20 posts tagged “sarah palin”

I know former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has had nearly 800,000 people join her Facebook page, which is a very impressive number. I didn’t expect to see this wall message:

We are all sick of news about Paris Hilton, I would imagine, and wondered who would knock her off her perch.
   On the TV news, I noticed that an item about Gov. Sarah Palin’s grandson preceded one on Paris Hilton in Australia.
   You now have your answer. It’s Sarah Palin.

The weeks after the US presidential election have been interesting.
   First, certain Republicans wanted to make Gov. Sarah Palin the fall girl of their campaign. They failed. Bill O’Reilly tore in to her pretty quickly but faced a backlash from Republicans who saw the Governor as a heroine of their cause. Sen. John McCain took an entire week to respond, by which time it was “safe” for him to have done so, when the political meter had swung to Gov. Palin’s favour. We have Joe the Plumber now coming out and saying that he wasn’t that impressed with the Senator, but he was impressed by his running-mate.
   Then, we have a shrewd President-elect who has sought to distance himself from the radical elements, the corruption in the Illinois governor’s office, kept in touch with American people via YouTube, and attempted to go forth with a transparent transition process.
   I am not going to get into politics deeply here. My point is that the behaviour of the two candidates speaks volumes toward the way they brand themselves, their notions of leadership and their motives.
   I do not feel then-Sen. Obama’s campaign was the most transparent. There were questions to be answered, as I have stated on this blog. Vagueness is not a way to earn votes—but history has always shown that a campaign on change after years of one president in office works: Clinton 1992, Blair 1997 and Clark 1999 are good examples.
   I did feel Sen. McCain attempted to be more candid. I was unimpressed, however, by points he flip-flopped on—when first faced with the mortgage crisis, his first words were in fact about letting laissez-faire economics have their way. Within weeks he spoke of nationalizing mortgages.
   So much for the maverick who took a position.
   Now elected, President-elect Obama has done right by his YouTube addresses, understanding that he needs to set a vision as well as a strategy and getting people on the ground early. This is not a cynical exercise in PR. Any leader knows that the most effective way to get an organization moving—and in this case a country—is to get stake-holders in on the act early, rather than impose a strategy on to them. I have said the same in any branding job for our clients.
   Sen. McCain’s failure to defend his running-mate rates down there alongside Al Gore’s failure to endorse Sen. Joe Lieberman, as tradition might have suggested he should have done, going for Gov. Howard Dean instead. Gov. Palin was fine at defending herself ultimately, but not before more damage was done to the Republican Party.
   Whether one agrees with his Cabinet choices, Barack Obama’s moves in his transition have been pretty good, and among the most open I have witnessed since I began watching American presidential campaigns. He is using the playbook of modern communications to ensure that the office of the President will continue to deserve respect. While in some respects he has gone against the ‘Change’ cry of his campaign by rewarding Clinton-era loyalists for the Cabinet positions announced so far, it’s another shrewd move to ensure stability from his party. With enough in place, let’s hope that he can get on with the real serious issues.
   Am I going to give Barack Obama five out of five? No. I still hold some concerns over his ideas. But those who questioned his experience—as those who questioned Gov. Palin’s—might be revising their thoughts today. For the most part, these transitional weeks have been well played by Illinois’ rising star.

I am being fair and balanced here by airing one video that attempts to paint Republican supporters in a poor light after the previous video that did the same to Democrats. This was from al-Jazeera English and the network itself critiqued it on Listening Post after there were complaints and accusations of bias. Please note that the n word is used.

I thought this was a good laugh, from Newsbusters. This was run at the time when the media were attacking Gov. Sarah Palin on her foreign policy experience. The writer, Tom Blumer, points out in 1992, The New York Times wrote, of then-Gov. Bill Clinton (his emphasis):

Under the pressure of a Presidential campaign, Gov. Bill Clinton has been trying to outline his own unique foreign policy, while at the same time fending off criticism from the Bush White House that he is a closet dove masquerading as a hawk and that his experience in world affairs is limited to breakfast at the International House of Pancakes. …
   As a man who has spent his entire career in state government in Arkansas, Mr. Clinton has no foreign policy record to run on or be judged against. Therefore, critics say, he has had the luxury of defining himself purely through a series of speeches. None of his ideas have had to meet the test of the real world.

   He did feel there was media bias at work. There was certainly sexism. I liked the IHOP reference more than anything else.

