Thursday, March 29, 2007

Obama for President or VP?

From everything I've been reading and hearing about Obama, it appears he is either going to be the Democratic Presidential nomination or at the very least, the VP to whomever is the Democratic pick. The Irregular Times, News Unfit for Print has been selling Presidential Dream Ticket items and appears in every single combination Barack Obama is the central player.
In December 2006, Irregular Times sold over 200 of these items; Barack Obama took the presidential position in most of the running-mate items. Obama is not only dominant: he is also central.
I wonder if the stats are still the same now. It is being speculated that if Gore wins the Nobel Prize for his environmental piece, he will be pressured into running for the President and Obama will be he running mate. Only time will tell.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Barack Obama asks...

How can we engage more people in the democratic process?

Barack Obama - Community get togethers

On March 31st, people across America with be gethering from Barack Obama around the theme of "Hope". You’ll have an opportunity to join Barack in a discussion, streamed live at BarackObama.com. The discussion will be centered around "how we can reinvigorate our democratic process and change America". Click here to find a community gathering near you.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

"Hillary 1984" Attack Ad Creator Revealed

An email from TechPresident to the "Hillary1984" Vote Different ad creator under the username ParkRidge47 (Hillary Clinton was born in Park Ridge, Illinois in 1947), led to this disclosure:
"The idea was simple and so was the execution. Make a bold statement about the Democratic primary race by culture jacking a famous commercial and replacing as few images as possible. For some people it doesn't register, but for people familiar with the ad and the race it has obviously struck a chord."
Arianna Huffington followed-up and sent out a challenge to the HuffPost team asking them to put their ears to the ground, and learned the video was the work of Philip de Vellis, an employee of Blue State Digital, a company created by members of Howard Dean's Internet Team--that now advises the Obama campaign.

What was he thinking? Did he consider his stealthy creativity might damage Sen. Obama's presidential campaign philosophy once it got out that he was an Obama campaign consultant? Apparently not: Proudly he declares,

"I made the "Vote Different" ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process. There are thousands of other people who could have made this ad, and I guarantee that more ads like it--by people of all political persuasions--will follow.

This shows that the future of American politics rests in the hands of ordinary citizens.

The campaigns had no idea who made it--not the Obama campaign, not the Clinton campaign, nor any other campaign. I made the ad on a Sunday afternoon in my apartment using my personal equipment (a Mac and some software), uploaded it to YouTube (on March 5th), and sent links around to blogs.

The specific point of the ad was that Obama represents a new kind of politics, and that Senator Clinton's "conversation" is disingenuous. And the underlying point was that the old political machine no longer holds all the power."

Well, the ad has now cost him his job: Here is Blue State Digital's statement on this situation.

Statement from Thomas Gensemer, Managing Director, Blue State Digital:

This afternoon, an employee at our firm, Phillip de Vellis, received a call from Arianna Huffington of "The Huffington Post" regarding the "1984" video currently circulating online. Initially, de Vellis refused to respond to her requests. He has since acknowledged to Blue State Digital that he was the creator of the video.

Pursuant to company policy regarding outside political work or commentary on behalf of our clients or otherwise, Mr. de Vellis has been terminated from Blue State Digital effective immediately.

Blue State Digital is under contract with the Obama Campaign for technology pursuits including software development and hosting. Additionally, one of our founding partners is on leave from the company to work directly for the campaign at headquarters.

However, Blue State Digital is not currently engaged in any relationship with the Obama Campaign for creative or non-technical services.

Mr. de Vellis created this video on his own time. It was done without the knowledge of management, and was in no way tied to his work at the firm or our formal engagement [on technology pursuits] with the Obama campaign.

I have spoken with David Plouffe, Sen. Obama's campaign manager, to inform him of this action and am appreciative of his understanding and ongoing support of our work.

In any event, like Geffen's gaff last month, Mr. de Vellis may have created new storm clouds to block out the clear blue sky of Obama's pragmatic political idealism that he so admires. Many will wonder: Could anyone on Obama's staff not have known about the ad before it was uploaded? Zack Exley of TechPresident believes,

"This was a funded project, involving lawyers and an ad agency or at the very least a professional video person who's time is worth hundreds of dollars an hour.

This brings up an interesting possibility. In primary campaigns--where viral ads like this can influence game-changing numbers of voters--will privately-funded creative like "Vote Different" become a major factor? It might not be such a pretty picture. Think ahead to what ad agencies, with checks from Republican political donors, would produce against Hillary, Obama or Edwards in the General Election.

This could really change the way politics are done, at least in this cycle, and probably will bring regulation of this kind of thing soon."

What if de Vellis was a mole? Was the hidden agenda to create another situation to smear Obama? Who would have hired him? There still is a mystery: Who made the cheap imitation "Barack 1984 ad?"


Obama the 'Magic Negro'

The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.

The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia.

He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest. As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic — embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."

Monday, March 19, 2007

A Compelling Political "Mashup" Ad--"Hillary 1984"

A chillingly creative ad has opened a Pandora's box of new ways outsiders can anonymously attack their opponents to influence political campaigns. This compelling ad called a "mashup" where old and new elements are combined to create a new message, uses footage from the "1984" Super Bowl ad, produced by director Ridley Scott, that introduced Apple's MacIntosh Computer, and then splices in footage from Sen. Clinton speaking on the presidential campaign trail. It wasn't broadcast: it's posted on the Internet on YouTube.


