Weekly Report

By: Fernando Manibog

 

The most important and relevant news of the week are as follows—starting with one news forecast, then the important news, and ending with a couple of news items that should have broken but did not:

 

(1)  The world wants Obama!  Mrs. Keziah Grace Obama, first wife of Obama Senior and stepmother of Barack Obama, said that all Obama across the world are converging on Kogelo Village, Siaya District, Kenya on November 4^th to watch her stepson win the elections. “He will be President,” said Prime Minister Raila Odinga during his courtesy visit at the Kogelo home of Barack Obama’s step-grandmother, Sarah Hussein, the subject of this Al Jazeera video. (Hmm, weeks ago, David Plouffe might not have wanted to package it quite that way.) The great anticipation is not limited to Kenya. Worldwide polls by the Global Electoral College show that Obama is winning by huge margins, as reported in this Cafferty file video. And many openly express hope at the United Nations for an Obama win. Let’s hope the Truman-Dewey result is not repeated, but the cover page of the New York magazine has already crowned Obama (* if current projections hold, carefully footnoted).

 

 

 

That’s next week’s news. Now for this week:

 

(2)   Marc Ambinder starts a thread on Palin 2012. His new insight is that Palin (“…ambitious. Very ambitious.”) may be deliberately undermining the McCain campaign for her own ends. More than a McCain victory (now increasingly elusive), she may have wised up that an Obama win could help her in 2012.  Picking up where Ambinder started, The Economist said that Palin could apprentice for four years, then emerge as a Washington outsider running against “Barack’s Big Government”, riding on a wave of money and pent-up rage from the conservative base.  Could this turn out to be what political savants will want to dissect in the final week before the elections?  It looks like it did  –

 

(3)  Still partners as the bus careens into the ditch?  Tensions in the McCain-Palin ticket get reported and Palin going “rogue”  is shown in this Kotecki video as the last week of campaigning approached. The lack of chemistry during an NBC interview was palpable, while Politico.com described Palin as frustrated with McCain’s senior advisers and campaign handlers, whom her allies blame for a series of PR gaffes. 

 

(4)  But is Palin the only one to blame?  The Guardian (UK) echoes the growing sentiment that Palin is one of the reasons why McCain is blowing it, alienating both independent and women voters that her choice intended to woo. Something about Sarah distorted McCain’s judgment, an assertion that led to some angry responses from women. But it seems unfair to heap all the blame on Sarah. McCain’s campaign had no central narrative, and he shares equal blame in allowing himself to keep being made and remade up until the final week before election day.

 

(5)  If McCain can’t win, what’s Plan B?  Let’s salvage what we can, without necessarily conceding prematurely, suggests David Frum. That means focusing on convincing US voters that a divided government is in their best interest, which may help other struggling Republican candidates. This further erodes McCain’s hopes, as a Republican ad seems to already assume an Obama win.

 

(6) As McCain sulks, Palin sinks further.  Negative perceptions about Palin increase, including defections from leading Republicans such as Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried who withdrew from several committees because of “the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of national crisis”.  PajamasMedia called Fried’s Obama endorsement “absurd”, while more new criticism surfaced about Palin’s $150,000 makeover and the top salary of her make-up artist.  The Caucus blog of the New York Times said that it’s OK for Cindy McCain to spend that much on hair and make-up, but then unlike Sarah Palin she does not say she’s one of the folks.

 

(7) And while the Republican ticket wages a battle in traditionally red states, the Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News Endorses Obama.

 

(8)  Is the Presidency for sale? Obama’s campaign finance attracted much attention. By the time this is all over, the Center for Responsive Politics estimates the total campaign costs for both candidates to be US2.4 billion, most of it by Obama.

 

(9)  Good that there was no traction to the news that Obama got heavyweight backing from Iran. Not that it should, since Obama had no part in this independent expression of support from Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament.

 

(10) But this one should have caught on, because the Associated Press investigation’s news that Sarah Palin swayed bids through a flawed process so that TransCanada, a company with ties to her administration would win the contract for her much vaunted 1,715 natural gas pipeline raises serious issues about her personal and political ethics.