I’ve been having a think about the hatchet-job that Gov. Palin is getting, surprisingly, from the Murdoch Press, specifically its Fox News Channel arm. Considering that she was championed by this network after her selection by the party (over Sen. McCain’s own choice of Sen. Joe Lieberman, who even my Democratic friends felt would have been a better choice to win moderate voters), the about-face shows a level of deceit either now, or before, by the media company.
   While there may have been some gentlemen’s agreement over concealing this information till after the election, I don’t think I have seen the Murdoch Press go after a political figure in quite this fashion since Hard Copy did its exposés on Sen. Ted Kennedy in the 1980s.
   To be fair, even Newsweek, on the left, has kept mum about matters till now, and I imagine other media outlets have done the same in order to maintain their access to the candidates.
   We are hearing some things about the Democrats and we now know that Sen. Obama isn’t above swearing, but overall the post-mortem, even in the conservative press, has been relatively muted about the winning side.
   But not against Gov. Sarah Palin.
   It also shows a disloyalty within the Republican Party that is not becoming of it, if it wishes to be seen as a party that was unjustly cheated out of the election this week.
   In 2000, Democrats could point to the recount process in Florida and the alliance between the state’s Attorney-General Katherine Harris and the Republican Party as having taken the presidency from Al Gore.
   This time, the divide that has occurred might leave Republicans thinking that the disunity in the party cost them the election, and they were beaten by Democrats who hid their divisions better. They may fairly and rightly point to the media as being complicit in giving Sen. Obama a free ride, just as Conservatives in Britain could in 1997, but the reality may be that there was something rotten within the GOP.
   I can’t believe campaign aides and workers coming out and breaching a level of trust by revealing such details as Gov. Palin coming to greet them in a towel, and having this make the news pages.
   Even the supposed hatred by Sen. Clinton’s campaigners for Sen. Obama stayed relatively under the radar, either by a cooperative liberal media or by a sense of loyalty to the Democratic Party.
   We’re hearing news of the Governor’s tantrums and that the $150,000 shopping spree may have been more expensive than first thought.
   This is a personal attack on her that shows party workers who can’t maintain any sense of dignity and trust.
   Importantly, you do not see someone of the standing and decency of Sen. John McCain rubbish his running-mate.
   If this division has been inspired by higher-ups in the Republican Party, then Americans might be fortunate that this version of the GOP did not get into power on November 4.
   One may argue that it is our right to know, and maybe it is. But the pace of this so-called knowledge being disseminated points to a party that is acting out sour grapes and playing the blame game a little too soon, and I find it troubling.
   Every party says it will regroup after a loss. It is fair to note that the loss that the Republicans suffered was in fact very small, given how they were outspent by the Democrats to such a degree. At this stage, I do not think there will be much re-evaluation of where it will lead, because I am not sure if the Party itself realizes where it wishes to head. It may need to rebrand much later, but for now, it hasn’t been able to protect its own from this onslaught—and may well have caused it.

The Fox News folks have now joined in the Sarah Palin-bashing, which is a surprise. Some cynics who smell a rat say that the Murdoch-owned network is merely ensuring that Gov. Palin does not have a chance at another run because she alienated too many moderate Republicans. But having Republicans as friends, I know that many supported the Governor because they shared her value system, and some even said they only voted for Sen. McCain because Gov. Palin was on the ticket.
   The GOP might well be a divided party and we have seen these divisions before, with George Bush (the 41st president) who appealed too much to the moderates, and with the primaries this time around that saw former Govs. Huckabee and Romney only managing to get partial support from the party.
   Before some say that the Murdoch Press has covered this up till after the election, there does seem to have been some agreement internally to not reveal a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff till the day after on both sides. Even Newsweek is now revealing a lot and I am told its video has then-Sen. Obama swearing.
   Whatever the case, I’m not sure if it’s wise for the Murdoch Press, if it is a GOP instrument as its critics say (its boss has always denied this) to be doing something that might divide the party.
   Or, was K. R. M. always right and that it’s being ‘fair and balanced’?
   I am always concerned when one politician is vilified to this extent. I have seen it in other countries, against people on the left and on the right. It’s dangerous stuff, and contributes to revisionism.
   I might not agree with the Governor on some of her positions, her lack of humility, or even her campaigning technique, but if some things sound too much like a tall tale, then they probably are. I don’t think we have seen the last of Gov. Palin; we might indeed see, and I know there is a lot of Bush fatigue out there, John Ellis Bush or even George Prescott Bush make runs somewhere down the line.
   Democrats might hope not—or they might hope so, if this will help ensure them a victory.
   Less likely things have happened. Remember, Marvin Bush once said of his eldest brother, ‘George is the family clown,’ and that he was unlikely to run for office.
   You just never know.

Overseas, I don’t think I have seen any TV news coverage on Sen. Obama’s illegal alien aunt living in Massachusetts, a matter which I understand has infuriated some Americans.
   It still makes me wonder about the bias in the media.
   The Republicans are ideologically dissimilar to my own politics generally, but one thing is important: I don’t like media bias one way or another.
   And running in a small, left-wing party myself, I know all about being the subject of media bias.
   How’s this for a statistic?

