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Archive for the 'Hillary Clinton' Category

Feud for Thought

Published by William Beutler on February 13, 2008 in Barack Obama, Blog Fights, Hillary Clinton, Internecine Battles, Netroots and White House '08. 1 Comment

On Monday evening, Big Head DC pointed to a blog post by ardent Hillary Clinton supporter Taylor Marsh, accusing left-liberal Talking Points Memo of carrying out a

Classic hit job

against the New York Senator. Over the last 24 hours, I’ve seen a few more examples of this Clinton-Obama feud playing out across the leftosphere. For exampe, here’s Big Tent Democrat (aka Armando of Daily Kos) on TalkLeft:

Josh Marshall seems incapable of taking Hillary Clinton’s words at their face value. It seems clear that TPM is intent on ignoring the important part of this story, the pattern of sexism at NBC. This remains a very disappointing episode for TPM, both as a question of journalism and simple decency.

But Marshall isn’t the only progressive blogging entrepreneur taking friendly fire; here’s former Edwards staffer Melissa McEwan at Shakesville:

Dear Arianna,

I know you hate Hillary Clinton and everything, but do you—mother to two daughters—really believe that the best way to undermine her candidacy is by giving Stephen “Mickey’s Brother” Kaus space on your pages to unleash a misogynistic tirade against Hillary, that manages to simultaneously dismiss the concerns of women everywhere who have raised red flags over the sexist treatment of Hillary by the media?

And then there is the extreme difference of opinion over Paul Krugman’s latest anti-Obama jeremiad, wherein he accuses the Obama campaign of being like “Nixonland,” after a 1956 Adlai Stevenson quote. Ironic, considering not just the Clinton campaign’s duplicity (say, campaigning in Florida) but also the existence of the term Hillaryland.

From Tennessee Guerrilla Women, Kevin Hayden and Susie Madrak agreeing with Krugman to Hilzoy, State of the Day and Ron Chusid pretty much going WTF, the left is split along Obama-Clinton lines, and they are split almost evenly.

But are they split so badly they cannot put their differences aside once the nomination has been decided? I doubt it. Their ire is not directed at the other candidate as it is directed at the other candidate’s supporters. Rifts may persist among the bloggers themselves, but it’s difficult to see how that translates into weaker support for the eventual Democratic nominee.

527 Reasons John McCain Should Watch Out

Published by William Beutler on February 13, 2008 in 527s, Advertising, Campaigns, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Republicans and Television. 2 Comments

By process, Republicans have eliminated the probability (if not possibility) that anyone but John McCain will be the party’s nominee. Meanwhile, the Democratic contest now appears certain to last several more weeks at least. As little as two months ago, the prognosticators had the Democrats deciding early with the GOP going to a brokered convention, yet the opposite is occurring.

The conventional wisdom right now seems to be that that this is going to hurt Democrats and help Republicans. McCain now has time to win over disaffected conservatives, raise money for the general election and hone his positive message. Meanwhile, the Democrats may not know who their nominee is for sure until a month hence, and whomever emerges victorious will not only have these disadvantages against McCain but may also have to deal with more-serious-than-usual intra-party divisions. That is, a long hard slog between Cinton and Obama could leave the losing faction demoralized and slow to rejoin the fray.

I’m not sure this is correct, at least not overall. Sure, McCain will be better prepared and the Democrat will have to mend fences late. But we’re only talking about the campaigns and party apparatii. This is the age of the 527. And it cannot go without noting that this is true in no small part to McCain’s own campaign finance legislation which, by limiting soft money to the parties, weakened those institutions and, by leaving open a “loophole,” allowed issue-advocacy 527s to replace them.

Certainly, a pro-McCain 527 could launch anytime now, and I assume at least one will. But 527s are less effective at building up than tearing down. Whereas a party must build a governing coalition to succeed, 527s are often driven by a narrow faction or collection of issues. Because coordinating between a campaign and 527 is illegel, they can’t share strategy or resources, and likely won’t know the others’ targets. It’s almost designed to waste resources.

