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Hillary's Classy Tweets to Ohio and Rhode Island
Hillary brought some short & simple class to Twitter tonight – she thanked both Rhode Island and Ohio immediately after winning each state.
I thought this was very nice to see. Instead of just reporting out, she’s engaging. Is this finally the start of The Conversation we were told about last January?
Barack & Hillary: K-I-S-S-I-N-G?
Warning: this video may bring your mind places you might never want it to go.
From the same folks who brought you Barack OBollywood.
Jack Nicholson's Characters Come out for Clinton
Jack Nicholson and his movie characters star in an online ad in support of Hillary Clinton, titled “Jack and Hill.”
Nicholson previously recorded robocalls for Clinton for Super Tuesday contests.
Awesome Obama Visibility in Adams Morgan
Friday nights I like to walk Dirt McGirt down 18th Street, the main stretch of bars and nightlife in DC and usually full of interesting things at the start of the weekend.
Tonight, as we approached the busy intersection of 18th & Columbia, I heard tons of cars honking. I figured some dumbass wasn’t turning left on the advance left arrow from Adams Mill Rd, but the honking was pretty persistent, and I didn’t see anything like a long line of cars waiting to turn.
Honk honk honk-honk-honk – WTF? How is a rhythmic honk supposed to communicate one’s complete and utter frustration with a fellow driver’s inability to pay attention?
A girl darted across the intersection, running straight to a white Mazda pulled over in front of Starbucks, the driver’s arm outretched from the window. The girl handed him an Obama sign.
That’s when I realized there was a cluster on every corner of people waving Obama signs, shouting for Obama, and even chanting Obama chants. The honks were from cars passing in every direction honking for Obama.
A woman deftly stuck a pamphlet in front of me as I rounded the McDonald’s – an Obama pamphlet customized for DC, with an insert from DC for Obama on how to vote on Tuesday. I told the woman I was voting for him – she said, Remember, vote on Tuesday. These Obama volunteers were well trained, incredibly enthusiastic, and truly impressive.
As Dirt and I continued our walk down 18th St., more Obama volunteers were walking towards us, passing out Obama rally signs and campaign literature, reminding people to vote for Obama on Tuesday.
Not a Hillary supporter in sight. Can’t wait to vote Obama on Tuesday.
Heeeeere's Hillary!
Jack Nicholson recorded a robocall supporting Hillary Clinton, and the campaign threw it up on YouTube. Very quick but good move on their part, if only to beg the question, “Hey Obama, where’s Scarlett Johansson’s robocall video for us to watch all day?”
Super Tuesday; Yes We Can
Today is election day for half the country in the Dem nomination. I don’t get to vote til next Tuesday in the DC primary. That’s all fine, cause I’m at least not like those suckers in Pennsylvania who have to wait til April 23 to vote.
To start the day off, here’s will.i.am’s Yes We Can video. Vote!
Feb 5, 06:49 AM / Comment [1]
Free Fallin' to Tuesday (feat. Airplane!)
After a bad month for Hillary, you’d think her campaign would stay away from really bad metaphors (in a really bad advertisement).
techRepublican David All quickly mashed it up with scenes and sounds from Airplane!, and it’s hilarious.
Hillary takes New Hampshire, I make my first contribution
Like most everyone else, I am pretty shocked that Hillary won New Hampshire. And like many others, I’m not that happy about it. (See: Chris Matthews nearly peeing himself tonight.)
So I just made my first contribution this cycle. I donated $25 to Barack Obama. You can do the same here.
Completely unfounded Iowa predictions.
For a pool I’m participating in, so I’ll post it here.
dems
1. Obama – 33
2. Edwards – 29
3. Hillary – 25
4. Dodd – 6
gop
1. Huckabee – 31
2. Romney – 27
3. McCain – 22
4. Arthur Branch – 10
Obama's Facebook App Finds Your Iowa Friends
Barack Obama’s campaign put its Facebook page to a new use just four days before the Iowa caucuses. Fans, or supporters, of Barack Obama received a message asking to remind their friends in Iowa to caucus.