From Sept. 1 through Friday, the Republicans were the target of 475 jokes by Jay Leno and David Letterman alone. The Democratic team of Obama and Joe Biden were the victim 69 times, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which has been tracking such data since 1988. That’s nearly a 7-to-1 ratio.
   In no other campaign over the last 20 years has one party's ticket been jabbed more than the other by even a 2-to-1 ratio, said Robert Lichter, a George Mason University professor and head of the center.
   Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have a similar imbalance. The center doesn’t even consider Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O'Brien, Craig Ferguson and others — including the season's breakout comedy star, Tina Fey imitating Sarah Palin.

   Or this, in the Fairfax Press?

Comments made by sources, voters, reporters and anchors that aired on ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts over the past two months reflected positively on Senator Obama in 65% of cases, compared with 31% of cases with regard to Senator McCain, according to the Centre for Media and Public Affairs.

Note: the Center receives, inter alia, funding from conservative sources. However, as I watch some late-night TV, the joke ratio is hard to argue with. The last Joe Biden joke I heard David Letterman make was after the vice-presidential debate. And Barack Obama has been spared late-night-host attacks. McCain–Palin jokes are nightly.
  If all this is to do with the tens of millions of dollars in advertising and this positive news coverage is “editorial support”, then I hope Americans will realize their democracy is not for sale.
   As I observe the election, the gap should not be that huge. A cynic might say that Sen. McCain is positive only 31 per cent of the time anyway. But I see both Sens. Obama and McCain as pretty similar in terms of how many positive versus negative messages they send out, though Sen. Obama is more humorous.
   The only excuse I think the media can pull is that during the primaries, I noticed some racist coverage against Sen. Obama, especially the attacks on him by his opponents, and maybe the gentleman deserves to have that redressed.
   We know Gov. Palin gets a lot of negative coverage and, surprisingly, sexist comments, but the newsmedia have only really missed Sen. McCain’s personal wealth as a topic—probably because that would force them to cover the fact that both Sens. Obama and Biden aren’t exactly poor. And in the past, Gov. Bush and Vice-President Gore’s personal wealth has not been much of a topic.
   But they seem to miss plenty about Sen. Obama—something that conservatives, in particular, are quick to point out.
   Americans need to vote on the policies and the records of Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain but I think they can write off their newsmedia as a reliable source on their presidential election.

Sen. Joe Biden and the Obama campaign have cancelled all interviews with this Florida TV station after getting fired a few tough questions that Sen. Barack Obama would have dealt with very easily. He dealt with them sufficiently but cancelling further interviews with the channel?
   I never understood, and still do not understand, why this man is Sen. Obama’s running-mate. I have always had my doubts about Sen. Biden, long before his nomination, and the pettiness of the Obama campaign staffers that I have written about has shown itself once again.
   Come on, even Gov. Sarah Palin isn’t above returning to unfriendly networks and channels for the McCain campaign.

   I’ll say again that an Obama–Clinton ticket was the obvious one for the Democrats, and we wouldn’t even be looking at the polls if that had happened.

[Cross-posted] I was reading Karl Rove’s commentary on Sarah Palin today and he hit upon a few things I agree with (you read that correctly).

McCain–Palin must deepen those doubts by pounding away on questions about Obama’s character, judgment and values. Drawing on Obama’s own record and statements, they need to paint him as a big spender, class warrior and cultural elitist; they need to say he’s never worked across party lines or gotten his hands dirty solving big issues. But the duo must also give voters reasons to support them. They must crystallize a positive, forward-looking vision so people who see Obama as unqualified have something to hang on to. It can’t be a laundry list of positions. McCain–Palin must offer a narrative about what they will do to help America see better days, especially on kitchen-table concerns.

   This is a lesson that comes up in branding, a lot.
   One of the necessary things we branding consultants always talk about is story-telling. There have to be legends in the company, things that become company folklore. The Murdoch Press has plenty of stories to tell, for example, about how one of its newspapers ran a piece about Elvis, coincidentally on the story of the King’s death. I still talk about the way the Lucire name came up, which probably paints to the way serendipity works inside an organization. TV3 probably has one on John Campbell’s tie.
   Stories unite people, and Rove’s belief that the McCain campaign must give a ‘forward-looking vision’ and a ‘narrative’ come straight out of a branding book. Maybe one of mine.
   Vision is important, and there have been other posts on that. But an easily grasped narrative goes beyond slogans. While the stories I refer to above come from the past, in an election campaign, candidates need to paint one about the future. We know the McCain legend of being a POW; we know Palin paints herself as a hockey mom. These form the background, but people need to buy into the sequel.
   Especially when one campaign is less well off than another. The Republicans are being outspent by the Democrats, so a consistent, continuous story about how the McCain–Palin principles will, in short soundbites, rescue America can have a great effect against their opponents.
   Big spending allows for promotions around the cult of personality; small spending needs cleverer ideas and stories are one of the better techniques open to supporting a brand.