As Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were wrapping up their apolitical comedy and music show last, their crowd unwittingly demonstrated the reason many people are suspect of government running things like health care. Just after Stewart’s closing keynote, an errant DC Metro escalator at L’Enfant Plaza sped up and start spitting folks off, injuring four to six freshly-sane rally goers.
Keith Olbermann will return to MSNBC on Tuesday night after a box-checking suspension for his monetary donations to Democratic candidates. In defense of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow bragged that the NBC News rule against such donations illustrated the difference between MSNBC and Fox News – calling Fox News a “political organization” where on-air personalities act as political fundraisers.
Johnny Dollar’s Place has a video that makes a point I tried to make last week (and makes it much better): that just because they aren’t reporting to the FEC doesn’t mean that MSNBC’s news opinion.entertainment personalities aren’t making campaign contributions:
First, it’s worth mentioning that Olbermann giving coverage to people he donated to isn’t a conflict of interest. These are donations, and not investments – he really had nothing to gain from two Congressional races and a Senate race in states where he presumably doesn’t live. Arguably, the money he gave was insignificant compared to the airtime allotted. If NBC wants to suspend him, or any host, it should be for the in-kind donations of coverage.
Olbermann admitted to making the financial donations, but he didn’t have to – after all, political donations are public record. So the FEC can tell us exactly who Olbermann wanted to win. Do we know that about Olbermann’s NBC colleague Brian Williams, or Katie Couric, or Anderson Cooper, or anyone else who say they’re giving us “objective” coverage of national issues? The NBC ban on donations means they never have to answer those types of question – which is too bad, because they are worth asking.
You may not like Keith Olbermann, but you know where he stands – and if you tune in, you can take what he says with a grain of salt. It might be nice to have that luxury with other news personalities.
Much of this may stem from some rally-goers/rally-supporters misunderstanding that, although event was politically-themed, it was essentially a free concert featuring comedy and music. The message Stewart delivered in his self-important address at the end was more critical of the media than any other institution, and attempted to be inclusive of all political leanings in urging respect and courtesy. Sure, it probably would have gone over better if it had come from someone who doesn’t make a living ridiculing other people, but that’s another topic.
The point is that despite Stewart’s 12-minute rant at the end, this was not an important event. It was a fun event. There was no call for participation, and many of the signs in the audience were more political satire than political commentary.
Despite the idea of some on the progressive side that this was a call to action and the flash point of a counter to the Tea Party, it really was the Million Meh March for people who just wanted to have a good time. Online communities may have helped advertise for it, but Stewart and Colbert’s lack of gushing thanks is not worth getting worked up over.
The left is looking for a savior, and Jon Stewart is in town.
The Big Daddy co-star’s Rally to Restore Sanity, along with famed Congressional witness Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Fear, descends upon Washington DC this weekend just before the election. Many are hoping this event – which figures to be huge, both here in DC and in satellite rallies across the country – helps round up the Obama flock in a final push for the polls. That hope is misplaced, if only because of timing.
If the idea was really to organize and mobilize, the weekend before Election Day is far, far too late. When Glenn Beck and FreedomWorks held rallies in August and September, there were still months – months! – to go before election day. There were doors to knock on, voters to call, and independent friends and neighbors to convince. Those who attend this weekend’s rallies will surely vote, but aren’t likely to impact campaigns. (And even if they did, who’s to say that the Stewart/Colbert crowd will all be center-left oriented? I have plenty of right-leaning friends who are looking forward to the weekend.)
Christine O’Donnell isn’t a witch. And she probably won’t be the next Senator from Delaware, either. That hasn’t stopped a wave of national media attention. From witchcraft to debate gaffes to media clashes to the now-famous Gawker story about an alleged one-night stand, every move O’Donnell makes seems to light up the DC pundit crowd.
Considering that O’Donnell is looking up at a 18 point deficit, her campaign really doesn’t deserve the attention. But in a time when coverage of every local election seems to include the context of national trends, Republicans could do worse.
Christine O’Donnell won’t win a Senate seat in Delaware, but her campaign may help Republican gains elsewhere.
(One side note on this Gawker deal: So this lurid story of a one-night stand comes from from someone is doing well enough in life that he wasn’t interested in sealing the deal with O’Donnell, but not so well that he was above accepting a “low four figures” payment for the story?)
With Election Day a week away (ten days or so when this first aired), it’s refreshing to hear someone from one side say something nice about the other. It’s especially refreshing when one considers that to do so, Clooney had to contradict the host of the show and and audience ready to accept that conservatives are small-minded and selfish (as indicated in the applause after Maher’s comment in the clip linked above).
More than that, though, it’s good PR strategy for Clooney, who must have understood two major points:
His message is not about the upcoming elections, and it’s not about conservatives vs. liberals or Democrats vs. Republicans. That may be the discussion Maher wanted to have, but it’s not the discussion Clooney wanted or needed to have to advance the messages he was trying to convey. If he had been trapped in that discussion, it would have taken away from what he wanted to say about Darfur.
Even worse, getting into that discussion would be a move to reduce the Sudan genocide into a right vs. left issue – no different from government health care, tax policy, or social security reform, with clear battle lines in Washington, DC. So if the Republicans take over this November – or in November 2012, or November 2014, or in any November before the Sudan is a stable, functioning nation – Clooney wants his issue to be above the political fray so that it can count on Congressional champions regardless of who controls what.
The ease with which Clooney rattled off center-right politicians who had been active on the issue indicates that Clooney was prepared for this type of inquiry, appreciative for the help he had received in his efforts, and (most important) clear in his vision of the issue and his mission.
Just like he was when he and Brad Pitt robbed that casino:
7. Conan is having fun; you’re “engaging” customers…
6. Conan’s staff is on a mission; yours has a mission statement…
3. Conan’s team started their social media effort three months prior to launch. You started yours three days after launch.
As O’Brien counts down to his basic-cable resurrection, his promotional team is smartly using social media tools to catch a wave of excitement from the comic’s rabid following. Much like the 2008 Obama campaign, they are playing off fan-generated imagery. But at the heart of it, O’Brien and his team are just trying to make people laugh and have fun, and let that shine through.
The pursuit of success in online tactics has to flow from a genuine enthusiasm. Campaigns – for both candidates and issues – often see their social strategies fail because they try to adapt their campaign to online tactics, rather than adapting online tactics to the campaign.
Jim Eltringham 