Politics News

tobocseo asked:


If Barack Obama becomes the next President of the United States of America, the country can assure that they will not fall short on one account, e-marketing. Demagogic run by Obama among the youth in the ongoing Democratic presidential primaries have stunned analysts and psephologists alike.

The curiosity led the experts to pry into how Obama was able to muster the positive vibes of the youth in favor of him. It was evident in the final lab report Barack camp extensively used social networking and video sharing sites to great effect in garnering votes of the youth. His success in using social medium as an electioneering tool clearly shows that a new guru has arrived in the world of e-marketing.

A survey showed that if one does not include social media in one’s election campaigns it would be hard to draw the attention of the youth. Majority of the youth interact through social networking sites since internet connectivity has increased to larger areas. Blog sites have virtually become e-diaries of today’s youth as outlets to vent their social and emotional feelings as well.

As a result, social media have supplanted televisions, radios and other advertising spaces for election campaigns. Hence, it has been proved, it would be preposterous to avoid employing social media especially, in a high voltage election campaigns such as, the US presidential primaries.

A statistics from a section of the press stated, immediately after the Second Super Saturday, Hillary Rodham Clinton had a comfortable margin of 15 percent lead over Barack Hussein Obama in Pennsylvania. But the same team of public opinion poll managers gave Clinton just 5 percent lead over Obama just two days before the same primary election.

Creating a huge 10 percent swing in favor of any candidate, that too in a month’s time, was unheard of in Pennsylvania. The credit goes to Barack camp, their stupendous game plan to engage with the youth through sublime tentacles of social suggestion has succeeded in gaining an all important 10 percentage points. If the alleged ‘terror tactics’ of releasing an Al Qaida video by Hillary camp would not have happened, Barack’s positive campaigning might have closed in the gap, and even he would have won the Pennsylvania primary. Still he has lost by only 10% as compared to the projection of 15% a month ago.

Comparative study on the usage of social networking and video sharing sites, one can see, again Obama winning hands down over his rival. Hillary uses the services of leading six e-communities where as Obama has made him available on 16 e-communities. On one hand, Hillary’s e-community spaces are sprawled with unpopular class room content, but Obama occupies his spaces with youthful jargons and related video contents on the other. Such measures have endeared Barack among the youth, which ultimately turned into votes all through the election, where Obama was trailing far behind Hillary before the start of the primaries.

Whether Barack Obama makes it to the White House or not, something is sure, his election strategy is here to stay for a long time. Hitherto, such marketing strategies were confined to e-commerce portals including Business to Consumer and Business to Business portals. For a successful business, one should know to market oneself well, and Obama has succeeded in doing so. Thereby, his business sense leaves a trail of new strategy in the field of election campaigning which could be replicated elsewhere. He also gives businesses a new lesson to use this social media to market one’s products or services which is until now used sparingly with stereo-typed content.

Ernie Fitzpatrick asked:


Barack Obama swept the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington state Saturday night, slicing into Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s slender delegate lead in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He also won caucuses in the Virgin Islands, completing his best night of the campaign. Obama is still riding the Super Tuesday wave and yesterdays Saturday wave was: Obama 4- Hillary 0 for the day.

In sideline political news Bush # 43 tried to cast McCain as a true conservative. Why not! Bush even thinks that he’s a true conservative. But back to the big news.

Obama’s winning margins were substantia and impressivel, ranging from 67% of the vote in Washington state and Nebraska, 57% in the Louisiana Primary, to nearly 90 percent in the Virgin Islands. Pretty darned impressive. FOX News exit polling showed Obama won both high- and low-income voters and the majority of women, 54 percent to Clinton’s 45 percent. One in five Louisiana Democratic voters also live in a union household, and they picked Obama 56 percent to 41 percent for Clinton. Black voters picked Obama by more than 80 percent.

As in his earlier Southern triumphs in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, Obama, a black man, rode a wave of African-American support to victory in Louisiana. Hillary made no mention of the night’s contests as she appeared at a Democratic Party dinner in Virginia, site of one of three primaries this Tuesday. Instead, she criticized Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee in all but name. “We have tried it President Bush’s way,” she said, “and now the Republicans have chosen more of the same.”

She left quickly after her speech, departing before Obama’s scheduled arrival. But his supporters made their presence known, as chants of “Obama” floated up from the audience as she made her way offstage.

Has anyone heard anything from New Mexico yet?

In all, the Democrats scrapped for 161 delegates in the night’s contests. In initial allocations, Obama had won 31, Clinton 9. In overall totals in The Associated Press count, Clinton had 1,064 delegates to 1,029 for Obama. A total of 2,025 is required to win the nomination at the national convention in Denver. But when you subtract out the super delegates, Obama rules!

Well, at least he gets the nod of the people. The super delegates are another thing and the way things look, we’re headed to a Democratic convention that the “insiders” will choose- not the people. On to the Maine caucus today, for whatever that may count later this summer.

