From the mouths of babes . . .
Archive for May, 2007
Mike Huckabee responds to the responses to his YouTube Spotlight video with nothing but another pitch for the “fair tax.” He talks about how great it is to have a dialogue but I hear not dialogue here. So I’ll give him the sound of one hand clapping.
In a new ad scheduled to run in Iowa and New Hampshire, Senator Chris Dodd is touted as the only candidate “with an energy plan that has a courageous corporate carbon tax to transform American industry.” A bunch of ethnically diverse kids sing “We’ve got the whole world in our hands” as they play with globes. If a shot of frolicking puppies were included, the ad might have achieved a spot in the Cliche Hall of Fame.
MORE: See Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza on the Dodd ad strategy.
John Edwards answers questions from YouTube viewers and talks about Iraq, Iowa and other topics.
Sound Bite: [On the aftermath of withdrawing troops from Iraq] “I don’t think there’s any way to know what’s going to happen in Iraq. I do think the President has responsibility to prepare for the best and to prepare for the worst, so we’ve got to be ready no matter what happens.”
James Kotecki may have graduated from Georgetown, but he’s still on the job. And as Fred Thompson edges closer to jumping into the Republican race, Kotecki decides it time to takes a look at the big Tennessean’s YouTube presence.
Senator Barack Obama announced his health-care plan in a speech in Iowa City on May 29. In this clip, highlights from his speech are interspersed with the story of an Iowa couple’s health-insurance woes. More on Obama’s health plan here.
Sound Bite: “As President, I will sign a universal health-care plan into law by the end of my first term in office.”
Al Gore goes on a book tour and PoliticsTV puts up his half-hour spiel (”If it were possible to summarize this book in 15 minutes, it wouldln’t be the book that it is”).
No PowerPoint here, but Gore also says he is training 1,200 people to give his environmental slideshow: 1,200 little Als with clickers.
Senator Hillary Clinton’s speech on economic policy in Manchester NH on May 29, bashed Bush’s “ownership society,” tax cuts, oil companies, CEO pay and, of course, Halliburton. “We need a new vision of economic fairness and shared prosperity,” said Clinton. “Fairness doesn’t just happen. It requires the right government policies.” More on Clinton’s plan here.
Some speech highlights in this clip:
Democratic candidate Mike Gravel, a onetime taxi driver, wheels up to his alma mater Columbia University in a Checker cab and talks to a student group.
Sound Bite: “I’ll eat any Republican’s lunch . . . I’ll eat them alive . . .They’re warmongers.
A group of 9/11 conspiracy folks caught up with Rudy Giuliani yesterday on his way to a campaign fundraiser at a restaurant in City Island, NY. Rudy smiles and nods and answers politely before hustling inside. You can bet we’ll be seeing variations on this scene throughout the campaign.
In an interview at the Cannes Film Festival, Michael Moore tells why he zaps Hillary Clinton in his new film SiCKO. Producer/Mogul Harvey Weinstein, a longtime Clinton supporter, tells a tall tale about why he asked Moore to cut the criticism.
It’s Joe Biden’s turn in the YouTube spotlight and he’s not singing. He’s asking us what we’re willing to do to break our dependence on “the axis of oil.” It won’t get the traffic that Clinton’s song gimmick got her, but at least it gets more specific than the other candidate’s tapioca Spotlight videos.
CNN reports on who’s hot at Eventful, the site where people demand that celebrities make appearances. Obama’s No. 1, Clinton’s No. 2, and Ron Paul is No. 3; Paul’s the only one who acceded to a demand.
Is anybody going to note the irony that John Edwards said he would have voted against the compromise Iraq funding bill and wouldn’t have sent money to the effort but here is is sending care packages to the troops with snacks, issues of Sports Illustrated, and baseballs? Naw.
In the comments to the post below about Chris Dodd’s stump speech on YouTube, Tim Tagaris of the campaign reports on the many ways they’re trying to go cyber:
We actually hired someone to travel with the senator to all of his campaign stops with the intention of capturing as much video as possible.We also live-streamed an event that day. This follows up on a number of live video-streams we’ve done where campaign staff has answered questions from people online in real-time. The next step is to incorporate Skype as well.
Tomorrow the Senator will be live-vlogging over at Firedoglake at 5 PM, taking questions from their audience and answering them, again, in real-time.