In the
updated ad: "Hillary 1984," Clinton's face is seen on an IMAX sized screen as she talks about holding conversations with the public, while a mass of zombie like people (mainly men) watch mindlessly until a young blond female athlete carrying a sledgehammer, chased by a band police officers, races into the room and smashes the screen; a blinding light appears, a new tagline rises up: "On January 14th, the Democratic primary will begin. And you will see why 2008 won't be like '1984;" the screen then fades to an updated Apple logo showing a rainbow colored O and the Web address BarackObama.com at the bottom.

The outside activists who created this video remain a mystery...for now. Someone else (a Clinton supporter?) retaliated and used the same Super Bowl anti-Hillary ad concept calling it "Barack 1984." Now Obama is in the mix: The setup is he seemingly is giving his announcement to run for the presidency; the ad shifts to his announcing "the (Chicago) Bears to go all the way baby" and win the Super Bowl; a caption then appears, "The Bears Lost, So Will Obama." Both the Obama and Clinton Campaigns absolutely deny any connection with these ads.

Observing the impact this video will have in political campaigns, Carla Marinucci writes in the San Francisco Chronicle,
[I]n the weeks since its early March debut, the expertly created video remix -- called a mashup in blogosphere circles -- has "changed the zone" between political campaigns, their followers and the Internet, said Simon Rosenberg, president of the Washington-based New Democrat Network, an influential party advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

With presidential campaigns now poised to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising that will blanket television before November 2008, this seemingly home-produced video -- created with software and a laptop, and likely without the benefit of a team of expensive political consultants -- opens a new window, Rosenberg said. It has dramatized a brave new world in which passionate activists outside the structure of traditional campaigns have the power to shape the message -- even for a presidential candidate.

The ad is proof that "anybody can do powerful emotional ads ... and the campaigns are no longer in control," Rosenberg said. "It will no longer be a top-down candidate message; that's a 20th century broadcast model."

It also dramatizes that today, political activists with the Internet as their ammunition have gone from being "just donors to the cause," he said, "to being partners in the fight. And they don't have to wait for permission."

While the original provocative Apple ad borrows themes from George Orwell's book, 1984, in which Big Brother coerces conformity among the masses to control the future, I am reminded of a recent subversive film, V for Vendetta--the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix Trilogy) adaptation of the graphic novel V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore and David Lloyd starring Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, and Stephen Rea. Next we might see movie trailer political mashups.





Obama surge in new poll

Sen. Obama surges to within striking distance of Sen. Clinton according a March 19, 2007 Rasmussen Report Poll: Clinton 35% Obama 30% Edwards 11%.

The race for the Democratic Presidential nomination is getting a bit tighter. Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) has closed to within five points of the frontrunner—Senator Hillary Clinton. A week ago, Clinton held a 12-point lead.

The former First Lady now attracts 35% of the vote down slightly from 38% last week. Obama gained four points and now is the top choice for 30% of Likely Voters. That’s the highest level of support for Obama in any Rasmussen Reports survey since the Election 2008 season began.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Uncovering the Secret to Sen. Obama's Appeal

Many pundits wonder what is it that makes Obama so appealing across multiple psychodemographics. How is it that he connects so effortlessly and empathically with people? Is it his young age, his wit, his diverse ethnic background, his untainted political resume, his consistent opposition to the Iraq war, his membership in the "Joshua generation" (the post civil rights or "Moses" generation), or his vision of politics?

Imagine something more basic: Voice, facial expression and body language. Communication expert, David McGrath has done an analysis of Obama's and other political leaders communication style. And beyond the obvious--Obama smiles a lot--he postulates,
"that an audience responds positively or negatively to a speaker, less on the basis of what he represents with his words and sentences than on the message he conveys with tactile, sensory and spatial engagement of his body. And Obama apparently is ahead of the pack of presidential candidates when it comes to cues of body language."

Monday, March 5, 2007

Obama in Selma: Video clips on the psychology of "acting white" and "absentee fathers"

Insights into Sen. Obama's authenticity can be gleaned from these two video excerpts of his 35 minute speech at the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church commemorating the 42nd anniversary of the attempted crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge by 600 people, led by John Lewis (now a U.S. Congressman) and SCLC's Hosea Williams.

Obama weighs in on the false perception, generated by popular culture, held by many black youth that equates academic achievement with "acting white." In the manner of Bill Cosby, Obama also addresses personal responsibility and the difficulty growing up without a father, which calls to mind Mary J. Blige's song, "Father In You."

Like a jazz musician soloing, Obama's gave an inspiring speech, but some of the notes he hit didn't ring true. Pumping the pulse of the people from the pulpit, Obama's metaphoric narrative of the connection of his African grandfather and father, his birth and the civil rights movement, specifically the Selma situation had a number of fuzzy facts (which many of the elders surely recognized). Yet, apparently, they were not offended; they knew the perils of preaching. "Keeping it real" via connecting with the people's hearts is what's important, and that's what Obama deftly did.

Click here for a more complete video of Sen. Obama's speech.
Click here for Sen. Obama's Selma speech text.

View photographer Spider Martin's excellent exhibit on this historic event of March 7, 1965.
View videos of the unsuccessful "Bloody Sunday" march and successful one two weeks later.