The message, titled “3 Days to Go,” directs supporters to a page with all of their friends who have some connection to Iowa. You can check off the friends you want to invite to the caucus, and the app sends a caucus reminder to your friends.
Meanwhile, Jose Antonio Vargas reports in the Washington Post that Obama’s Iowa staff engage people in a variety of contexts, new and old, including Facebook messages:
In Sen. Barack Obama’s Iowa headquarters, young staff members sit at computers, analyzing online voter data and targeting potential backers. They zip one e-mail to an undecided voter and zap a different message to a firm supporter.Depending on the voter, they follow with Facebook reminders, telephone calls, text messages and, most important, house visits.
It’s getting down to the wire. If Obama’s new voter contact strategies work, there could be an unsuspecting wave of caucus-goers completely missed by traditional tactics and polling surveys. For reference, here’s how Jerome Armstrong predicts the caucuses will go based on turnaround alone:
Turnout numbers Favors
< 150,000 Edwards
150-170,000 Clinton
> 170,000 Obama
Mitt Romney affirms 2nd Amendment does not cover rocket launchers
Still trying to wiggle into his new right-wing digs, Mitt Romney took a boldly awkward stand in response to Mike Huckabee questioning Romney’s commitment to the 2nd Amendment.
In an email to supporters, Romney affirmed his support of legally owned semi-automatic weapons like AK-47s. Mitt drew the line at “weapons of unusual lethality like grenades, rocket launchers, fully automatic firearms and what are legally known as destructive devices,” and would further oppose any new “exotic weapons.” Kinky.
Now the question is: Will Ron Paul say rocket launchers are protected under the 2nd Amendment?
You know it's bad for Fred when...
Fred Thompson was forced to insist he still ‘has the desire’ to run for president. Forgetting policy and politics – people don’t know if he even likes what he’s doing.
If I wasn’t so swamped I’d make a last-ditch effort to finish and promote DraftJackMcCoy.com – particularly as the new L&O season starts Jan. 2, the day before Iowa, featuring Jack McCoy as the new DA.
Mike Gravel is stuck in a permanent acid trip from 1976
I can think of no other logical explanation for this country/rap/rock cartoon production from Gravel’s campaign:
TechPres' 2007 Campaign Web Index
TechPresident released its 2007 Campaign Web Index, a survey of “the very brightest minds working in tech and politics,” which includes me, apparently.
The meat of the survey:
Our panel judged Ron Paul and Barack Obama to have the best overall web presences, and they also led their respective fields in the most individual categories. Mike Huckabee and John Edwards followed, with each earning strong support from our panel. But while these four campaigns were the leaders, there were many surprises in specific categories. For example, Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney scored the most points for their online rapid response work.
But head on over to see how everyone evaluated the candidates in 13 tech topics, with excerpted comments from people who responded.
Obama's Support in NH Riding on Facebook - Literally
Obama’s student organizing in New Hampshire is hitched to Facebook founder and Obama staffer Chris Hughes, who all day yesterday drove students to vote absentee in the Granite State’s Jan. 8 primary. The event was organized through Facebook, of course.
More than 500 people were invited to the event, but only 24 people actually signed up for the event online.
With an early Jan. 8 primary in New Hampshire, some students will not have returned from winter break. Obama’s campaign is smartly throwing out hooks before finals start and the semester ends by driving early voters to the polls.
Find me at the Huffington Post
Earlier this week I wrote a small piece comparing the fundraising techniques of Chris Dodd and Mitt Romney, who sent similar messages within hours of one another. You can find the original piece at TechPrez. But now you can also find me at the Huffington Post. I’m writing some stories as part of the citizen journalism project Off the Bus.
Grading the Campaigns Email Campaigns
Email messages are the hallmark of online communications. Forgetting about Facebook applications and video mashups, email is the one tried and true avenue to communicate with constituents or customers. But if your inbox is as cluttered as mine, you know that it can take a lot to open an email from a presidential candidate who in all likelihood is asking you for money. So how close attention do the campaigns pay to making it easy to read their emails? TechPresident has already extensively covered the campaigns’ use of email, from Hillary’s handwritten notes to stripped-down, BlackBerry-style messages from the candidates. I took a closer look at the mechanics of each campaign’s email program and graded their performance based on accepted standards of email marketing. See who makes the grade.