But a negatively-focused 527 doesn’t necessarily need to know whether Obama will be nominated in order to start hitting McCain. So far, we’ve been told that McCain will keep the U.S. in Iraq for 100 years, will start more wars in the meantime, and that he is very old. We will undoubtedly hear more soon. And once the key themes are worked out online, we’ll start seeing them on television.

Meanwhile, Republican 527s can’t be sure that targeting one candidate or the other won’t be money or resources wasted. The RNC just rolled out an Obama Spend-o-Meter, which does in fact play to a McCain strength, especially as the GOP itself has lost credibility on the matter. On the other hand, talking about big-spending Democrats is a pat response. It could just as easily have been the Clinton Spend-o-Meter.

Unfortunatley for McCain and the GOP, a candidate-specific strategy will just have to wait.

There are Two Things Wrong With this Picture

Published by William Beutler on February 11, 2008 in Barack Obama, Blog Consultants, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Republicans. Closed

F7 with Huckabee and Romney and Obama

If the question doesn’t make sense, then read this:

At Rightroots, we have built a way for Republicans to rally behind their new nominee right out of the gate. We’re asking all Republicans to donate online to the new nominee next Thursday, February 7th. …

On February 7th, we’ll set up a page on Rightroots for you to give to the nominee and show you our community’s results in real time. …

If the nominee is McCain, we still have to do this. His campaign especially is running on fumes financially, but they’ve shown they can be effective with an even a small amount of money.

You can’t read the fine print on the screen shot above (well, you could if you squinted) but here’s what’s relevant:

The Super Tuesday primaries are over and February 7th is here. On Tuesday, Senator John McCain established himself as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, with Governor Mitt Romney and Governor Mike Huckabee winning primaries and caucuses throughout the nation.

Please give generously to the major Republican candidates who remain active contenders for the nomination…

It’s fair to point out that Romney did not officially suspend his campaign until a few hours after the page went live, but it’s also fair to point out that by February 6, McCain was the only realistic nominee. Also fair, Romney was still there as of the last revision of this post. My own initial coverage of the February 7 effort was quite favorable, so I would be derelict if I failed to follow up and say that anyone who bought into the initial pitch — let alone gave money — should feel misled.

The February 7th Sign or: Stop This Train, I Want to Get On

Published by William Beutler on January 31, 2008 in Barack Obama, Blog Consultants, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Online Fundraising, Republicans, Twitter, White House '08 and William Beutler. 3 Comments

Patrick Ruffini has announced a new Rightroots-branded initiative called February7.org. The premise is simple: Republicans are likely to have a presumptive nominee by the morning after the morning after Super Tuesday (Tsunami Tuesday for you First Read fanboys and girls). This primary has not been as ugly as the Democrats’, but it has been ideologically dispiriting, mostly featuring candidates who fell short of conservative ideals. An early fundraising push could help rally the GOP while the Democrats are still fighting amongst themselves.

That nominee is most likely to be John McCain, while Ruffini has switched his support from “Rudy to Romney,” as he put it Tuesday night. Therefore, the most likely scenario is he will have to grudgingly switch again in about a week. If the move is a painful one for many, better then to get it over with. But there’s more to it, as he explains in the announcement on his own site:

You can probably tell that I have strong views about this nomination contest. Win or lose, I’m equally convinced of the importance of getting behind the eventual winner. A nation at war cannot afford Hillary or Obama in the White House. …

Beyond just showing support for our nominee, we’re doing this to help solve a concrete strategic problem for our Party during the month of February.

The simple fact is that when it comes to contributions from others, our candidates are broke. They’ve spent it all on Florida. No one is up on TV in any February 5th state, while Hillary and Obama have money to burn (I saw Clinton ads in California last weekend). Based on the fact that they have money to play with and have held a fundraising advantage throughout the cycle, there is a chance they could start pummeling our candidate with negative ads right away.

