Man, screw the infommercial – which was great, I admit – my heart’s all about this Florida rally with Bill Clinton. As Obama said after Clinton spoke, “This is what a great president sounds like!” Mind you, I have no rosy view of Clinton these days; he’s been kind of a putz for some time, and he made some major missteps during his tenure. But when Clinton took the stage and with passion, articulateness, intelligence, and tons of energy made the case for electing Barack Obama, I got the glow of pride I used to feel when hearing our president speak, or seeing how respected this president was overseas. Clinton left no doubt just whom he supports in this election, and reminded everyone what it was like when we weren’t constantly afraid of what lurked around the corner, much less how we’d pay our rents or mortgages. As Obama said later, how could you not feel nostalgic for eight years ago? Clinton linked his administration to Obama’s future, and it was a genius move. No one except the rabid Clinton-haters could hear him speak and think, “I want to feel admiration for my president again; I want what this guy has.” Clinton sold Obama as his true successor. The man was on fire.
And if he wasn’t enough to seal the deal, Obama took the floor and tore things up. I cannot imagine anyone watching this man and genuinely thinking him ‘unfit’ or ‘unready’ or ‘radical’ or ‘scary’. These were a brilliant pair of speeches, thrillingly delivered.
The infommercial followed by this rally – a one-two punch ending in a knockout. Bring on this election, baby!
choie, it’s good to hear Orlando went so well – I missed Clinton’s speech but heard Obama, and he was indeed impressive.
And what did we get from McCain/Palin today? Another misguided fearmongering ad, this one ending with the words “Obama’s not ready . . . yet” (“yet”? wtf?) and Palin talking about Rashid Khalidi, who as it turns out is more closely tied to McCain than he is to Obama.
One of my clients is the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise, a twice yearly week-long, floating blues festival. The Obama campaign sent them a letter with a quote from Obama about the importance of “this uniquely American music”. I’m not sure if this is a normal part of political campaigns, or if the Senator has a particular love of blues music. I guess we’ll see who plays at the Inaugural Ball.
More on-topic:
He’s read the whole Harry Potter series out loud to his young daughter. That made me unreasonably happy.
People have been making donations to Obama under names like “Adolf Hitler” and “Ima Madeup.” The donations have been processed and the funds removed. No flags. Under the default settings for CC-processing software, this isn’t possible (as far as I’ve heard, and it seems common sense); if the name given doesn’t match the name on the CC file, the transaction is automatically nullified. Thus, it would appear that someone with the Obama campaign deliberately set it up to accept cards with bogus names.
As far as what would happen if someone used the same card with two different bogus names, I dunno. Why don’t you try giving two $5 donations to Obama under two different phony names and let us know what happens.
I missed the original airing, but after watching it all online, I’m not sure how to feel. I had hoped for some more frankness and less of the “so and so in Farawaysville struggles with X” stuff, which I dislike. I do think it was nice to watch him lay things out that he believes is important. I did get chills a few times but mostly I just thought it was all right. Nothing negative about it, fortunately.
I really do believe that Obama has the potential to be not just a good, but truly great President. Whether or not he achieves that is yet to be seen, but, based on all my observations he is a truly thoughtful, intelligent, and eloquent man. I am fearful of inevitable disappointment, but privately thrilled at the notion of severe changes to the political machine. I am weary of corporate malfeasance and governance being manipulated, largely secretly, by corporate interests. For once I actually feel proud to vote for someone, rather than simply determined to defeat the other side. The infomercial didn’t change any of this, but it did make me think that a lot of other people probably feel this way, too. It’ll be a double-edged sword, I think - noone could ever be as good as we hope Obama could be, but I hope the vigilance of both his critics and supporters will drive him to greatness.
About the only thing that the infomercial change is that Obama’s request for volunteering did touch me and I did contact my local office to see how I could help in the next few days.
There’s no evidence that Khalidi has ever had any ties with the PLO. He certainly was never a “spokesman” for them, as people in the McCain campaign are suggesting.
He is definitely a strong critic of Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians, and of postcolonialism in general (sort of in the tradition of Edward Said, a late colleague of his at Columbia University, albeit in different departments). But implying that Khalidi’s a terrorist, or claiming that he’s in the same category as a neo-Nazi (as McCain [url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081030/pl_nm/us_usa_politics_175]suggested today](http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/the-khalidi-gam.html)), is simply ludicrous.
