At his Netroots Nation, Kos says that Obama’s FISA decision wasn’t a move to the center — heavens no — but an attempt to ward off attacks. Which, of course, only brought attacks.
Meanwhile, elsewhere at Netroots, RealNews asks the rooters about FISA and they trip over their tongues trying to forgive him:
Sound bite: “The love affair’s still there. But, baby, you can’t wear white on our wedding day.”
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:
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:
In his latest TV spot, John McCain continues to pound Barack Obama on Iraq.
Sound Bite: “He voted against funding our troops, positions that helped him win his nomination. Now Obama is changing to help himself become president.”
The McCain campaign has released a 7-minute clip — “The Obama Iraq Documentary: Whatever the Politics Demand” — featuring a mixed bag of Barack Obama’s comments on Iraq issues: the troop surge, withdrawl timetable, war funding, etc. Message: He’s talks out of both sides of his mouth depending on the circumstances.
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:
Americans and Iraqis are clamoring for “a timetable for withdrawl from Iraq,” according to latest MoveOn.org ad. Everyone wants a timetable, they say, except John McCain. (No mention of Obama’s 16-month timetable. Of course, that’s the campaign timetable. Think that will be the January 2009 timetable?)
The JibJab guys finally weigh in with a campaign music video — to the tune of “The Times They Are a-Changin’. ” (No, they didn’t put Obama in Muslim dress.)
In an interview with Larry King, Barack Obama addresses that oh-so sophisticated “satirical” New Yorkercover. He didn’t think the “humor” quite worked. (More here.)
Sound Bite: “In attempting to satirize something, they probably fueled some misconceptions about me instead, but that was their editorial judgement . . . . It’s a cartoon, it’s not where the American people are spending a lot of their time thinking about.”
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe gives the troops an update on the battle for the White House. His talking points: McCain and the RNC have a lot of dough and they’re going to run “untrue, negative ads all across the country”; you need to raise more Barack bucks.