If we fundraise the same old traditional way — with fundraising events and direct mail early and banking on Internet enthusiasm late — we will lose. There is no way we’ll be able to get the money when and where we need it. On the Internet in particular, contributions come in late, often too late for the money to be spent effectively. We’re hoping to help frontload some of this money so that the candidate can use it against Hillary/Obama right away. When it comes to giving, early is the new late.

Well said. But for my money, the best part of the website is that one can toggle between “Stop Hillary” and “Stop Obama,” not unlike a blog that lets you change the background color:

Stop Hillary at February7.org             Stop Obama at February7.org

Please notice that no “Stop Edwards” version was created.

P.S. I first heard about this through a Twitter account Ruffini set up last week: Twitter.com/February7. I followed the account back, but of 111 users Ruffini followed, only 13 followed it back. That 11.7% rate would be terrific if it was direct mail, but it isn’t that. Twitter marketing has been the focus of much discussion over the past year, but here is some evidence that the medium strongly favors established personalities — Ruffini is one, but @February7 is not. And setting up new Twitter accounts is fun, but not all that effective.

Exclusive! Must Credit Radar! Even Though Radar Didn’t Break It!

Published by William Beutler on December 31, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Attribution, Hillary Clinton, MSM vs. Blogs and William Beutler. 1 Comment

Big Head DC, the disreputable local gossip rag that routinely outdoes Wonkette in the disreputable gossip department, reports on Radar, Wonkette and the Ragin’ Cajun:

Writing for Wonkette competitor, Radar magazine, yesterday, [Wonkette editor John] Clarke [Jr.] reported that “a source close with” James Carville told him that the Democratic political guru plans to join Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Interestingly, the piece is titled “Radar Exclusive,” yet Big Head DC revealed the same information over sixteen days earlier.

This is not the first time Radar has claimed an “exclusive” when the same information has been previously reported by bloggers.

It’s annoying enough when brick-and-mortar journalistic enterprises won’t give credit to their amateur counterparts, but when a (currently) online-only publication does the same, repeatedly, what can you say?

From now on, I’ll assume that every “Radar Exclusive” is in fact stolen from a blog.

Does Markos Moulitsas Need President Bush?

Published by William Beutler on December 9, 2007 in Barack Obama, Daily Kos, Hillary Clinton, Instapundit, Internecine Battles, Lamont v. Lieberman, MSM, Netroots, Rhetoric and William Beutler. Closed

A couple weeks back, I covered first-week reaction to the twinned Newsweek columns by Markos Moulitsas and Karl Rove. The early returns showed that Newsweek.com readers were much more interested in Rove than Kos. I ventured a few guesses why — among them Markos’ uninspired prose and unintriguing arguments — but as Roy Edroso pointed out in the comments, another reason is that Rove, as a former White House adviser, would simply be a more interesting read. Indeed, he led with a compelling anecdote, even as the rest of the piece was fairly unsurprising.

But even before Moulitsas’ column debuted, I think another blogger nailed the risks inherent in Markos’ accepting the assignment in the first place. That blogger was Kenton Kelly, mild-mannered Ohio accountant turned wild-mannered critic of Pajamas Media, better known as Dennis the Peasant. From his post on November 19:

I have difficulty believing Markos can pull off the very difficult task of reconciling the requirements of expressing himself as a movement partisan to two very different audiences: Netroots members and undecided voters. Each is going to have differing expectations as to what they will get out of those columns. Netroots are, I’ll wager, looking for what they’ve come to expect out of Markos; fire-breathing, uncompromising, take-no-prisoners advocacy of progressive policy positions. Understand that what I am not suggesting here is that his Netroots audience expects him to drop f-bombs and excoriate progressivism’s enemies by name as he does at DailyKOS. What they will be expecting, however, is that Markos not give an inch on issues because of any sort of tactical considerations. Expressing open contempt for triangulation and compromise on the issues is, after all, a large part of Markos’ modus operandi.

