I caught some of a viral YouTube campaign ad by Rick Barber of Alabama on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program the other night. It was fairly easy to find it and view the entire clip.
Here it is.
Pretty raw stuff. But effective for putting today's governmental power in perspective, isn't it?
We fought a war to become independent of a government that was less controlling and more responsive than the one we now actually elect.
Something's very wrong with this picture. I wish I could believe electing a Republican majority in the House next November will fix it, but I don't think that is enough. It's going to take non-partisan, citizen legislators and some serious Constitutional re-writing- not just a few scattered amendments- to put the federal genie back in the bottle.
Showing posts with label YouTube. Show all posts
Showing posts with label YouTube. Show all posts
Friday, June 18, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Mitch McConnell On The Health Care Bill
John McCain's rant, the video of which I included in yesterday's post, wasn't the only speech by a Republican Senator worth watching.
Mitch McConnell highlights reasons that it's hard to believe any Senator would have voted for this bill. And just how awful it really is.
Mitch McConnell highlights reasons that it's hard to believe any Senator would have voted for this bill. And just how awful it really is.
Monday, December 28, 2009
John McCain Finally Gets Angry
Here's the YouTube clip of John McCain's recent rant in the Senate regarding the health care bill.
His recounting of Wonderboy's original campaign promises is eye-opening. So is his list of the Senators who took favors for their states to pass this abomination.
His recounting of Wonderboy's original campaign promises is eye-opening. So is his list of the Senators who took favors for their states to pass this abomination.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Campaign 2008: Hillary, Fund Raising and the Web
The other day, I was discussing Presidential candidates with a quasi-liberal friend. The conversation began when I mentioned having watched President Bush's recent address involving vetoing the SCHIPP bill. I'll have a separate post on that.
However, in the course of the address, Bush demonstrated very nuanced knowledge of the tax code and economics, as he explained why his hosts, who file as a SubChapter S corporation, represent a large class of taxpayers who file as individuals with small businesses.
As I discussed the liberal media's distortions and omissions in regard to Bush's record and intellect, I opined that perhaps the new wrinkle coming in the 2008 campaign will be the declining role of money.
Even my friend welcomed this.
My reasoning is as follows. More than four years ago, the internet has become the primary medium for video content distribution of political messages. It's free, controllable, and takes little money to even produce content.
Fred Thompson, a front-running Republican candidate, did not even bother to run his announcement speech on network air time. Instead, he appeared on Jay Leno's show, then ran the announcement speech on his website. I would guess it's on YouTube by now, as well.
Does it still matter that Hillary is ahead on fund raising? When I read the hand-wringing reports that Republican candidates are being out-raised and outspent by Democrats like Obama Bim Baden and Hillary, I wonder if this is the blind spot of the 2008 campaign.
After all, is big, old media really going to report on its own demise? Not likely.
Where will you hear of this shift of substantial resources and effort to the web for content and message distribution?
Not on the networks, I'd bet. And just maybe on cable news.
No, this may be a totally stealth transformation of Presidential campaign operations.
In a way, it would be just desserts for all the campaign finance 'reform' hoopla to which we've been subjected for 30 years.
I'm not saying having money to spend is inconsequential. In a tight race between two similarly-qualified and supported candidates, network and cable air time might indeed give an edge to the better-financed candidate. Even if just for street money, to get out the vote.
But I don't believe, and neither does my Democratic friend, that money can elect a bad candidate. And she doesn't even believe Hillary will win the general election, if nominated.
So suppose Obama is too green, Hillary fractures somewhere on the campaign trail. Could just money really elect John Edwards over Giuliani or Thompson?
Or even elect Hillary, if she begins to break down in the home stretch?
No, I think we may be seeing a major turning point in the democratizing of Presidential elections, without any notice from the major media. Ubiquitous computers and high-speed access allows anyone to search and find information, videos, messages, from all the candidates. On their own time, without media filtering.
If the 2004 election woke everyone up to Howard Dean's internet-based fundraising, perhaps the 2008 election will awaken the professional political campaign managers and handlers to their weakening influence.
If message distribution and consumption heads for the individual-oriented, wild west of the internet, will managed campaigns ever recover their ability to control, shape and disseminate all aspects of their candidate's utterances? Won't the omnipresent oppositions digital camcorder on the campaign trail give each candidate raw footage of each opponent?
Imagine the video messages that could fly between the two party's candidates a year from now, as each edits and presents the other's video appearances on various websites and YouTube.
The last place you may look for live campaign 'news' may be the networks. Or, as my friend opined, perhaps they will basically be reduced to covering the internet campaign duels between the competing websites.
