I have written before of my skepticism toward the influence celebrity plays in politics. You cannot ignore the large efforts made by Frank Sinatra & his Rat Pack in electing Kennedy or the waves Sinatra made when jumping parties to later support Ronald Reagan. I am not convinced though that having Barbara Streisand or conversely James Woods in your court equates to votes or that the money they raised couldn’t be found from corporate or activist donors.
With that said a story came out this week that actor George Clooney was supporting the Barack Obama ticket but that he was reluctant to take a visible role, fearing Hollywood could play negatively in a campaign as it did in 2004.
In that election Clooney was more than visible supporting the Democrats over the Republicans as were a slew of Hollywood actors, producers, directors and the documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. Massive concerts were staged for the Democratic ticket and what Clooney describes as a “Hollywood vs. the Heartland” mentality set in. The Republican ticket created a sense of the Democratic Party holding “Hollywood” values which seemed to play well, especially with evangelical voters.
In 2006 a much less visible Hollywood contingent existed and Democrats ran campaigns in “red” states with candidates as far removed from Hollywood as possible. The outcome? They resoundingly won. Of course there were many issues at play in ‘06 but as hard as many of the opposing campaigns tried to sound the “Hollywood vs. Heartland” it did not stick and not having visible Hollywood types in the press undoubtedly helped.
So What Do the Blogs Say? Andrew Sullivan is on the same page asking Clooney to stay away. Meanwhile Yazilikaya sees a distinction between the bloggers desire to have Britney Spears political opinions silences over Clooneys. Meanwhile Steve White calls Sullivan’s comments “pithy”.
Clinton said a more even discussion of politics could come from Internet sites and Web blogs. He cited the tendency of blogs to scrutinize one or two subjects rather than a full plate of issues.
“They can do research and get the facts and don’t have to bad-mouth people. Sometimes they do, but they don’t have to,” Clinton said. “I think all these blog sites are creating a whole new opportunity for public debate that may revitalize our politics in an old fashioned way.”
Clinton and (Former President) Bush lauded the role telecommunications and technology can play in improving healthcare, spreading individual freedoms and eradicating poverty.
And as for personal technology, the former presidents said they were dedicated to using cell phones or wireless devices.
“The hour I’m here is about the longest I can be away from my Blackberry,” Bush said.
Just to add my own thoughts I am glad to see President Clinton have such a positive thought about blogs & the Internet. Especially since during his years The Drudge Report & sites like it played such a pivotal role in releasing information about his personal indiscretions. Meanwhile it is really cool to see elder Bush is a Blackberry user. Somehow I just wouldn’t have pictured it on my own.
It was the biggest topic in the campaign news for at least twenty-four, maybe forty-eight hours this week, U.S. General Pace remarked that homosexuality was “immoral” and suddenly every news reporter was flocking to find out what all the candidates thought. Did Senator John McCain, the only major candidate to have served, agree with the general? Did Mitt Romney, the candidate now being championed AND questioned heavily by the Religious right, have the answer that would make them happy? The General was speaking about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell a popular issue in other elections. What did each candidate really think?
If you wanted to find out and get your news straight from the horses mouth then heading to any of the candidates Web pages certainly wasn’t the way to do it.
I am one step above the casual Web viewer when it comes to using the candidates sites. I subscribe to RSS when possible, get campaign e-mail and check out various other sites which monitor the candidates blogs. Nowhere, not in those immediate hours and rarely afterward did I see anything at all addressing the issue of the day. The sites had plenty of virtual networking available, I could watch old video footage, see Hillary have a conversation from three weeks ago. I could do a lot, I just couldn’t find out what the candidates were thinking, in real time, about an issue immediately relevant to the news.
Written in light of the Amanda Marcotte episode with the John Edwards campaign Lindsay Beyerstein tells her story at Salon and does a good job of summing up many of my own thoughts about blogging and elections.
This has been a VERY SLOW news week, especially campaign related news. Since so many Web sites are springing up around the 2008 election I thought I would use the lull to spotlight some of them.
techPresident is a site devoted to, you guessed it, technology and the presidential election. How campaigns are using tech and how tech is using the campaigns.
The site tracks the candidates myspace friends like the stock market, charts the mentions of each candidate on technorati, keeps an up to date blog of related news, articles etc., scours Flickr for new election related photos, watches YouTube and keeps you punched into campaign RSS feeds. It really is an informative and interesting resource that should be in your bookmarks. All that and they are just getting started.
Katha Pollitt mirrors many of my thoughts about the recent spat over Edward’s bloggers over at TPMCafe. Her question? How did many others not see the problem?
“The man is running for president, not king of the blogosphere, and he’s running now, not in some putative future when words like [add your own Pandagon/Shakespseare Sister expletives] have lost their punch. He wants — he needs — the votes of people who have never looked at a blog in their lives, who are deeply religious, culturally staid, and easily offended in about a thousand ways.”
It is a well reasoned and interesting read not just because I agree but because it touches on some very basic principals of campaigning.
“We liberals would certainly make a fuss about a Republican campaign hire who had written posts that could be interpreted as racist, sexist, boorish or the like. (We might not be as successful as Wm Donohue was with Amanda and Melissa, though, because the MSM might not amplify our complaints.) If the blogger tried to explain that the remarks were taken out of context, were making some subtle political point, were typical blogspeak and so on, we would just pile on the more ferociously.”
Joining Amanda Marcotte fellow Edwards campaign blogger Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister has announced her departure.
Her blog post announcing her departure was a much more, how shall I say this, conciliatory, than Marcottes whose filled her blog up with new posts highlight the very vitriol she was condemned for by the right and some on the left.
I am not taking sides in this debate but I do hope both girls take something away from it. Mainly that there is an online world where arrows are slung and a physical world where they actually hurt people. Yes there was a campaign by the right to oust them and score political points, but that doesn’t negate there being some substance to their points.
Meanwhile a good sign that the issue was not going to disappear but only grow was from Bill O’Reilly’s broadcast:
Amanda Marcotte, who was at the center of a good deal of controversy and at the center of John Edwards online campaign announced she has resigned from the Edwards camp.