Link, Bundle and Hedge – Campaign Fundraising With No Stone Unturned

 

Question: Will a 2012 candidate be able to only accept small donations?

 

 

The Obama election machinery has been able to raise more than half a billion dollars since his campaign started early this summer, netting $ 150 million in September alone and mobilizing 3.1 million donors so far.

 

Obama has been wildly successful in mobilizing huge sums via the explosive fundraising power of Facebook, MySpace, email and text messaging. Thus, it would seem sufficient for 2012 candidates to only rely on vast numbers of small donations.

 

But would that be prudent? Most likely not. It requires a bit of history to explain why.

 

Back in January 2007, when Obama’s fundraising schemes started to take shape, his advisers came up with a plan that was one part Howard Dean (the first to harness the Internet to raise cash in 2004) and one part John Kerry (the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 who impressively tapped check-writing supporters up to the limit allowed by election laws). During the primaries, Obama received support from a large number of bundlers who came from Hollywood and Wall Street, or who were moneyed Democrats and prominent citizens from Chicago.

 

Obama’s online fundraising drive set his campaign apart. But by June 2008, members of Obama’s finance committee were worried about a fundraising strategy that relied too much on the Internet, because Internet donors are impulsive and driven by big turns of events.

 

By the end of August, Obama’s campaign finance staff were frankly concerned that the Internet fundraising they had depended upon was turning out to be anemic.  Indeed, it seems that two events–McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin on August 29 and his campaign’s early-October threats to “take the gloves off”– did much to spike Obama’s Internet contributions throughout September and well into the last two weeks prior to Election Day.

 

While the Internet was surely important, a third of Obama’s funds came from the powerful and well-connected, who gave in increments of $2,300 at VIP receptions. That is not insignificant. These donors remain a foundation of any political fundraising campaign. A few of these Obama supporters—such as Warren Buffett, Robert Rubin and Caroline Kennedy—have huge networks of other friends who could write fat checks. And there are single superstar events like the Barbra Streisand concert that brought in $ 9 million in a few hours.

 

Bundlers play an essential role, since they are able to pool large amounts of money from all sources, and not just the Internet.  For example, of Obama’s 562 bundlers, 46 have been able to generate more than $500,000 for the campaign. But they do raise some concerns in terms of the influence they may have later on government decisions.

 

Raising funds through the Internet also raises some issues, such as the anonymity of small donors, possible false identities, unknown foreign contributions, and more generally the specter of “buying the presidency”.

 

In short, the old saying still holds:  as a candidate, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  It may not be possible nor wise for the 2012 candidates to only rely on small donations through the Internet.

 

It’s fine to link virally and collect voraciously over the Internet, but candidates still need to churn the bundlers and stay well-hedged through friends who sign big checks.

 

  

Sources (in addition to the 4 readings provided in the class site):

“Fear of Failure Helped Fuel Obama’s Record Fundraising”, Washington Post, Tuesday, October 21, 2008, page A-4.

 

“Obama’s September Haul Provides huge Advertising Edge”, Washington Post, Monday, October 20, 2008

 

“Analysis: Obama money dooms current public finance”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081019/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_money_analysis

 

Arts and Crafts Meet Burnt Rubber and Road Kill

 

Assignment: Voter-Generated Content in the Obama-McCain Campaigns

 

Is it true that there are more artists and dreamers in the liberal camp? It would seem so if you look for voter-generated content for Obama and McCain.

 

Site One for Obama

 

A painless search led quickly to Design/ers for Obama—a collaborative art space that was created to support Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency through poster art. The site’s pitch is that poster art is not dead in the US. A single poster can make a large impact, as shown by the social realism-inspired Obama poster by Los Angeles-based graphic designer and street artist Shepard Fairey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Design/ers for Obama site recognizes the power of “web-powered grassroots organizing that has already revolutionized campaigning.”  It pools together Obama poster art available for download so that it can be printed by anybody and everyone. It also has links that allow voters who make a video, write a song, take a photo or paint a mural to submit their creative product to VoteForChange.com . The site also links to The Obama Art Report—a blog that reports daily on Obama artwork, prints and auctions, and Not Another C Student—which gives free downloadable stickers, posters and t-shirts.