This is posted on Tech President. Colin Delany has a great post that collects the recent flurry of attention around the candidates’ emails.
I was trying to find Rudy Giuliani’s website, so I googled “rudy”. Giuliani’s website is the #2 result, behind the IMDB article for the 1993 movie about the Notre Dame benchsitter. But the AdWords results were interesting.
John McCain is the #1 bidder for “rudy,” directing people to an email sign-up page that unfortunately doesn’t capitalize on the specific keyword. A side-by-side comparison of the candidates would be much more effective, and would bring in more people than a single email field and a donate button.
Rudy Giuliani has a lot of ground to gain in the search engine game.
Mitt Romney's Jewish-focused emails
A while back I signed up for every presidential candidate’s email list, and have since been flooded by email after email asking for money and everything else the campaigns think people should see.
Unique among the candidates is Mitt Romney’s sign up page, which offers the widest array of what I guess you can call “sub-groups” of special interests, including:
- African Americans
- Catholics
- Faith & Values
- Farm & Ranch
- High Tech
- Hispanics
- Jewish
- Law Enforcement
- Tax Cutters [ed: wtf is a tax cutter?]
- Veterans
- Women
- Students
I signed up for every single one. It’s not clear how they’re using these special interests, because I certainly haven’t got any “Farm & Ranch” emails. I have received an email invitation to Students for Romney; however, these groups could be used to suppress recipients of certain emails. (I’ll leave that up to the imagination of how that would work.)
But to the title of this post: I have received two emails to the Jewish-focused list. The first was sent for Rosh Hashanah:
As we approach the Jewish New Year, Ann and I wish you and your family a happy and healthy Rosh Hashanah. We hope with this new year that encouraging new strides are made to reach lasting peace and security for all Americans, as well as comfort for Jewish communities around the world. [...]I am sure that you agree that it is crucial that the United States remain a steadfast friend and ally of the State of Israel, the eternal homeland of the Jewish people, which stands as a true example of democracy in the Middle East and a force on the side of Western values and virtues in the global war against terrorism. [...]
L’Shanah Tovah Tikatevu,
Mitt
The second came tonight (from Romney for President, but the email is signed by former US Ambassador Mel Sembler), and is really kind of scary.
Subject: Romney Stands Against IranTo my fellow members of the Jewish Community, I feel compelled to update you on the recent action taken by Governor Mitt Romney. Governor Romney is a strong advocate for Israel and in turn, he considers one of the greatest challenges we face to be defeating radical Jihadists. Further, Governor Romney believes Iran’s regime under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has stated that Israel must be wiped off the map is at the heart of this challenge – a threat to Israel, the Middle East and ultimately the world.
President Ahmadinejad has been invited to address the UN General Assembly. Outraged by this invitation, Governor Romney wrote a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urging him to revoke any invitation to President Ahmadinejad to address the UN General Assembly and instead hand him an indictment under the Genocide Convention.
[...] If the United Nations allows this address, Governor Romney wrote that “the United States must reconsider its level of support and funding for the United Nations as we look to rebuild and revitalize effective international partnerships to meet 21st century threats.”
Forgetting that there is an actual genocide happening and not a hypothetical one, all of this Republican chest-thumping about Iran is just insane! Our army is so overextended and the Republicans won’t even support letting them come home to rest!
Ugh. I’ll continue to monitor all the candidates’ emails for more micro-targetting and other stuff. I wanted to share this with the world in case you don’t see all of this that the candidates are sending to their ‘supporters.’
Sep 20, 08:18 PM / Comment [1]
These were announced a while back, but I finally got a chance to play with Digg’s widgets, which you can configure to display popular stories from the user-edited website. This would be a nice addition to website that covers a specific topic for which Digg has a category, like the 2008 election or the environment (or Xbox or 1337 haxors). Here’s a widget with the five most recently popular stories about the election:
And then there were nine. (Fine, John Cox, fine. Ten.)
Tonight Tommy Thompson, former Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services, ended his way-long-shot bid for the presidency. Phew. I didn’t know how many more awkward debate appearances I could endure. Thompson’s departure raises a question on all our minds: who’s next?