Maine Democrats are holding caucuses this afternoon and early this evening in 420 towns and cities across the state. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are making a play for the 24 delegates at stake.

Jon T Norwood asked:


Hillary Rodham Clinton, the current Democratic front runner for the presidential nomination, again spoke out in favor of internet neutrality this month. With a discussed National Broadband Internet System, Senator Clinton claims she can expand the high tech sector and create much needed jobs.

Clinton proposes to use government aid to subsidize the private sector with incentives to move into areas that would normally be looked at as cost prohibitive such as poor urban areas and rural communities. The plan is called “Connect America” and of it Clinton says, “In the 19th century, we invested in railroads. In the 20th century, we built the interstate highway system. In the 21st century information economy, we need to invest in our information infrastructure.”

Comcast has made Net Neutrality a buzz word recently with reports that the Cable Internet provider was blocking software on its network. The software in question is BitTorrent, a popular Peer-to-Peer program, however the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reported other software may be targeted as well. Seth Schoen of EFF said, “Comcast is forging TCP RST packets which cause connections to drop (a technique also used by Internet censorship systems in China). These packets cause software at both ends to believe, mistakenly, that the software on the other side doesn’t want to continue communicating.”

Charlie Douglas, a spokesman for Comcast said “We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure all our customers have the best broadband experience possible.” he continued with “”Comcast does not block access to any applications, including BitTorrent.”

According to Senator Clinton the Internet “does not decide who can enter its marketplace and it does not pick which views can be heard and which ones silenced. It is the embodiment of the fundamental democratic principles upon which our nation has thrived for hundreds of years.” If a large ISP like Comcast alters traffic on its network to disallow certain products than it may now be time for legislation that protects the integrity of all Internet networks.

Recently Verizon was in the news for similar reasons. A pro-choice abortion group named NARAL attempted to create an opt-in SMS news alert group and was blocked by Verizon Wireless. Citing that it is company policy to block political views that it considers “highly controversial”, the company took steps to prevent its network to be used for SMS news alerts by the group. Although Verizon Wireless backed down 24 hours later due to public outcry, it is still clear that something needs to be but in place to prevent this in the future.

Senator Clinton spoke out in concern for Internet neutrality when she co-sponsored the Internet Freedom Preservation Act in 2006. This act, also referred to as the Dorgan and Snowe bill was intended to protect small businesses and consumers from ISPs offering large businesses better pricing on connectivity and gouging smaller customers. Although the bill was never passed, it has been reintroduced in 2007 again as the Internet Freedom Preservation Act. This bill if passed will amend the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Jeremy James asked:


Many thought the day would never come. A day that all Americans could prove to their children that they could become whatever they want in life no matter what their background is. A day that Americans could put aside their differences and see their neighbors for the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

Barack Obama’s stunning victory at the Iowa Caucus ignited a spark among Democratic voters, reminiscent of the days of Camelot and John F. Kennedy. Many believed that a state like Iowa, with a miniscule Black population, would never elect an African American to such a high position, but Obama’s message of change resonated in the Hawkeye State, as 37.6 percent of Iowa voters selected him to represent the Democratic party in November.

More shocking was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s third place finish with 29.5 percent of Iowa Democrats supporting the New York Senator.

According to the Associated Press, Obama’s victory marked the first time an African American candidate has won such a vital caucus or primary.

“Years from now you’ll be able to say, ‘This was the moment when it all began.’ This is the moment when we finally beat back the politics of fear and doubt and cynicism,” a victorious Obama told a crowd of supporters at a Des Moines, Iowa sports arena.

Obama dominated the college-age vote and enjoyed enormous success among Blacks in Waterloo, Iowa.

His success among African Americans should assist in his chances in November because many Black voters still believe he is not electable.

Obama’s wife Michelle believes America is ready for a Black president despite the skepticism.

“Ain’t no Black people in Iowa. Something big, something new is happening. Let’s build the future we all know is possible. Let’s show our kids that America is ready for Barack Obama right now,” said Michelle Obama at the Trumpet Awards, a gala celebrating achievement in Black America.

Despite his resounding win in Iowa, and pollsters predicting a double-digit win in the first primary of 2008, Obama finished a close second to Clinton in New Hampshire days later. Surprisingly, Clinton defeated Obama 39 percent to 37 percent in the Granite State. However, the Illinois senator was still upbeat and optimistic in defeat.

“We always knew our climb would be steep. You made it clear that at this moment in this election, there is something happening in America … You can be a new majority,” Obama told his supporters in New Hampshire. Clinton recently won the primary in Michigan and the Nevada caucus also.

According to Allen G. Breed of the A.P., “Obama’s stunning victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Iowa caucuses and strong second in New Hampshire’s primary showed he could win White votes. But some say the South Carolina contest offers a new test of his viability. Can he energize Black voters in places where their numbers could help him win in November?”