Honestly, I think I can hardly wait for that day. The demise of the political pundits, the campaign managers, and network anchors. And the rise of individual voters to simply surf, view, and decide on their own, without so many filters.
However, in the course of the address, Bush demonstrated very nuanced knowledge of the tax code and economics, as he explained why his hosts, who file as a SubChapter S corporation, represent a large class of taxpayers who file as individuals with small businesses.
As I discussed the liberal media's distortions and omissions in regard to Bush's record and intellect, I opined that perhaps the new wrinkle coming in the 2008 campaign will be the declining role of money.
Even my friend welcomed this.
My reasoning is as follows. More than four years ago, the internet has become the primary medium for video content distribution of political messages. It's free, controllable, and takes little money to even produce content.
Fred Thompson, a front-running Republican candidate, did not even bother to run his announcement speech on network air time. Instead, he appeared on Jay Leno's show, then ran the announcement speech on his website. I would guess it's on YouTube by now, as well.
Does it still matter that Hillary is ahead on fund raising? When I read the hand-wringing reports that Republican candidates are being out-raised and outspent by Democrats like Obama Bim Baden and Hillary, I wonder if this is the blind spot of the 2008 campaign.
After all, is big, old media really going to report on its own demise? Not likely.
Where will you hear of this shift of substantial resources and effort to the web for content and message distribution?
Not on the networks, I'd bet. And just maybe on cable news.
No, this may be a totally stealth transformation of Presidential campaign operations.
In a way, it would be just desserts for all the campaign finance 'reform' hoopla to which we've been subjected for 30 years.
I'm not saying having money to spend is inconsequential. In a tight race between two similarly-qualified and supported candidates, network and cable air time might indeed give an edge to the better-financed candidate. Even if just for street money, to get out the vote.
But I don't believe, and neither does my Democratic friend, that money can elect a bad candidate. And she doesn't even believe Hillary will win the general election, if nominated.
So suppose Obama is too green, Hillary fractures somewhere on the campaign trail. Could just money really elect John Edwards over Giuliani or Thompson?
Or even elect Hillary, if she begins to break down in the home stretch?
No, I think we may be seeing a major turning point in the democratizing of Presidential elections, without any notice from the major media. Ubiquitous computers and high-speed access allows anyone to search and find information, videos, messages, from all the candidates. On their own time, without media filtering.
If the 2004 election woke everyone up to Howard Dean's internet-based fundraising, perhaps the 2008 election will awaken the professional political campaign managers and handlers to their weakening influence.
If message distribution and consumption heads for the individual-oriented, wild west of the internet, will managed campaigns ever recover their ability to control, shape and disseminate all aspects of their candidate's utterances? Won't the omnipresent oppositions digital camcorder on the campaign trail give each candidate raw footage of each opponent?
Imagine the video messages that could fly between the two party's candidates a year from now, as each edits and presents the other's video appearances on various websites and YouTube.
The last place you may look for live campaign 'news' may be the networks. Or, as my friend opined, perhaps they will basically be reduced to covering the internet campaign duels between the competing websites.
Honestly, I think I can hardly wait for that day. The demise of the political pundits, the campaign managers, and network anchors. And the rise of individual voters to simply surf, view, and decide on their own, without so many filters.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Politics In The Age of The Blog & YouTube
Thursday's Wall Street Journal carried an excellent editorial by Dan Henninger concerning the current implications of a long-ago technological competition between telephonic circuit switching, and today's prevalent data packet switching. Allowing for a little confusion and oversight of AT&T's engineers developing packet switching for their backbone network with the coming of ESS switches, he is correct in noting that we are now seeing ramifications of the eventual domination of communications technology by packet switching networks.
Henninger's example is the recent anti-Hillary YouTube video, which I discussed in this recent post, developed by Phil de Vellis. If you still need any more evidence of how useless so-called 'campaign finance' regulations are, consider this example. de Vellis said he did the clip 'in a Sunday afternoon with "some software".' So much for raising $100MM to run a multi-media campaign. Now, a major presidential candidate's supporters can develop and air free spots on YouTube for nothing. And talk about exposure!
As usual, the Feds are running behind. This week, failed Democratic presidential contender and habitual coiffed-and-sore-headed Senator John Kerry demonized Bush supporter and ambassadorial nominee, Sam Fox, for his 527 Swift Boat financial support in the 2004 campaign. Going forward, that sort of issue may be moot. Who will need that kind of support for independently-produced, supportive videos on a multitude of burgeoning, free video clip sites?
Henninger also theorizes, correctly, I believe, that voter appetites for, and consumption of, political media is becoming shorter. YouTube clips, instead of whole 30 minute programs.
