Archive for the ‘2008 election’ tag
Dear Mr. Obama #
I, like most of Clay Shirkey’s students, hadn’t seen this video from the election season. His explanation of it’s power is interesting:
Dear Mr. Obama was a trifecta. For the base, a muscular but polite attack on the very issue that brought Obama into the spotlight. For the undecided, the emotional charge is much likelier to sway them than argumentation. And for the Dems — nothing. The video might as well not have existed for all it was seen in Democratic circles. Since the video’s sole speaker can’t be criticized without making the criticizer look churlish at best, almost no Dems forwarded it, linked to it, talked about it.
(via Chris Bodenner)
The Long Campaign #
Mr. Contenetti’s logic is so straight-forward that I’m ashamed to have been oblivious to it while the campaign unfolded:
It’s worth revisiting why this has been a long campaign. The reason has nothing to do with when the primaries were scheduled. The early primaries were a symptom, not a cause. The cause is Bush. Starting with Hurricane Katrina, a large portion of the country simply wrote off Bush’s presidency. That grew worse as the Iraq war worsened and the Democrats took Congress in 2006. As Jeffrey Bell has pointed out, Bush’s dismal popularity has driven all politics ever since. It is the country’s desire to move beyond Bush, as well as his lack of a successor, that has made this election last so long and propelled Barack Obama to the edge of the presidency. For these reasons alone, George W. Bush is one of the most consequential presidents in history.
… The next campaign will not be as long as this one.
And to quote Ross Douthat, “Not that this wasn’t fun and all, but here’s hoping he’s right …”.
This !@#$ing Election #
One of the more interesting presentations of history I’ve seen. If I had one complaint, it would be that some of the references are too obscure for me to make sense of less than a year after they happened.
(via Clusterflock)
Something Nice #
Bob Greene asks voters to say something nice about the man they’re not voting for in the presidential election. (This would have made a good video.)
(via Waxy)