On January 26, Obama won the South Carolina primary in a landslide, winning 55 percent of the Democratic vote.

At least half of South Carolina Democrats are Black and they could have been persuaded to distance themselves from Clinton because comments she and her husband Bill Clinton made, which some people view as racially insensitive.

Clinton recently stated that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The former president later said that Obama was telling a “fairy tale” about his opposition to the war in Iraq, and that he has received a free pass in this election.

Clinton later went on “Meet the Press” to explain her comments and implied that Obama was injecting race into the election.

“I think it offended some folks who felt that somehow diminished King’s role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act. She is free to explain that, but the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous,” Obama replied.

According to the A.P., Clinton’s advisors claim that an Obama staffer has compiled examples of comments by Clinton and her surrogates that could be construed as racially insensitive. The memo later surfaced on some political Web sites.

“To me, as an African American, I am frankly insulted the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think that Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in Black issues-when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood; I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in his book-when they have been involved,” argued BET founder Bob Johnson in a reference to Obama’s past drug use.

Johnson later said he was talking about Obama’s community activism and not his past drug use.

Former North Carolina senator John Edwards replied, “I must say I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change came not through Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King but through a Washington politician. I fundamentally disagree with that.”

Ironically, the change that Dr. King gave his life for could be the same change that gives America its first Black president. As Obama’s campaign slogan says, it is a “change we can all believe in.”

Ernie Fitzpatrick asked:


You knew it was coming and there will be a lot more senior Democratic elders joining in. No one wants to be the last to jump on the train. Hey Jimmy and Al, it’s time to get on board. Show some courage, some resolve. Bubba and Hillary can’t hurt you now: maybe in 2012 but I doubt it will be the same world in 2012 for a lot of reasons!

Democrat John Edwards has given his long-awaited endorsement to Barack Obama. It’s a major boost from a former presidential rival as Obama tries to shrug off Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is determined to press ahead. And Michigan was a great place for it to happen since neither Edwards or Obama had their name on the primary ballot, but Hillary wants credit for winning Michigan.

Why not dream!

The endorsement comes the day after Clinton defeated Obama by more than 2-to-1 in West Virginia. The loss highlighted Obama’s work to win over the “Hillary Democrats” — white, working-class voters who also supported Edwards in large numbers before he exited the race. With victories like West Virginia, who needs them?

So much for Operation Chaos

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and the 2004 vice presidential nominee, dropped out of the race in late January. Edwards, who is not a superdelegate, said last week that it was “fine” for Clinton to continue making her case but expressed concern that a continued campaign could damage the party’s prospects in November.

Wednesday’s endorsement could help Obama reach out to white blue-collar voters, a demographic that Obama has failed to capture, most notably in the recent Pennsylvania and West Virginia primaries. Edwards had campaigned on the message that he was standing up for the little guy, the people who are not traditionally given a voice in Washington, and that he would do more to fight special interests.

After dropping out of the race, Edwards asked both Clinton and Obama to make poverty a central issue in the general election and a future Democratic administration, something both agreed to do. But in the end, one needs to read the hand writing on the wall and go with the winner.

Thus, Edwards has endorsed Obama! Duh!

Ernie Fitzpatrick asked:


Is the Hillary Clinton campaign machine in the last throes of life? There is no mistaking a certain flailing, a lashing-out, as Hillary Clinton has become angry, mocking, and offensive in the last few days leading up to today’s Ohio debate- the 20th such debate and the LAST! Tonight is D-Day for the Hillary express. A kick off or the boot?

One such indicator of a failing campaign is the denial of any sense of reality. Harold Ickes as an example, gave the following description of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s prospects, “We’re on the way to locking this nomination down,” he said of a candidate who appears, if anything, headed in the other direction. Locking it down? Get real!

The Austin Texas debate did not help Hillary. Will Ohio tonight?

Ickes added, while played the good cop role also said, “We think we are on the verge of our next up cycle,” he reported, even suggesting the apparent impossibility that Clinton “may be running even” with Obama when all the contests are over. “This race is very close,” he judged. “This is tight as a tick.”

Someone get that man a cup of coffee and wake him up!

In case the Clinton camp missed something, Obama has won ELEVEN election contests in a row, is ahead in teh pledged delegate count, the total delegate count, and the popular vote. Granted, we have four primaries coming up next week with 400+ delegates at stake, but it’s doubtful those four will change much of the current trend if anything at all.

The Obama tsunami rolls on!

skystriker65 asked:


Choices are:
1 - George W Bush, Junior / America
2 - Dick Cheney, America
3 - Kim JDaw ill / xxx
4 - IranKim Dae-jung’s / N Korea
5 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad / Iran
6 - Hu Jintao / China
7 - Hillary Rodham Clinton / NY
8 - Michael Jackson / Not Avail
9 - Ehud Olmert / Israel
10 - The Pope Of Rome, Joseph Ratzinger