Tag Archives: Obama

I Told You So!

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Strange/muted tension at work today. I am one of a handful (five? six?) of out-of-the-closet Obama supporters in our office. Two years ago, Bush supporters roamed the hallways like Senior jocks, administering titty-twisters to freshmen Liberals. As Bush devolved into the pariah he has become, they shed their Neocon uniforms and melted back into the crowd.

Today, the morning after the majority of Americans said they’d had enough of W and his ilk, I gave the gop’er’s lots of room and resisted the Snoopy Dance. And they found other things to talk about as we passed each other in the parking lot.

A few have dropped a little chum in the water to see if I’d bite (“Boy, the country is in trouble NOW”). But it’s hard to lay this shit-storm at O’s feet after only a few hours.

But it’s coming. A few of my pals are already looking forward to playing “I Told You So,” but I’m ready.

I’m encouraging them to chronicle every misstep of our new president. If they don’t have a blog, I’ll help them set one up. They can share their anger and despair with the world. And me.

For those that insist on sharing their political angst with me in person, I’m introducing a new feature on my politix blog:

Itoldyouso“I Told You So.”I’m keeping an audio recorder with me at all times. When the subject turns to President Obama’s latest terrorist/socialist/liberal sin, I whip out the recorder and let them have their say. Which I’ll post to the politix blog. Unedited and unfiltered. A bully digital pulpit.

Don’t want to go on the record, no problem (“Did you see 30 Rock last night?”).

Seriously,  hope it doesn’t come up. I HATE talking about politics. Or religion. Or my sexual fantasies. I’ve posted on this before.

So, if you love me… if you enjoy my company, but hate my politics… don’t read my blogs. And I won’t read yours. But we can both have our say and spend our time together talking about movies or books or that smokin’ hot intern.

“This is not really an Obama area.”

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I grew up in Kennett, Missouri, the county seat of Dunklin County. So when I heard the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had a front-page story (by Todd C. Frankel) about Bootheel politics, I headed for the paper’s website to check it out.

I wasn’t really surprised to learn than Dunklin County was Obama’s worst showing in the primary. Just 18 percent.

But then I was heartened to learn that the Obama campaign has two office in the county and that Sheryl Crow’s momma and daddy volunteer for O.

They have a Republican campaign HQ but if I read the story right it’s a first for Dunklin County.

The story quotes Ronnie Johnson who’s “voting for McCain. Or rather, against Obama.”

“He is reluctant to explain this at first — “You don’t want to know why,” he says.”

“The others on the porch goad him. And Johnson, a lanky 20-year-old white man who works as a meatcutter at a grocery store, starts to talk about an issue that has persisted throughout the campaign: race.”

“It is not just that Obama is black, Johnson says. He has heard that Obama is Muslim. (Obama is Christian.) He also has heard rumors that Obama refuses to salute the American flag, and that Obama has promised that black men will have more rights than white men. (Independent fact-checking groups say these rumors
are false.)”

“He’s white,” Johnson says.

The story concludes with a couple of demographics:

“Dunklin is one of the poorest counties in Missouri. The unemployment rate hovers near 9 percent. More than a quarter of the population lives in poverty.”

Not sure we’ll see this clipping on the Chamber of Commerce bulletin board.

Moosehunting with Aden Nak

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Aden Nak doesn’t understand why it’s taboo to say someone is too dumb to be president. He somehow managed to get his hands on the flow chart used to prep Governor Palin for last night’s debate.

“The truth is that Palin didn’t answer any questions she didn’t want to tonight, and she said she’d do exactly that at the start of the debate. She had a hand full of index cards and a brain full of buzz words, and it was her job to say them all in front of the camera. Actually, it was her job to say them while looking at Joe Biden for five seconds, then looking at the camera for five seconds, and then looking back at Biden to start over again. It was like she was on a timer. One of the many things she’d probably been coached on after the whole flap about McCain not looking Obama in the eyes.”

election.twitter.com

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People of a certain age might remember old TV shows that used an “applause meter” (it was just an audio level meter) to allow the studio audience to “vote” on something or someone. The kids at Twitter have come up with a 21st century twist for tomorrow night’s debate. From NYT’s The Caucus:

“If Senators John McCain and Barack Obama actually do debate Friday night, you will be able to watch what thousands of viewers think of their verbal sparring almost as they talk. Twitter, the service that lets techno-hipsters broadcast their thoughts in 140-character bursts, is setting up a special politics page to make it easy to tune into the chatter.