Walking that fine line between staying uncompromisingly true to Netroots’ core ideals and supporting whomever the Democrats nominate is going to be a difficult task. Unless the Republican candidate flames out immediately after receiving his party’s nomination, it is a certainty that at some point in the race the Democratic candidate is going to have to tack from left to center to gather enough votes to win. This is the precise point in time when things are going to get dangerous for a movement partisan. That’s because Markos has been quite explicit in his distain of the centrist strategies of the Democratic “establishment”. The much reviled Bob Shrum would be just the sort to swallow such a centrist shift as a matter of practical political necessity. How can Markos approve of such a shift when it comes (and it will) without drawing the ire of his supporters?

If Markos chooses to explicitly reject a centrist shift by the Democratic candidate in his Newsweek columns, how does he do so without alienating undecided (i.e., centrist) voters? At some point the decision is going to have to be made by members of the Netroots movement, and by Markos, as to whether there will ever be a time where ideological purity can coexist with the practical needs of daily politics. By this I simply mean that at some point – and I would argue that point is very close at hand – the Netroots movement will have recruited all they can recruit, and converted all they can convert, using the message and tactics they now employ. When the moment arrives where a decision between continued purity and continued growth, what will be Netroots’ response?

Now, I don’t really think Markos matters that much to undecided or moderate voters. Of the factors that will determine their ‘08 vote, Moulitsas’ pronouncements will be very far down the list, even as he’ll be in the relatively high-profile pages of Newsweek. But it will certainly be fascinating to see how individual lefty bloggers and their adherents, including the Kossacks, will react when the nominee inevitably stakes out positions problematic (even anathema) to the activist base. Brooking no compromise is a key identifying feature of the capital-N netroots; some will go along and others will protest. And Moulitsas, with his new perch, will bear the brunt of this scrutiny.

We’ve already seen a bit of this as Matt Stoller, Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher have put pressure on the so-called “Bush Dog Democrats” (i.e. Blue Dogs) — especially on Iraq — while other prominent bloggers have largely avoided the specific accusation. A year from now, this cleavage will be much more apparent.

The whole Dennis — er, Kelly — post is worth reading, and I won’t quote the whole thing here (à la the late Steve Gilliard) and so deprive him of what meager traffic Blog P.I. directs (we’re nothing if not not Glenn Reynolds), but I must address his penultimate paragraph. As he wrote,

the events of the last two years have brought into question widely held assumptions about how much political influence Netroots and Markos Moulitsas actually wield. His attempt to unseat Joe Lieberman ended in spectacular failure, with Lieberman waxing Ned Lamont by 10 percentage points in a three man race. And for all the proclamations of victory after the congressional elections of 2006, what has become very clear is that many of the newest congressional Democrats have absolutely no interest in backing a Netroots agenda. It is not hard to come to the conclusion, after watching Speakers Pelosi and Reid suffering repeated defeats trying to push an explicitly progressive agenda, that perhaps assumptions of Netroots’ influence have been, shall we say, unduly optimistic. This impression was reinforced when most of the Democratic presidential candidates chose to skip 2007’s YearlyKOS convention. [Note: He's wrong about this, especially as the candidates avoided the DLC meeting entirely, but it doesn't negate his overall point.] You could certainly draw the additional conclusion, after listening to the exasperation voiced by congressional Democrats from David Obey to Steny Hoyer, that many Democrats view Netroots as much an impediment as an ally in advancing Democratic policies. How a column in Newsweek helps Markos in convincing the political class of the Democratic Party that he can deliver the goods (and is worth the trouble he causes) is beyond me.

