about how YouTube is affecting political campaigns.
The message for candidates and staff is clear. You know the annoying little twerps from your opponent’s campaign that follow your candidate around with a video camera? In the olden days, like 2004, the worst that could happen was that a verbal misstep might someday make its way into your opponent’s commercial. Today, every mistake or perceived mistake your candidate makes can be posted in minutes on YouTube.
Here are a few scenarios that will play out somewhere in the country this fall. Candidates and staff, pay attention:
– A candidate (probably an old person who doesn’t understand the Internet) will confront an opponent’s staffer. Losing his (1) temper, the candidate will begin cursing and tossing about heavy-handed threats; the words are remixed, set to music, and played for eternity on the Internet.
– A candidate and their staff will make inappropriate remarks under their breath to each other; a video camera’s microphone will catch the exchange.
– A J-School dropout will seek to make a name (and a few bucks) for himself (2) by shoving a camera in the face of any candidate who will give him the time of day. In an attempt to be “edgy”, the young guy will ask smart-alecky questions (3), and at least one candidate will trip and say something stupid.
– Campaign consultants/operatives will create attack ads that television stations would never run. The ads will be posted anonymously on youtube, and the offending campaigns will claim ignorance.
– Bloggers, in an honest attempt to provide information, will put television stations’ video clips on YouTube. Stations’ management (probably old people who don’t understand the Internet) will demand the videos be taken down — clueless to the fact that the Internet can exponentially increase a station’s audience.
Staff and consultants: This post presents a great opportunity to talk to your candidate about the dangers of YouTube.
(1) Because you know it’s gonna be a guy.
(2) See (1).
(3) Kind of like Stephen Colbert, but not funny.
Following are two cautionary examples, and a third clip that is just plain funny.
George Allen earns some early GOP presidential primary support:
It was a farm bill hearing, after all…
How many of you St. Louisans would love to see this on Donnybrook?
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Memo to the Talent campaign: Judging from media coverage of the Willie Nelson concert, it appears as though Claire has the tax-evading, pot-smoking hippy vote locked up. Cancel the Jefferson Airplane reunion fundraiser immediately. Your only hope to win the election is to focus on people who pay their taxes and wake up before noon.
I have Willie Nelson on vinyl, tape, CD, and DVD. “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”? Delightfully wistful. “Always on My Mind”? Makes Elvis’ version sound like drunken karaoke. “Whiskey River”? Don’t let her memory torture me.
I love Willie. We all love Willie. But why do we pretend that his opinion matters on anything except music or the making of “The Dukes of Hazzard?”
For the McCaskill campaign, the concert/endorsement was a good way get some positive, if unsubstantial, earned media — Lord knows Jim Talent is owning her every day in the paid media battle. When asked about the endorsement, the candidate was almost able to keep a straight face when she told a television reporter that it might sway some farmers. Please. The only “farmers” supporting Claire McCaskill are the ones who measure their crop yield in ounces instead of bushels.
Willie Nelson coming in for Claire is like if Ted Nugent would come in for Talent. Reporters get to write a fun story, staff can get their picture taken with the entertainer, and then everybody has to start talking about real issues again.
(P.S. Speaking of real issues, the drug stuff is not among them. I linked to the videos in 2004, and nobody cared. Nor should they have. Let it go.)
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FACT: Depending on whom you listen to, somewhere between 170,000 and 240,000 Missourians could (potentially) be disenfranchised by a new law requiring voters to present a rare government-issued item called a “photo ID.”
FACT: By all accounts, the majority of those unable to pull off the superhuman feat of obtaining a photo ID are likely Democratic voters.
FACT: By 2008, many of those disenfranchised (potential) voters will have had their caretaker/Democratic committeeman assist them in obtaining a valid photo ID.
FACT: The return of those disenfranchised voters to the voting booth could be bad news for Republicans in 2008.
FACT: A few states, including Tennessee, forbid certain classes of ex-felons (murderers, rapists, child molesters) from voting. Missouri, meanwhile, allows ex-felons (except those convicted of election-related offenses) to vote.
OPINION: Republican legislators have nothing to lose and everything to gain by proposing, and forcing a vote on, a Tennessee-type law in the next session. Voting rights advocates will complain that such a law will disproportionately affect African-Americans. That is true. Of course, the law will also disproportionately affect men, making it every bit as sexist as it is racist.
If disenfranchisement is good enough for innocent Missourians, it’s certainly good enough for murderers, rapists, and child molesters.
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