At midnight Thursday, the company is launching election.twitter.com, the first specialized section of its site. Like Twitter’s main service, it is dominated by a big white box. But instead of typing an answer to “What are you doing?” the election site asks, “What do you think?”

Below that box is a constantly scrolling display of the thoughts (called “tweets” in Twitterspeak) of other Twitter users. These include all the tweets entered on the election page as well as those entered in any other part of the service with obvious election-related phrases, such as “Palin.”

I think our company should do this very thing for each of the colleges we work with. Sure, you’d get a few fans tweeting that the coach made a bad call but I suspect the majority of posts would be supportive. And what a sense of “being part of the crowd” this would create for fans listening to the radio or watching TV. Might even be something a hip, web-savvy company would want to sponsor.

President Bartlet will see you now Senator

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I never got hooked on West Wing but I must have been the only one not watching this popular TV show about fictional U. S. President Jed Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen). NYT columnist Maureen Dowd asked WW creator Aaron Sorkin to imagine a meeting between President Bartlet and Senator Barack Obama. As you know, I’m fond of such fictional conversations, so I share a nugget or two from this one:

OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET Well … let me think. …We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know … I’m a little angry.

OBAMA What would you do?

BARTLET GET ANGRIER! … Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

Everything WILL be different

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You know that scene in the old horror movies where one of the female characters is hysterical and the female lead slaps her to snap her out of it?  That’s what came to mind reading this post by Dave Winer, explaining why Barack Obama does, in fact, represent change. The entire post is must-read for Obama supporters, but here’s my favorite idea:

“Think of it like this. One day you’re using Windows and wake up the next day and all your computers are running Mac OS X. It’s still a computer. It’s still fundamentally the same experience. But it works a bit more logically, and you don’t get in trouble as often. It’s not foolproof, but it’s a bit better.”

I’ve been put off by some of Obama’s recent moves, and people are lining up to tell me, “See!? See!? He’s no different! He’s just another politician! Don’t you feel like a chump now?”

Actually, I feel more like the father who’s son keeps getting the shit kicked out of him on the playground and finally gets up and kicks the bigger kid in the balls. Playing nice only works when everyone is doing it.

If the only change we get from Obama is he’s not Bush… that will be enough.

“Candidates for Sale”

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I’ve said on more than one occasion that Matt Taibbi is my favorite political reporter. I tend to believe the things he writes. And his latest piece in Rolling Stone makes my stomach hurt. Here’s the short version:

“For all the excitement that Barack Obama has garnered, and all the talk about a new day in Washington, it would be tragic if the real legacy of his election victory was to finally expose the essentially unchanging, oligarchic nature of our political system. It’s the same old story: Money talks, and bullshit walks. And don’t be surprised if we’re the ones still walking after November.”

I’m not ready to flush my hope for Obama yet, but I promised I’d own my support for the guy. And do it here.

This post is about technology and media, not politics.

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I "follow" Barack Obama’s Twitter feed. If you don’t know what that means, it’s okay (unless you happen to be a journalist). A few minutes ago the campaign "tweeted" that the senator was getting ready to speak in Springfield, Missouri and I could watch it live by clicking the included link.

Obamalivevideo

It took me to the "live" page on the Obama website where a USTREAM player was feeding live video. As I write this there are 830 viewers. Only a fraction of the number watching on the cable news channels that might be airing this speech.

I mention this only because no "traditional media" were necessary to make this happen. The Obama campaign has an email address for each of the millions (?) of people who have contributed to his campaign. We all got a ping that he was about to speak.

[901 viewers]

I think this is huge. Sure, a campaign still need MSM to get elected. Today. Will that be as true four years from now? Will it be true at all 8 years from now?

[1,045 viewers]

Of course it is not just the live stream. This speech –and all of the others– will be available from now until election day. And beyond?

[1,095 viewers]