Although Markos is no longer slagged by conservatives as going electorally “oh-fer” (despite Lamont’s loss to Lieberman, Kos et al. did back a slate of winners in ‘06) it’s very much an open question as to whether netroots issues are succeeding among Democrats. It’s not so much an open question as to whether elected Democrats are implementing their policy vision (such as it is), hence the anti-”Bush Dog” activism.

Another outstanding question is how Moulitsas and his fellow “progressives” will keep the coalition together past — and even into — the 2008 race, regardless of the policies adopted by the eventual nominee (i.e. Clinton, who never had them, or Obama, who has not always impressed them but has seen a surge (so to speak) among Kossacks recently).

As someone who reads Daily Kos much more often than non-leftroots bloggers, I can attest that a not-insignificant number comprise those who are not necessarily traditional liberals, let alone leftists, but have joined the community based on their opposition to Bush and the Iraq war. The effort in/occupation of Iraq will obviously continue beyond Bush’s presidency, but even the war has receded as an issue — at least in the general population if not on Moulitsas’ website. No wonder, as Dennis/Kelly pointed out afterward, Moulitsas insisted in his first Newsweek column that the imperative for Democrats in 2008 is to make Bush the issue.

Without Bush to kick around anymore, Markos will have a much harder time keeping his constituency together.

Toward a RedState/Human Events YouTube Debate

Published by William Beutler on December 2, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Blogs vs. MSM, CNN, Cable News, Daily Kos, Debates, Elections, Fred Thompson, Google, Hillary Clinton, MSM vs. Blogs, National Politics, New Media Strategies, Online Campaigns, RedState, Republicans, Technology and White House '08. 2 Comments

RedState and Human Events would do a better job than CNN and YouTube

On Thursday I gave a somewhat-impulsive thumbs-up to RedState’s call for CNN to sack their political director. National Review’s indispensible Jim Geraghty has outlined eight editorial oversights (four quite serious, four merely problematic) in CNN’s vetting of the televised questioners. One or two would be enough to generate a blogswarm, but eight looks like malicious negligence, and it subseqently became a full-fledged blogstorm. Worse, CNN’s statement didn’t even attempt to be a “non-apology apology” — they’re digging in their heels and claiming:

The issues raised during last night’s debate were legitimate and relevant no matter who was asking the questions. The vested interests who are challenging the credibility of the questioners are trying to distract voters from the substantive issues they care most about.

Did somebody say “fake but accurate”? As QandO’s McQ notes, the hubris implicit in that statement is galling:

Says who? Says CNN, that’s who. It is the network that chose the questions that would be aired. Consequently what aired had nothing to do with what voters found to be the substantive issues of the day, but instead had everything to do with — say it with me — what CNN decided were the substantive issues of the day.

I stand by my initial judgement — in fact, I am all the more sure of it — but I realize it isn’t going to happen. (FWIW, CNN’s political director is Sam Feist; one wonders if indie rock/iPod Nano darling Feist could do any worse). And the truth is it wouldn’t make up for the debacle, so I concede that a change is not imperative. What would be better is a pro-active solution — that is, another debate. And so I am very intrigued by a new proposal, this time issued jointly by RedState and Human Events (both subsidiaries of Eagle Pubishing), for a “do-over debate”:

We have a base of readers who represent the Republican wing of the Republican Party. You — and the Republican Party — deserve to face the questions posed by undecided Republicans, not Democratic activists. We will solicit and obtain YouTube videos from those people and vet each questioner to establish that they are — really — undecided Republicans. We hope to include soldiers in the field in Iraq, Young Republicans, and others who still have not decided among you.

Today, allow us to make you this offer: We will organize a debate at a time and date amenable to you all. We will work with a national broadcaster to broadcast the debate as well as offer it online. We, not the liberal drive by media, will ensure the questioners are who they say they are. And we will choose them based on criteria that will be fully disclosed to you all which ensure the questioners aren’t activists for any Democratic candidate.

