The New York Timesreported this week on the supposedly eerie similarities between the final plot line on The West Wing and this year’s presidential campaign. Frankly, I had heard the same thing from Bob, the proprietor with his brother of the Beachwood Inn, weeks before. But it was nice to see the Times validate Bob.
“[T]he writers of The West Wing are watching in amazement as the election plays out,” the Times wrote. “The parallels between the final two seasons of the series (it ended its run on NBC in May 2006) and the current political season are unmistakable. Fiction has, once again, foreshadowed reality.”
Well, it just so happens I chanced upon a rerun from the fourth season (2002) called “Election Night” this week. My favorite piece of dialogue, of course, was this one, right after the President and Abbey Bartlet cast their re-election votes:
REPORTER: How are you spending the rest of the day?
ABBEY: Filling out Chicago ballots; just pitching in.
Barack Obama’s unprecedented ad spending continues to set records.
A new study out by the Wisconsin Advertising Project has found that Obama is oustpending John McCain by three to one on television, and that 75 percent of the spending is in red states.
“From October 21st to October 28th, spending on television advertising in the presidential campaign has totaled nearly $38 million. Over this time period, the Obama campaign spent nearly $21.5 million while the McCain campaign spent nearly $7.5 million. Another $6.7 million was spent by the Republican Party and $2.2 million was spent by interest groups.”
Additionally, the campaign of the candidate who keeps repeating that Americans are tired of attack politics and has built his campaign on a theme of changing the political discourse has sharply upped his negative ad buys “even as McCain’s team has mixed in a little sunshine into what had been one massive ad front of foreboding,” Crain’s Chicago Businessreports, citing data from the Wisconsin study.
“[F]rom Oct. 21-28, 63% of the Obama ads and 79% of the McCain ads were negative. In its previous report, about ads running from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, the project said that 100% of the McCain campaign’s ads and 34% of the Obama campaign’s ads were negative.”
Costumes spotted in (and around) the workplace by Friends of Division Street:
* Obama handing out money to “spread the wealth”
* Joe the Plumber
* The good witch from the Wizard of Oz, who just sent me a meeting request for a “Cubs Curse Removal Ceremony”
* Probably not a costume: a homeless/disturbed man was yelling “trick or treat!” at passersby at Clark & Ohio this morning.
* They gave us free caramel apples here at the Prudential. They frigging rocked.
* I was so busy this week, I had no costume. So [my daughter] quickly made me a pig nose out of a paper towel roll thing. She handed it to me and said, “You can be Sarah Palin . . . wasn’t there some lipstick on a pig joke?
* There is a “Jen the Plumber” here too
The best of Craigslist ads seeking tickets to the Obama rally in Grant Park on Tuesday, as determined by Division Street Labs.
1. I can be your date to the Obama rally – $1 (Chicago)
Reply to: sale-898645459@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-10-29, 6:38PM CDT
I would love to go to the Obama rally!! Have an extra ticket or just need someone to go with you? I would love to go! let me know….maybe it could turn into more than one night with me you and Obama. haha. who knows right??
2. Victoria Secret Gift Card for Obama guest ticket – $75 (Chicago)
Reply to: sale-899916928@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-10-30, 6:02PM CDT
If anyone wants a victoria secret gift card for their Guest Ticket, PLEASE CONTACT ME!!!!
Reply to: sale-899881700@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-10-30, 5:32PM CDT
Hi, I can’t go to the rally so I am selling my ticket for 10 trillion dollars. Meet me at the Wilson Red Line. The money will be given to cover the United States public debt bill. Thank you.
5. Blackhawk Ticket for Obama Grat Park Rally Guest Pass – $1 (Chicago, IL)
Reply to: sale-900056525@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-10-30, 8:16PM CDT
Will exchange 1 Blackhawk Ticket, 12 rows off ice, for 1 guest pass to Obama Rally. If you have two guest passes, I will give you a pair of Blackhawks tickets.
As an infomercial junkie, I gazed in particular wide wonder at the $4 million (!) advertising buy last night featuring our probable next president – and not just because I couldn’t get my head around the idea that one antidote to our broken political system was to spend more money than ever on campaign ads!
I truly consider myself a student of the form, and at times, considering his thin resume, I’ve considered Barack Obama to be little more than the next great televangelist or Ginsu knife salesman.
In March 2007, when Obama was still just a baby candidate, I wrote this (item No.9):
“Being a great speaker is also an overrated skill. Judgement and policy skill are far more important. We’re not electing a televangelist. In fact, if great oratory were the overriding quality to look for in a president, we’d elect Tony Robbins or Kevin Trudeau (or better yet, Joel Osteen). The value of being a skilled speaker should never override the value of what it is someone is saying.”
So I’ve listened very hard to the content of Obama’s rhetoric throughout this campaign – truly to my detriment, because apparently you’re not supposed to do that as it makes you a spoilsport.
Nonetheless, I watched and listened very closely last night to Obama’s “big gamble,” which struck me as hardly a gamble at all. I mean, c’mon! Where was the risk? That somehow David Axelrod would produce a video accidentally including a stray frame of Bill Ayers in it?
Anyway, let’s take a look at it in the inimitable style of the Infomercial Reviews we feature (or used to, submissions welcome!) on the Beachwood Reporter.
