Barack Obama’s a little tied up now, so he couldn’t go to the Netroots Nation (nee Year Kos) lovefest (well, except for that FISA thing… and that gun thing… and that death penalty thing….), so he made a video and talks about — what else? — Iraq:
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Stephen Colbert challenged his nation to take some green-screen footage and make John McCain more exciting. Hilarity insues:
Obama visits the troops in Afghanistan. Here’s raw video. Nothing happens (he eats) but one soldier endorses him — on Department of Defense video.
At an Advertising Age conference panel, the moderator asked Arianna Huffington to channel Karl Rove and say how he should advertise against Obama. The full response is here but Ad Age — stupidly — does not make its videos embeddable. So here’s a shortened version without the setup, making it look as if Arianna has changed sides:
Silicon Alley Insider reports on a talk by Obama’s video guru.
Indeed, one of the more impressive achievements of Obama’s organization is the way it churns out video after video–more than 1,165 posted and 14.8 million views on YouTube alone. Much of that is the work of Obama’s director of field video production, 32-year-old Arun Chaudhary. Obama’s YouTube guru shared some of his insights at an event Wednesday sponsored by frog design, the NYU’s Tisch Interactive Telecommunications Program and Fast Company.Obama’s biggest advantage, Chaudhary said, was that his organization took video seriously from the start. The campaign has 50 staffers shooting, editing and posting video, most of it for online. Where Clinton would have just one staffer videotaping an event in Iowa, Obama often had five to provide multiple camera angles. They posted new video constantly, and quickly — 19 minutes from shoot to post, in one case. And they’d ping community voters via email to alert them to new video.
Other nuggets: Obama’s YouTube and web site metrics show that his online viewers aren’t pups. The average viewer is 45 to 55 years old, Chaudhary said, a fact he found “shocking.” And while Chaudhary made plenty of humorous clips, they weren’t the most popular. Invariably the videos that got the most views were long clips of speeches, unscripted moments, or, say, an appearance on “Ellen” or “Oprah.” The viewing reflects a hunger not to be entertained, but to know something about the candidate.
Chaudhary’s theory on all this: The technology was availble to do all of this, at this scale, four years ago. But it has taken this long for mainstream America to get comfortable with online video.
In a New Mexico town hall, McCain reads (without Telepromter and with more verve than usual) a speech pointing once more to his fundamental disagreements with Obama on military strategy.
Sound bite: “Flip-floppers all over the world are enraged.”
Sound bite: “Today we know he was wrong. The surge has succeeded… Our enemies are on the run.”
Sound bite on Afghanistan: “The status quo is not acceptable.”
Sound bite: “It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us how to succeed in Afghanistan.”
Sound bite: “I know how to win wars.”
Sound bite: “You can have complete confidence that I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.”
And here, to compare and contrast, is Obama’s half-hour speech on his plan for Iraq:
The Obama campaign drums up excitement about his stadium speech at the convention: donate and you could get backstage.
Obama has a radio ad attacking John McCain for attacking him. “Bush, McCain, Karl Rove, that’s how those guys work,” says the lady. “Guess that’s why they say: John McCain - McSame as Bush!” says the fellow.
Gallup asks Black Americans who should speak for them and if I were being asked my No. 1 answer would be nobody should speak to me, those weren’t Gallup’s results. 29 percent replied Barack Obama, 6 percent Al Sharpton, only 4 percent Jesse Jackson, and coming in next, the first black couple in the White House, Bill and Hillary Clinton, each with 3 percent, beating Oprah with 2 percent.
Lee Stranahan, who makes video mockeries of the pols, now skewers McCain for skewering Obama on Iraq:
John McCain’s not the only one who can make Kennedyesque calls on our conscience. He says he’ll call us to a national purpose: energy security.
He also ends with a tagline he used in Parade magazine this weekend: “Country first.” It’s a bit reminiscent of the other side in the ’60s, don’t you think?
Gallup’s latest “generic ballot” poll shows a 52-42 advantage for the Democrats with independents tilting left 54-31.
We have dueling ads from the campaigns squaring off on free trade.
Obama’s campaign vows to create tax breaks for companies that create jobs here rather than sending them elsewhere and to take away breaks for companies that do that. And while hugging apparent cafeteria ladies, we’re told he’ll “never forget the dignity that comes from work.”
McCain, on the other hand, paints this as an immigration issue: We have to create jobs not only for Americans but for “our neighbors to the south” so more of them can stay home. “We can’t go back on our word for free-trade promises.”
If you have a half-hour to spare, here’s Barack Obama’s speech on patriotism.
Sound bite: “And yet at certain times over the last 16 months I have found for the first time my patriotism challenged at times as a result of my own carelessless more often as the result of the desire of some to score political points…. I will never question the patriotism of others in this camapign. and I will not stand idly by when hear others question mine.”
Authors Eric Alterman and Pepe Escobar debate whether Obama is a real liberal or more a practitioner of realpolitik. Alterman argues that to be effective, a politician “msut speak from within the consensus.”
Sound bite from Alterman: “I don’t know what he really believes in his heart.”
Sound bite from Escobar: “That’s my point, Eric. Nobody does.”
Alterman: “Politics is about compromise….I think he’ll be the most effective president if he wins than Franklin Roosevelt.”