I think this is a terrific idea. The MSM no longer has a monopoly on campaign coverage, so why should they have a monopoly over organizing candidate debates? The only good answer is because they control the airwaves. Could Fox News be persuaded to air it? Possibly. C-SPAN would certainly set up a camera, it could be simulcast on the web, and it would obviously be made available on YouTube. Heck, put it on the History Channel. I bet more people would watch it.

And if so desired, Google/YouTube (GooTube, if you will) need not formally be involved. Eagle’s online outlets could independently create a YouTube account, put RedState’s Erick Erickson and Human Events’ Jed Babbin in a short video soliciting questions, and anyone could post their videos as responses. Eagle could narrow them down, submit them to a hand-picked group of conservative bloggers to identify the best, and blog readers would be invited to vet the questions themselves. The ultimate decisions should still be made by the organizing consortium, but the crowdsourcing would be a substantial (if not bulletproof) way to head off complaints from conservatives. Necessarily, this would aso give the campaigns time to study the questions and prepare well-thought out answers — this too would be different from the “gotcha” element that annoyed so many in the CNN/YouTube debate.

Of course, the last point hints at the major reason why it wouldn’t happen. Here I’ll note: I cannot formally join the call for such a debate; as I point out whenever relevant, New Media Strategies consults for the Fred Thompson campaign, and I won’t put the campaign or my employer on the spot. Same goes for the other campaigns, though — the Iowa caucuses are now a month away and no campaign should be pressured to join a debate in a time frame this limited. The CNN/YouTube debate required months, not to mention a “Save the Debate” movement by Republican bloggers, to happen at all. So don’t hold your breath, and save your Facebook campaigns. But it’s a terrific idea.

To address another issue: A few commenters on the above-mentioned post here, including some friends of Blog P.I., apparently read my criticism of the debate as a complaint about tough questions. If I understand them correctly, they feared a not-yet-proposed alternative would result in “softball” questions. I replied that they were mistaken, and pointed to a prediction by Patterico following the Democratic CNN/YouTube debate in July:

The Democrat debate was dominated by questioners asking: “Why can’t you be more leftist?” And the Republican debate will be dominated by questioners asking: “Why can’t you be more leftist?”

That pretty much nailed it. The problem is not that the issues CNN is so pleased with itself for raising were illegitimate or unfair. They were not. It’s that those Dem-leaning questions asked by Dem-leaning YouTubers were general election questions, and the general election audience generally (as it were) was not watching. Certainly Republicans should keep an eye toward next November, but a debate for a Republican primary should focus on issues that matter to Republicans. Say what you will, but “don’t ask, don’t tell” just isn’t one of them, and it doesn’t help Republican voters make up their minds. It does no good when Google flies a publicly-identifiable Hillary Clinton supporter in to berate the candidates about their position on the issue. (One which, I would like to point out, is unlikely to be a major factor in the general, either.) In fact, it rises to the level of farce when Anderson Cooper asks said Hillary supporter to rule on whether or not the candidates answered his question and the guy says “no,” yet anyone who was paying attention knows they did answer his question honestly, but he just didn’t like their answers.

True, CNN did air questions about illegal immigration, gun rights and religion. But RedState/Human Events would query those subjects, too. They might even include a question about the Bible that doesn’t conform to slack-jawed yokel stereotypes (sorry, Joseph Dearing, whomever you are, but when you assert that your question tells us “everything we need to know” about the GOP hopefuls, that’s how you come across). Although various writers at RedState and Human Events have evinced support for various candidates (Erickson most notably in favor of Fred Thompson, I can’t help but note), I would argue they have a greater interest than CNN in a strong, fair debate that includes difficult questions for all the candidates, because (as Erickson and Babbin point out) it’s their audience who will be deciding which Republican goes on to the general election.

In short, RedState and Human Events would be better curators of a Republican debate than CNN.