This is just one more, hopefully last, attempt by the McCain campaign to play a perverse version of the “6 degrees of Kevin Bacon” game, trying to smear Obama by associations that they are overexaggerating or actively mischaracterizing.
The accusation that Khalidi had any connection to the PLO, to Arafat or to to terrorism is complete bullshit and McCain knows it. It’s nothing but race-baiting, insinuation and scare-mongering at it’s most base. This whole tactic is based on nothing but a hope that a scary Arab name will frighten Jewish voters.
McCain has really abandoned all pretense at principle, integrity or honor. He has really disappointed me. He used to be on my short, little list of Republicans I respected and liked. No more.
When this all started I was excited. I was always leaning Obama on issues but I thought that despite a few sellout problems since 2000, McCain was a good man and I could live with him in the White House. Then came Palin and these ridiculous attacks, and now I’m officially horrified that he has any shot at all of winning the election.
Wow. Just… wow. Well-produced, moving, detailed and eloquent. Amber waves of grain, cute kids, plenty of American flags, and the candidate telling just what he hopes to do. The footage of people looking at Obama, shaking his hand and hugging him at rallies actually brought a little tear to my eye. And those were some powerful stories about people who need someone in Washington looking out for them.
I realized (for the first time, deep down, believe it or not) that I genuinely admire and respect Obama, and want so much for him to be elected and then to succeed in the White House. I believe more and more that he has the intellect, the temperament, the self-discipline and the political skills to be a truly great president. There will be disappointments and disagreements aplenty later, I’m sure - how could there not, given the many difficult decisions that the next president will have to make? - but right now I’m feeling very happy about this candidate, this election and this moment in my beloved country’s history.
This simply isn’t true. Not only will the name not be checked by your credit or debit card issuer, but it very likely isn’t even sent all the way to them in the card transaction data, assuming you donated from a web form.
They can, and often will, verify that the numerical details of your address that you entered match what is on file.
Just saw it on the web and it was terrific. I am fairly immune to political advertising even from candidates that I like but I was deeply moved at a number of places. I think this infomercial will be remembered as a landmark in the history of political advertising and will be studied and emulated for decades.
Bill’s speech tonight was outstanding. I especially liked when he was talking about Obama’s behind the scenes actions during the initial economic meltdown.
I watched it. Or tried to, anyway. After 5-10 minutes I fell asleep. I saw some snippets of it on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, but I’ll have to see it in it’s entirety tomorrow (Tivo). From what I did see, though, I would say it was beautifully produced, but boring as all get out. This whole thing using anecdotes of real people “Millie in Potterville” that every candidate does nowadays has run its course. But I’ll watch it tomorrow and see how it feels as a whole. I’ll just add that I much prefer Obama when he is at a desk answering questions. I think that is really his strong suit. REALLY strong suit. His speechifying to the masses grates on me.
I am, too, but it’s not the same thing. He actually met Obama and asked him a legitimate question and got a response that is being scrutinized. But the notion of just finding someone that illustrates the problem you want to solve is annoying. You can support ANY position or idea by pointing to someone.
Wow, I suck – I wrote something that says exactly the opposite of what I meant to say!
I totally lost the plot of where my sentence was going. That should say: “No one except the r.C-h could hear him speak and not think …” Geez, and I edited that post twice, too!
Unfortunately this is just Clinton’s speech, without Obama’s follow-up (which was terrific, better than the infomercial IMO). If I find Obama’s speech I’ll post it later.
The use of real stories in the infomercial was simple and direct and pretty effective IMO. Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder OTOH feel like prolonged election gimmicks. As for whether the video has appeal to undecided voters, I think that was precisely the target audience. There was very little in terms of partisan attack. One thing the Obama campaign needs to do is use the video effectively in the next few days: arrange for screenings, distribute DVD’s etc.
What impressed the most about it was the skill with which it wove the different strands: biography, real stories, policy positions. I have no doubt the McCain campaign could produce a good biographical video about McCain’s POW experience; what I doubt they could do is integrate that into McCain’s policy positions and overall campaign message nearly as effectively.