 

 

Site Two for Obama

 

Pumpkin carving is the whole draw of Barack O’Lantern where voters and their friends can download stencils for pumpkin carving, share photos of carved pumpkins online, and join a contest for Best Obama Pumpkin and a chance to win an iPod Nano. Barack is listed as a friend. Clicking on the name links to the Obama campaign website. Here is a sample (notice the resemblance to the poster above?):

 

 

 

 

Site Three for Obama (I could not resist)

 

A group of  26 business consultants started the blog Authors for Obama. The founding members have authored more than 30 books on leadership, and have worked to develop leaders in business organizations as well as in non-profit and government agencies. Their site invites other authors to add their name, comments and book/s they have written.  It hasn’t had any response yet, because it was posted in an e-group for the American Independent Writers, where many members felt that politics should be kept out of emails. Perhaps this is an example of doing the right thing in the wrong place.

 

One Site for McCain

 

It was harder to find voter-generated content for McCain that is of the lofty kind I found for Obama. I guessed that he would attract motorbikers and truckers and was proved right. In the sites I found, McCain is shown trying to get the bikers’ vote. On August 4, 2008, McCain and wife Cindy go to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, where he buys Cindy a motorcycle T-shirt.  On September 22, 2008, McCain attends the Orange County Choppers rally at Media, Pennsylvania. OCC built a McCain chopper motorcycle and gave it to him as a surprise!

 

But McCain does not know how to ride.

 

 

 

 

Promise, Tool and Bargain in the Obama and McCain Websites

 

During the last class on October 1, 2008, we discussed the promise, tool and bargain in the overall campaigns of Obama and McCain. In this blog, I analyze whether this is consistent with how their respective websites are designed.

 

Promise. The promise of the Obama website is clear: if you join, you become an agent of change. The McCain website’s promise is less clear. Instead of showing McCain, it presents a chatty video of Palin right away, which distracts rather than focuses. McCain himself is not a commanding presence on the front page, hence the nature of the promise is muddled.

 

Tool. The tools of the two websites differ in several ways. Obama’s website immediately call for two main actions: watch the videos or read the news. McCain’s website proposes four actions: join the team, learn why McCain should win, recruit others, and make phone calls. The McCain tools are more diffuse and off-message. The colorfulness of McCain’s website is also distracting, even if at first it looks entertaining. The blue tone of Obama’s website calls for focusing on the candidate and the issues, which I thought was much more effective.

 

Joining McCain, however, is much easier, because you just type in your email and zip. Joining Obama’s website asks for many steps on an online form, which asks for personal data, employment information, level of donation, and clicking on a series of disclaimers. The legalistic approach of Obama’s website may be a disincentive to some.

 

In terms of social networking links, Obama’s website gives a large number of options under a menu called “Obama Everywhere”. It includes Asian, Hispanic and Black American links. But it is strange that this is found only at the very bottom after a lot of scrolling and wading through news. This is still better than McCain’s website, however, which seems to give only a link to blogs. There is no clearly marked menu for social networking.

 

Bargain. The bargain offered by the Obama website is that if you join and donate, you will have in-depth knowledge of the issues that will help you make a sound individual decision. The bargain of the McCain website is that if you participate and donate, you will be part of a team that is thinking together and supporting each other. Obama’s website challenges positively and reinforces beliefs that you may already have, while McCain’s website vindicates some anger and provides comfort (especially now that Palin is in the ticket). Obama leads, McCain herds.

 

 

 

 

Blog Report: Tracking a Conservative Blog and a Liberal Blog

 

I tracked Little Green Footballs (LGF-conservative) and Firedoglake (FDL-liberal) from September 25 to October 7, 2008.  During this period, I asked two main questions. How differently did they cover news events? And what impact did that difference have on what news I got and what I understood about it?