Because I am confident that this do-over debate will not come to pass, I encourage both to organize similar debates for Senate and House candidates, whose primaries mostly will not be decided until further into next year. This would give them time to work out the kinks, gain experience appealing to local television channels for airtime, and give them credibility in proposing such a debate in 2012 (er, 2011, but you know what I mean). I call on Pajamas Media, NRO, Heritage or any other independent, webbish, GOP-leaning organization to do the same. Now that I think about it, I call on Josh Marshall’s TPM empire to do the same for Democrats.

You know what would be awesome next fall, sometime after the conventions and before the general election, Commission on Presidential Debates-permitting? A RedState/Daily Kos YouTube debate.

I Am a Stephen Colbert Expert (And So Can You!)

Published by William Beutler on October 29, 2007 in Candidate Bloggers, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Seriously, Stephen Colbert, White House '08 and William Beutler. 3 Comments

So I’m quoted in the Yeas and Nays column of today’s Washington Examiner, commenting on the blogospheric reaction to Stephen Colbert’s presidential campaign announcement… or should I say “campaign” announcement. Here was my takeaway:

“Blogs are attracted to shiny objects, and Colbert is nothing if not a shiny object,” Beutler said. “Even serious-minded bloggers can’t resist.”

I wish I had said “bloggers are attracted,” considering that blogs themselves are inanimate objects (heck, they’re not even objects) and incapable of being attracted to things without the help of a blogger… but I think the point gets across. Meantime, kudos to Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin for running my specific numbers:

[A]fter Colbert announced Oct. 16, he was mentioned on 0.09 percent of all blog posts (not just political blogs). Hillary Clinton had the same level of mentions during the same period, and Rudy Giuliani was mentioned on 0.08 percent of blogs.

In terms of raw numbers, Beutler said, “In the three-day period surrounding his announcement (day of, morning after, and one more day) 748 different blog posts mentioned the phrases ‘Stephen Colbert’ and ‘president.’ If you run the same search for ‘Hillary Clinton’ without ‘president’ — since we assume any post about her is also about her candidacy — we get 727 posts. [So] even though our search string for Hillary was less stringent he actually scored more mentions than she did.”

The figures above are probably more in-depth than the average reader of gossip columns can handle, but then again this is Washington, where even the gossip is a bit wonkish (Drew Carey visits Reason Magazine!).

But for the purposes of Blog P.I., it’s not quite enough. The numbers above actually come from two different sources — the percentages come from the Icerocket Trend Tool and the raw numbers from Google Blogsearch — so no mathematical formula should feature both numbers. Keeping in mind that all of these tools are flawed, it’s my belief that when they show the same pattern, you’re onto something. And this is it:

Stephen Colbert, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani compared

Here are the Google figures for Colbert, Hillary and Rudy. And the figures for comparing Colbert’s announcement to the (more) legitimate candidates come from this February post.

I think that takes care of everything. What does this say about Colbert? Certainly, he is as relevant — and his satire as cutting — as when his late-night show spun off from Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” nearly two years ago. That’s pretty impressive, considering the essential gimmickiness of the program.

But will he remain as relevant past 2008, with President Bush out of office? That is, of course, assuming he doesn’t follow President Bush into office.

P.S. Not just the Facebook group that’s more popular than the Obama one that inspired it, but Stephen Colbert has more support (at least according to Rasmussen’s robots) than Ron Paul? Is Colbert Nation really fiercer than the “Google Ron Paul” set? I have my doubts, but the poll is amusing.

(FWIW: I’m with Fred.)

Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They’re Not After You

Published by William Beutler on August 31, 2007 in Blogs vs. MSM, Charts and Graphs, Fundraising, Hillary Clinton, Scandal, Senate Control and Trend Tool. Closed

Macsmind laments an imbalance in attention to non-Larry Craig imbroglios this week:

Now on the same day that this story broke two other stories broke which contained absolute bombshells to both Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party in general. The first was the fact that George Soros’s defunked America Coming Together received the third largest fine in FEC history for voter fraud during the 2004 election. The other news of course – which hasn’t been told completely – is the growing campaign scandal involving several democratic candidate for president – including Hillary Clinton.