1. “Senator Barack Obama will use his prime-time half-hour infomercial on Wednesday night to make what is effectively a closing argument to a national audience of millions,” the New York Timesreported on Wednesday morning. “At times he will speak directly into the camera about his 20-month campaign, at others he will highlight everyday voters, their everyday troubles, and his plans to address them.
“Mr. Obama’s campaign agreed to provide The New York Times with a minute-long trailer for the 30-minute program, which is to run on four broadcast networks at 8 p.m.”
Perhaps the Times could have told the Obama campaign to buy an ad instead.
2. “John McCain’s presidential campaign Tuesday accused the Los Angeles Times of ‘intentionally suppressing’ a videotape it obtained of a 2003 banquet where then-state Sen. Barack Obama spoke of his friendship with Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian scholar and activist,” the Los Angeles Timesreports.
“‘The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it,’ said the newspaper’s editor, Russ Stanton. ‘The Times keeps its promises to sources’.”
The Obama campaign will be unloading its Tony Rezko videos on the Los Angeles Times next.
My Beachwood Reporter colleague Natasha Julius is in the midst of a six-week sojourn in India. She sends in this report:
“I live in a total news hole, so the only paper I have regular access to is the Times of India. It’s a God-awful rag. There’s also something called DNA which basically just picks up wire stories, so, you know, it’s like the Sun Times.
“Anyway, this week I have been in Mysore and Bangalore and have had access to some better press. One thing that is consistent across all papers is a definite trend in American political coverage. I don’t want to call it a slant one way or the other because it’s more subtle than that. Stories concerning Barack Obama are invariably newsy; they concern some foreign policy talk he gave or some poll data that shows a gain or fall. Coverage of Sarah Palin is invariably gossipy; it revolves around her appearance, her dress sense, what Hugo Chavez has said to insult her. It’s not concerned at all with her current legal issues, just her Hollywood pedigree. You’ll notice I have not mentioned coverage of John McCain. That is because there is none. Seriously. He’s pretty much non-existent. Every so often a photo cap will identify someone as being at a McCain rally, but if you don’t already know what that means you’re unlikely to find out from context.
“This reflects a widely-held belief that Obama is strongly pro-India. I don’t know if this is accurate as no reporting has mentioned any specifics concerning his stance. All in all, it’s a lot like being in Chicago; everyone loves, loves, loves the Barack but no one can really tell you why.
“I can also report that, anecdotally anyway, the general public seems strongly prObama. I mean, those who are aware that there is an election in America really love them some Barack. Once people find out I am American, they frequently mention that Obama will be our next president soon and that the rest of the world will thank us for it.
“It’s pretty remarkable. Of course, many of them seem to think he’s running unopposed, so they view this as more of a coronation than a campaign. Again, it’s like I haven’t even left home. I think that, should McCain manage what now looks like a bit of an upset, a lot of people here will be very confused and possibly quite upset. I’m interested to see just what will happen if Obama hangs on for the win. My impression is that people will be pleased and will generally go about their business, but it’s possible this could be a bigger deal than that. The financial crisis in the States has had an immediate impact here, with the rupee dropping like a rock and the domestic tourism industry taking a pounding during what is traditionally a very busy holiday season. There’s also growing unrest in several states.
“For better or for worse, a strong America is still viewed as the best way to ensure stability here and so many people may see this as a sign that the tough times are a blip rather than a sustained trend.”
*
You can read more about Natasha’s excellent adventure on her excellent travel blog,NJ in India.
On Monday, Politicoreported that “no subject is more avidly considered in the corridors of Democratic power than the future role of his chief adviser, political consultant David Axelrod. Democrats who know the Chicago-based political consultant, the key architect of Obama’s campaign and of his public image, say Axelrod has signaled that he’ll seriously consider taking on a job in the administration.”
That’s nice.
On the same day, the New York Times published a heartwarming piece about Axelrod under the headline “Long by Obama’s Side, an Adviser Fills a Role That Exceeds His Title.”
How sweet. And how quickly they forget.
Just nine days prior, the Times examined Axelrod’s other job – the one as America’s Astroturf King, creating fake grass-roots campaigns to persuade the public that it is on the side of his rather unappetizing corporate clients. That’s the side of Axelrod that rarely shows up in profiles that invariably assure us “really believes” in his candidates’ messages.
The puffy profiles, though, are hard to square with the facts, as laid out in devastating fashion by the Times’ story earlier this month and a similar investigation by the late BusinessWeek Chicago last spring that came and went with barely a flutter.
I just came across this by accident; seems the lottery in Mesa, Colombia chose to put Obama’s visage on its new tickets.
“We’re always looking for somebody people are raving about,” Mesa Lottery manager Luis Enciso told the AFP news service. “We’d never think of using John McCain. McCain has the look of somebody who’s standoffish, unpleasant and tiresome.”
The American gambling industry has a different view, the Las Vegas Review-Journalreports.
“Gaming has bet the house on the presidential campaign of Republican John McCain,” the paper says in its examination.
Division Street is NBC Chicago’s blog about Chicago news and politics from the perspective of Steve Rhodes, a 20-year veteran of the newspaper and magazine world and more recently, the proprietor of the Chicago news and culture review, The Beachwood Reporter.
– $1 (Chicago)
I just came across this by accident; seems the lottery in Mesa, Colombia chose to put Obama’s visage on its new tickets.
News from NBC Chicago