 

In addition, I also looked through the lens of 5 criteria:

• Slant
• Group space
• Digital mastery
• What’s still missing?
• Ethics

 In terms of slant, both blogs ramped up the vitriol against each other once the McCain campaign announced on October 4 that it was time to take a “more aggressive strategy” against Obama. As I expected, LGF did more of the punching, but FDL was quick to respond. The news I got were chosen to prove the points of criticism about the other.

 

Earlier, LGF started with a focus on the VP debates, but morphed fast to increasingly discredit Obama’s personal character. On October 5, several blog posts came out that were clearly anti-Muslim. Palin’s statement on “Obama palling with terrorists” and accusations regarding the Obama-Ayers connection came in quick succession.

 

  

 

FDL also took the gloves off, but it still took pains to provide positive content showing why Obama would be the better President. LGF, however, mainly gushed about Palin and gave little information on McCain’s platform, which got drowned under a lot of negative tone and content. LGF’s attacks on mainstream media were also strong, at one point saying that BBC was “lukewarm on Israel”.

 

The group space of FDL provided more hands-on tools that allow users to participate and post their own content. The enticements are direct. Early in the week, GritTV asked: “Worried about the election? Here are some things you can do.”  FDL’s “Top 10 Diaries” also draw users in quickly into who’s saying something that’s interesting.

 

The writing style and nature of the comments also reveal something about those who post and respond to these blogs. The style in LGF is personal, direct, conversational, brief, and often not substantiated.  The FDL posts and comments tend to have a young, breezy and humorous (or perhaps ironic) feel, sometimes sardonic but not sarcastic. Occasionally though, some smarmy, grating language does creep into its posts.

 

What I particularly liked about FDL is that it has an “About Us” link, which allowed me to know who’s behind the blog. That resulted in a deeper level of connection with their content. I could not find such information in LGF.

 

In terms of using digital media, LGF has very good links to a large number of other blogs and news sources. FDL also has these, but in addition, it has a Toolbox feature for “general housekeeping”. FDL has two or three videos right on top including GritTV and Obama’s Plan on the Economy.

 

 

  

LGF has a very useful feature, the “Overnight Open Thread”, which gives a sense of immediacy and being up to date. But this is not really an advantage over FDL, which updates its site with new blog postings and videos regularly.  The uncluttered look, overall feel, and ease of navigation of the websites are almost equal (although LGF seems to be dominated by the ads of Pajamas TV).

 

What’s still missing in both blogs is some minimum measure of researched quantitative evidence. The videos speak for themselves, but when assertions are made—particularly now when economic and financial issues dominate the news—it seems important to back up scary or controversial statements with real numbers. FDL may have a more high-minded style, but overall both FDL and LGF do come through as highly opinionated and biased. But maybe that’s what blogs are all about.

 

Are blogs news? Is blogging journalism? Many blogs I have seen and tracked give reason for worry from the ethical perspective, when cast against the “gold standard” of  the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. Very often, blog photos, videos and headlines oversimplify or present incidents out of context.  Many opinions pass off as “news”. The accuracy of detailed information is sometimes doubtful, and when that information is posted beside many advertisements, the difference between the factual and the commercial is blurred.

 

Having tracked these two blogs, I think the main purpose of blogs is to invite dialogue with the public. This may give the impression that anybody’s spontaneous opinion can be posted without filtering and good thinking. But bloggers must also meet high standards and adhere to bloggers’ code of ethics.

 

The “gut feel” and “team spirit” of LGF, versus the “considered opinion” and “club access” of FDL. That is how I would describe the impact of these two blogs on my up-take and understanding of the news. LGF hits in the stomach, tells me what’s wrong (specifically, the pro-McCain Republican base). FDL enters the head and asks me to think through my options, while arguing in favor of the best one (in this case, the pro-Obama Democratic base).

 

I already subscribed and contributed to the latter, even though as a foreigner I cannot vote, but both LGF and FDL—and the blogging world in general—need to strengthen their ethical safeguards. Otherwise, news and opinion become too blurred, and fact becomes wrongfully inferred from fabrication. That is dangerous for true democracy.