Both stories were just about knocked off the page by the Craig story and the obvious question was who behind the witholding of the story – again for two months – as almost to emerge the minute anti Hillary Clinton or anti democratic stories unfold.

First I’d like to point out, these stories (plus the not-so-distant Vitter revelations) mark another example of a cliché that isn’t necessarily wrong: Republicans can’t have sex, and Democrats can’t have money.

Second, he’s not wrong — the Hsu story might have been observed as a sign for Democrats that a Hillary Clinton administration could be scandal-ridden like her husband’s (well, not exactly like). And the left accuses Republicans of election-stealing enough that the Soros group’s financial misdeeds could have been pundicized, and bore greater scrutiny. Instead it seems to have only bored.

In fact, this this IceRocket trend chart showing comparative mentions almost makes the above observations sound understated:

Larry Craig vs. Norman Hsu vs. George Soros

Indeed the GOP gay no-sex scandal carried the week, and while that may be unfair, it certainly isn’t surprising. While there may well be solid examples of liberal-leaning reportorial and editorial decisions to be found throughout all this coverage, one also cannot deny the human drama of Craig’s unraveling career is more compelling than improprieties by non-electeds. In a tabloidy way, of course. After all, sensationalism is a troubling media bias, too.

P.S. Less than a year ago, this blog defended Sen. Craig against rumors very similar to his Minneapolis bust. Whoops! But based on the evidence at the time, no apology is necessary. A whisper campaign that turns out to be right is still a whisper campaign. A named source would have been a different story.

P.P.S. Mickey Kaus has a point about what Soros did and didn’t do. What he didn’t do was anything that conservatives and libertarians think should be illegal. What he did do was run afoul of existing FEC regulations. But conservatives have lost those battles, at least for now. What should be done is to change those laws, not excuse Soros for breaking them.

Breaking: AP says Craig is out. And you know what I mean.

The CNN/Something Awful Debate

Published by William Beutler on August 17, 2007 in Academic Blogging, Asymmetrical Media, Barack Obama, CNN, Debates, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Message Boards, Seriously and Tech Blogosphere. 8 Comments

Inspired by the recent CNN/YouTube debate, today’s New York Times asked several media observers to imagine other ways in which the Web 2.0 world might influence presidential politics. I found Matt Bai’s suggestion particularly interesting:

Maybe someday soon the candidates will have laptop computers at their lecterns, and we’ll hang a giant screen behind the stage. Then, as one candidate is talking, the others will use instant messaging to create a kind of scrolling commentary and critique, and all the comments will appear overhead.

While John Edwards is decrying special interests, Bill Richardson might type: “Gee, John, what exactly would you call the trial lawyers?” Or Christopher Dodd might write: “Why is Kucinich still talking? LOL.”

It’s a neat idea. This year’s Personal Democracy Forum tried something similar, with audience members’ comments appearing on a screen behind the panelists. That worked all right, though it did distract from those onstage.

For a presidential debate then, the comments would indeed have to come from the candidates — not to mention, they need something to do while they wait five or ten minutes for their next turn.

And what if CNN teamed up with uber-message board Something Awful? Well, I believe it might look a little something like this:

Democratic Debate as co-sponsored by Something Awful

P.S. I also noticed that the Times titled Tom Brokaw’s contribution “Sip and Spin.” Now, I’m perfectly fine with potential presidents answering questions from snowmen, but if you know whence the phrase come — no, not the toy — well, isn’t that a little undignified?

Update: Something Awful has found this post. Of course, they don’t seem to care for it and even rescinded the initial link. But the poster did concede:

The picture is pretty much SA I guess.

And as you can see in the comments, this post has been blessed with one of the most sincere statements a latter-day message boarder can offer. Thanks, guys.

Updated again: Okay, the people on this SA board seemed to like it a bit more.