While I’d like to see a way-early exit by McCain, I think it’s safe to say we’ll say goodbye to Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter before Straight Shot John will close his campaign. On the Democratic side, I’ve already said it’s time for Mike Gravel and Joe Biden to give up, and I can’t say I’d cry if Kucinich quit. I love the energy and idealism that Chris Dodd brings to the debates – it’s a shame I just can’t see him as president.
McCain running Google Adwords campaign on "Iraq war propaganda"
John McCain’s campaign is running a Google Adwords campaign on the phrase “Iraq war propaganda,” as evidenced by this ad that I found on NoIraqDraft.com, my petition site against a draft for the War. I can understand the campaign wanting to bring in visitors on ads targeted by issue area, but this ad makes it seem like you can find propaganda on the war at John McCain’s website. I don’t think that’s what McCain’s campaign wants to be doing now, as his unpopular positions on the war and basically every other issue at stake led Ames, Iowa Republicans to support him less than every other candidate in yesterday’s straw poll. (The only candidate who got fewer votes than McCain is John Cox, a no-name fringe candidate who’s raised just $12,000 for his quixotic campaign.)
Amen. It was sort of fun while it lasted, but if it’s time for Joe Biden to get out, we’re overdue for Gravel’s departure.
Part III: Liveblogging the Edwards Breakout session
I am in room 404, surrounded by fervent Edwards supporters waiting for their candidate to come in. There’s a small stage in the back of the room with three rows of seats, and the rest of the chairs are centered on a small circle, in which I presume Edwards will be speaking.
Liveblogging the Presidential Forum
I’m in the Grand Ballroom and the Yearly Kos Presidential Forum just started. Senator Gravel, Gov. Richardson, Sen. Dodd, Sen. Clinton, Sen. Edwards, Sen. Obama, and Rep. Kucinich walked into thunderous applause, though the two biggest rumbles were for Edwards and Obama.
Matt Bai of the New York Times is moderating the forum, with mcjoan of Daily Kos and Jeffrey Feldman of Frameshop are asking questions of the candidates. Bai recognized that Barack Obama is the birthday boy on the panel, and the room gave him a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
Video: Dennis Kucinich makes a valid point about the Employee Free Choice act, the power of collective bargaining, and how executive orders can be used to make public policy.
2008 Internet Checkin: Columbus, KY; John McCain's Emails; Hook Up for Obama
It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to write about all that’s happening online in the presidential election, so I’m just going to jump in on this week. Here’s what’s interneting:
John McCain's email strategy: questionably crazy, definitely anti-Hillary
I’m subscribed to a number of 2008 presidential candidates’ email lists to see how each is using to organize their online supporters. For the next 500 or so days, I’m going to follow and analyze the content, tactics, and strategy of the candidates’ use of email.
Today, June 30, is the end of the fundraising quarter. Every campaign has been ramping up their efforts to bring in money online. Barack Obama’s campaign smashed its goal of 250,000 donors for the year, and Hillary’s campaign just sent out an email stating a goal of raising $100,000 online in the last 24 hours before the end of the cycle.
But so far, the most curious campaign has come from John McCain.
techPresident Launches Politickr
Yesterday techPresident – a group blog covering the intersection of technology and the 2008 presidential race – launched Politickr. It’s their great implementation of the site I originally developed at Politickr.net.
Bird Poops on Bush During Press Conference
in which year is joe biden running for president?
I checked out Politickr this morning and saw a bizarre headline from Joe Biden’s blog:
Sen. Biden Stresses Need To Focus On Darfur, Soviet Union, But U.S. First Needs To Remedy Iraq[Biden] explained the United States needs to focus more on the conflicts in Darfur and Sudan, revise nuclear policies and be wary of the “totalitarian tilt of the Soviet Union.”
“The totalitarian tilt of the Soviet Union”? Well-spoken, but clearly, Biden is confused. The weird thing is, it’s not the case that he misspoke and the press caught it. It’s that Biden’s blog pulled out this article in which the Senator seems to be very confused about what decade it is. What gives?
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