techPresident - John McCain - Comments

Campaign generated

bfire — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:25:31 -0500

I would say it was campaign generated content and not voter generated content that produced that video.

I remember that

bfire52 — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 07:21:32 -0500

I remember that video when it came out and you're right about it. It also shows the impact the internet has had on the election.

Good comment by Matt Damon

bbking — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:15:39 -0500

I like what Matt Damon said about Sarah Palin being like a bad Disney movie. He hit right on the head.

Here's to the press!

bfire — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:42:33 -0500

I think the press did a really good job reporting the election over-all. I would give them a score of 8 on a scale of 10.

Unique way of doing it

bfire52 — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:32:38 -0500

Good post, well done!

YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle

stustu12 — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:18:14 -0400

Micah,

This is great stuff! I hope you will submit a paper to the workshop next spring in Amherst:

http://www.umass.edu/polsci/youtube/

--
Dr. Stuart W. Shulman
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://people.umass.edu/stu/
stu@polsci.umass.edu

Editor, Journal of Information Technology and Politics
http://www.jitp.net

But are these things effective?

shimanepdf — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:48:00 -0400

Phone calls and door to door are effective ONLY if they come from actual neighbors.

Not NYC folks calling into NC on the eve of general election.

Calling makes the volunteers feel good about themselves, the results are hard to quantify.

Plus, where is the option to opt out of these calls and knocks?

I wrote about this in my op-ed in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR200809...

--
Cheers,

Shaun Dakin – CEO & Founder
The National Political Do Not Contact Registry
-- A non-partisan, non-profit program by Citizens for Civil Discourse
Register Your Phone Number Now for Free: http://www.StopPoliticalCalls.org/

Dodd was/is on Twitter

bhschenker — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:58:44 -0400

Dodd still has a Twitter account but it's currently not being used. We did use it for some innovation by posting up the protest comments we received during the first FISA vote in December. At least it was something different. You can still see them, http://twitter.com/chrisdodd

Brett Schenker
5B Consulting

"seeing political memes" goes public

anham — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:12:25 -0400

A short note to let you know that we have decided to make the maps discussed above public. See http://presidentialwatch08.com/index.php/2008/09/28/by-popular-demand-se... for more details.

there's more coming...

anham — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:01:39 -0400

Micah, thank you for this post about what we have done at linkfluence. Actually, we have studied other meme spreading phenomena where the viral effect is stronger, with some conversation leaders that really spur the debate in their respective communities before said debate follows the routes underpinned by links to spread from one website to its neighbors. We'll be unveiling those very shortly on http://linkfluence.net/en/news
Anthony

Scottish, German, etc.

jrettin08 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:03:43 -0400

Let's continue dividing people up into distinct and separate groups. By the by, where is the Scottish-German Americans button? Considering one ethnicity distinct and others not is confounding. I am American. I vote on issues. I am not a voting bloc.

Clicking on the Muslims for

thegreathal — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:26:01 -0400

Clicking on the Muslims for McCain box actually sends your registration to a top-secret government TSA list. John McCain calls it "what I plan to do as President".

door to door

shimanepdf — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:44:24 -0400

My perspective: dtd is an invasion of privacy. Just because all campaigns do it doesn't make it right.

Canvassing may work.

If the person on the phone or on the door step actually understands their problems, issues, and concerns. If the person is “like them”.

But calling people really pisses them off. I should know. I did 1000’s of voluteer calls in 04 into Cleveland and in 06 into Northern Virginia for Webb. What did I get, mostly, if there was someone on the other end of the line? Pissed off voters. That is what.

I have over 60,000 people who have registered at StopPoliticalCalls.org because they are sick and tired of politicians feeling like they have the right to:

- email them
- send direct mail
- robo call them
- phone them
- canvass them

Part of the problem in US politics is that voters don’t believe any of this stuff, even when it comes from a live person.

This is my issue: Why would a farmer in IN or Iowa or anywhere want to have a discussion about XXXX candidate with someone that does not live in their state and neighborhood.

Door to door canvassing works only when it is like people talking to like people.

Why. Because it is neighbors talking to neighbors.

Remember Dean’s orange hats in Iowa before the caucuses? All those kids in farm land who did not have a clue about farming and their lives.

Did they do a thing for Dean?

What gives people the right to invade the privacy of voters and ask them who they are voting for?

There is no right to invade the privacy of voters. None.

Shaun

--
Cheers,

De Vellis Was Still No "Grassroots Activist"

Michael Turk — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:13:02 -0400

Parsing your post, it appears to me that you want to give Phil recognition as an individual activist while trying to discredit Brown as a paid hack.

If your standard is separation from the campaign, then fine. By that standard, even if Brown is a professional filmmaker, he's still "grassroots" and "user-generated". Otherwise, you have to site Phil as a professional operative and Vote Different as a professional effort.

He may not have been working on the Obama account (which I never said he was), but he was still, at the time of the video, working for a political consulting firm. By your standard, he still made it as a professional, not as an individual.

You can't have it both ways.

It was made by a pro, details coming

Micah L. Sifry — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:26:26 -0400

Mike--
I quoted Phil because his point of view is of interest and relevant. I'd have quoted you too on this had I heard back from you before I posted this. As it turns out Michael Brown IS a professional filmmaker with years of experience, AND it also appears he is independent of the campaign. More details coming as soon as I can write them up--I just got off the phone with Brown.
As for Phil's connections to the Obama campaign, he has said and others confirmed that he was not working on the Obama account for Blue State Digital when he made the Hillary 1984 video, that he made it on his own time on the weekend, and, if you remember, he was fired immediately after he was exposed as the video's maker.
Micah