How wild is it that de Vellis uses a real "1984"-styled Orwellian video clip, modeled on the infamous Apple Superbowl ad, as a "really real" political statement today? Art/life/art/life....
Can you even tell anymore which is the "art," and which is the "life?" The de Vellis ad really smacks Hillary where it hurts- her stuffed-shirt, overbearing, arrogance and put-on attitude of actually caring what anyone else thinks. Maybe voters have finally caught up with the pols.
Henninger's example is the recent anti-Hillary YouTube video, which I discussed in this recent post, developed by Phil de Vellis. If you still need any more evidence of how useless so-called 'campaign finance' regulations are, consider this example. de Vellis said he did the clip 'in a Sunday afternoon with "some software".' So much for raising $100MM to run a multi-media campaign. Now, a major presidential candidate's supporters can develop and air free spots on YouTube for nothing. And talk about exposure!
As usual, the Feds are running behind. This week, failed Democratic presidential contender and habitual coiffed-and-sore-headed Senator John Kerry demonized Bush supporter and ambassadorial nominee, Sam Fox, for his 527 Swift Boat financial support in the 2004 campaign. Going forward, that sort of issue may be moot. Who will need that kind of support for independently-produced, supportive videos on a multitude of burgeoning, free video clip sites?
Henninger also theorizes, correctly, I believe, that voter appetites for, and consumption of, political media is becoming shorter. YouTube clips, instead of whole 30 minute programs.
How wild is it that de Vellis uses a real "1984"-styled Orwellian video clip, modeled on the infamous Apple Superbowl ad, as a "really real" political statement today? Art/life/art/life....
Can you even tell anymore which is the "art," and which is the "life?" The de Vellis ad really smacks Hillary where it hurts- her stuffed-shirt, overbearing, arrogance and put-on attitude of actually caring what anyone else thinks. Maybe voters have finally caught up with the pols.
Monday, March 26, 2007
The Obama-Friendly Video of Hillary
For those of you who haven't seen this video, I've embedded it into this post, courtesy of YouTube. The takeoff on Apple's infamous 1984 SuperBowl commercial is priceless.
However, what I found most remarkable was a discussion on Tucker Carlson's program about this video. Both Republican and Democrat guest strategists and consultants alike expressed extreme discomfort with an uncontrolled, unauthorized, zealous supporter making an attack video such as this, on the cheap, and throwing it up on YouTube, to be seen by millions instantaneously.
As the beneficiary, Obama Bim Baden would seem to be innocently chortling over the razor-sharp barb that is this political commercial. And it's free to his campaign. But, to a person, Carlson's panel agreed that Obama's campaign staff must now be cringing, awaiting the inevitably muddier riposte from an enraged Hillary supporter.
Clearly, Presidential and, as George Allen and other candidates learned last cycle, Senatorial elections are changed in the era of YouTube. Clever, motivated freelancers, mavericks, are going to be doing "favors" for their chosen candidate. And some of those efforts will doubtless shove a campaign off its message, or perhaps even knock it off balance, with a hastily-required, and unexpected apology.
The whole thing is priceless. Perhaps the McCain-Feingold nonsense really is moot now. With this sort of advertising available on YouTube for free, perhaps we have less to worry about campaign finance law muzzling of free speech.
Regardless, this video apparently marks the beginning of a radical new era in Presidential campaigning.
However, what I found most remarkable was a discussion on Tucker Carlson's program about this video. Both Republican and Democrat guest strategists and consultants alike expressed extreme discomfort with an uncontrolled, unauthorized, zealous supporter making an attack video such as this, on the cheap, and throwing it up on YouTube, to be seen by millions instantaneously.
As the beneficiary, Obama Bim Baden would seem to be innocently chortling over the razor-sharp barb that is this political commercial. And it's free to his campaign. But, to a person, Carlson's panel agreed that Obama's campaign staff must now be cringing, awaiting the inevitably muddier riposte from an enraged Hillary supporter.
Clearly, Presidential and, as George Allen and other candidates learned last cycle, Senatorial elections are changed in the era of YouTube. Clever, motivated freelancers, mavericks, are going to be doing "favors" for their chosen candidate. And some of those efforts will doubtless shove a campaign off its message, or perhaps even knock it off balance, with a hastily-required, and unexpected apology.
The whole thing is priceless. Perhaps the McCain-Feingold nonsense really is moot now. With this sort of advertising available on YouTube for free, perhaps we have less to worry about campaign finance law muzzling of free speech.
Regardless, this video apparently marks the beginning of a radical new era in Presidential campaigning.
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