Obama called it an infomercial on the Daily Show. If his campaign didn’t use the term first, they’re certainly not shying from it.
There is a difference between “can be set” and “default”. You cited the name-catching as the default setting and implied that the Obama campaign somehow went in and turned that off. What happened was that it “can be set” that way and wasn’t. Which is, on the face of it, another thing entirely.
That’s good direction.
Even though he has given his stump speech dozens, possibly hundreds of times, he uses a TelePrompTer (those pieces of glass on either side of his podium), as does McCain, Biden, Palin and any politician worth his or her salt. It’s how you make sure you convey every point you intend to make. The director probably reviewed tapes of Obama’s speeches, and has an average time for how long he takes to deliver each line. He can tell the TelePrompTer operator to slow down or speed up the speed of the text scrolling up, and can even send stage directions to the speaker. So, if there is 2 minutes of video to go, but 3 minutes of speech left (because of longer than expected audience response, for instance), they can delete a section, etc.
But it was very skillfully done. These people are pros and may well be nominated for an Addy.
Obama himself called in an infomercial in his interview with Jon Stewart last night. He did not seem to be using the term apologetically or ironically, but instead was calling an infomercial an infomercial.
Everyone under $200,000 gets a tax cut. From $200,000 to $250,000, nothing changes at all.
Obama has been consistent on this, by the way despite some allegations that he’s changed it. Some people just aren’t listening. He’s said exactly the same thing at every debate.
Biden mispoke, and then quickly corrected himself, but you don’t see Fox News showing the part where he corrected himself.
I love a good comedy show, so I listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio on the way to lunch once in a while. Today he was ripping on the Obama Infomercial relentlessly. My favorite line was about the “Fat family” who couldn’t decide whether to buy a whole gallon or a half gallon of milk. He said they should think about rationing the Pepsi. I kid you not. I had to get back to work so I didn’t hear the end of his comments. I can only assume he procced to also knock them for getting addicted to Oxycontin and being divorced twice.
“Projection: The Republican Breathing”
And regardless of anything there, what exactly does a name on a credit card really tell you about the person’s citizenship or eligibility for donating? I know at least one foreign national with a fully valid US-issued credit card, he’s a buddy marrying his US-born wife and working on citizenship. Legally he’s not eligible to donate but I defy you to find a AVS/credit card verifier who can tell you that fact even if he uses his real name.
By the by, at least one major AVS package (Authorize.net) does not (or did not when I worked with it last year) verify by name by default and in fact discourages it on the basis of far too many false rejections due to minor spelling issues, periods vs. none on middle initial, etc. By default it’s processed by card number and zip code.
deleted, will post in other thread later
I was informed in another thread, cite and all, that green card-holders can legally donate.
Are those numbers for individuals or households? Can anyone provide a link with a full description of the tax plan with numbers?
Anecdote: I’ve just come home from the supermarket. The bagger, a 20-ish young woman who in our conversation identified herself as an independent, commented on my Obama sweatshirt and asked whether I’d watched the infomercial. She volunteered that it made her “kind of like him” and that now she was thinking maybe she’d vote for him.
It will also help to get the people who were planning to vote for him out the door and into the voting booth.
I think it probably changed a lot of people from thinking “yeah, I guess I’ll vote for him,” to “I want to vote for him.” And as we know, even a few extra votes here and there could translate into big numbers of electors.
I think that this ad was well-constructed to serve both ends–to close the deal with the undecideds, and to contribute to the GOTV effort.
I am reluctant to answer because this is GD and my answer is *specifically *an opinion. But since you asked:
I am still up the air. I did start watching it, but to be frank, hated the “American Stories” part of it and turned it off immediately. It felt to me like a cheap attempt to play on my emotions, rather than convince my intellect. I already know things are bad - hell, I was laid off in August and my portfolio has dropped nearly 50% - I don’t need to see other people’s stories to convince me how bad it is. I wanted to hear his solutions. Although it probably won’t change how I vote, I was annoyed.
Doper choie, Senator Obama’s not Clinton; if Senator McCain wanted to run against President Clinton he should have run 12 years ago.
Just kidding. I too was very impressed by Clinton’s speech – his tone, his eloquence, heck, even his veering away from eloquence in his zeal. Topnotch.
So why didn’t you stay tuned to hear his solutions? I’m not trying to be snarky, I really want to know.
I’ve got a friend who keeps saying he doesn’t like Obama because he doesn’t know what he stands for or what he’s going to do for us, and I don’t get it. I keep directing him to Obama’s website with pages and pages of information with numbers and everything, on all the issues my friend says are most important to him, and he seems stubbornly unwilling to learn anything at all, and still claims Obama’s “wishy-washy” and that he “won’t tell us anything specific!” I just don’t get it.
Does he know what McCain stands for? I don’t because all McCain does is talk about Obama.
IMO, “we don’t really know what he stands for” stuff is, in my experience, code for “I won’t vote for a black man, but I can’t find reasons I feel comfortable saying”. Obama has probably been more vocal about his plans than any other presidential candidate.