Harvard's Election 2008 Blog

I should preface this experience by noting how much irrational loathing I have for that antiquated communication device that is the telephone. It is loud, obnoxious, makes your ears sweat, and requires undivided attention for use. It has been obsolete ever since Al Gore invented the internet, and my blood usually boils whenever I am forced to use it. I have broken my fair share of cell phones due to various circumstances, but all have been via the smashing of the phone against a wall. Text messages are not exempt from this hatred- they cost 10¢ each and take way to long to write. Not to mention that they cost 10¢, and I am stingy.

So imagine how disgruntled I was when I found out that America's next president was a fan of this shameful form of communication- so much so that he was announcing his Veep via text message? Well, actually, I was a bit amused at the time. And I am compelled to tell my story, especially after a bit of conjecture by the Harvard Dems (yes, I belong to their email list) regarding the matter, where one loyal member defined the question of our generation as "Where were you when the text was sent?"

Before I start, let me state for the record that our generation classifies texts in the following categories: any text received during the day is simply a txt; any received between the hours of 11:30 PM and 2 AM is a "drunken txt", and anything after that but before dawn is a "booty txt". There is no need to explain why.

So, back to the matter at hand: where was I when Barack Obama booty txted all of America? Well, given that the text was sent at 3:30 AM, I was soundly asleep, enjoying a very pleasant dream where I was lying on a beach in Greece, listening to Elena Paparizou and feeling the sun burn my back as I sipped a strawberry daiquiri. Now, friends, going from life in mega-urban New Jersey to the wonderful shores of Ellas is truly change I can believe in, but the only change that came to me was the change from the peaceful purring of Mediterranean breeze to the obnoxious vibrating beep of my cell phone. The wretched communication instrument refused to slience until it had my undivided attention. I opened it reluctantly to see I had a message from "62262"- the numerical equivalent of the letters "Obama"- and there it was: "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee."

Really??

At first I thought this was a prank. Surely the real Barack Obama wouldn't wake up all his supporters (yes, all his supporters are in the Eastern time zone) at 3 AM to tell them something that MSNBC had been saying for weeks. Plus, isn't Joe Biden racist or something? I didn't know- he was always too boring to investigate. Either way, someone was getting a nasty email tomorrow when I woke up and got a real Obama text saying Evan Bayh was the real pick.

But then I went back to sleep and woke up to the same exact news as last night. I even got this wonderful begging email!

I don't even have a driver's license- what do I want a car magnet for?

That was my full testimonial of the epic Barack Obama text-message stunt. And, in terms of serious political analysis, I give it a mixed review. The fact that news agencies were announcing the truth hours before the text was sent out would lose Obama swing votes that were awake at the time and feel deceived. Those that were asleep, like myself, were angered that Obama had the nerve to wake them from their sleep to tell them something that Biden himself had said was untrue all of last week. He started off his full-ticket campaign on a lie. And that, after the Iraq War debacle, doesn't really sound like change at all. Neither does putting a 35-year career senator on your ticket.

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The GOP has been quick to paint Obama as a vapid celebrity, with no genuine merits beyond his celebrity.   Republican pundits have compared Obama's drawing huge crowds in Germany to Hitler speeches.

It seems that the same dynamic that is governing Obama's popularity-liberal ideas; a new, young look; and a "movement" rather than just content-sounds more like the Beatles and Beatlemania than any of these other comparisons.  Thousands of people energized over a person, their ideas, and their celebrity?

But hey, that was the Beatles-and they were just a passing fad, no longer remembered for their actual music, right?

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It's about to be taken off Hulu for some unsuspicious reason (here's the link anyway, in case they magically put it back up) but did anybody catch McCain on Conan recently?

I like the guy, but it sounded like he was telling grandpa's old war stories.

O'Brien asked an interesting question with regards to a recent New York Times article that argues that this campaign season, Obama has not done anything that would distinguish him comically (no Lewinsky scandal) but that:

"Comedy has been no easier for the phalanx of late-night television hosts who depend on skewering political leaders for a healthy quotient of their nightly monologues. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and others have delivered a nightly stream of jokes about the Republican running for president - each one a variant on the same theme: John McCain is old."

 

O'Brien asked McCain if he could think of a better way to have the late night comics joke about him, besides the old jokes.  McCain came up with nothin'.  Kudos to him for at least being able to roll with the punches and maximize the "oldness thing."

But, as this CNN article suggests, the GOP has lost its youth appeal and "many young conservatives are worried that Sen. John McCain is not appealing to their generation:"

At a town hall meeting in Ohio this month, a student told McCain that Republicans were a dying breed on his campus.

[...]

Many young Republicans said Sen. Barack Obama, the 46-year-old junior senator from Illinois, is inspiring voters their age, but McCain, the 71-year-old Arizona senator who has been in office since the early '80s, is not.

Eric Perlmutter, a Republican and student at the at the University of Southern California, said the roaring enthusiasm that follows Obama is missing among conservatives his age.

[...]

Additionally, Perlmutter pointed out that the images used in McCain's campaign -- such as a message about small businesses showing a barber shop with a traditional red and blue pole -- hardly connect to the younger generation.

[...]

The McCain campaign said it plans to increase the senator's presence on sites such as Facebook and MySpace in addition to the candidate making appearance on shows that appeal to younger viewers, such as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and the "Late Show with David Letterman."

I've been interested in the imagery used in each of the campaigns, but I suspect that McCain's appearance on these TV shows (except Leno) would do him more of a disservice than a service.  As much as I like McCain, and as much as he seems like a nice guy, I don't think that getting to know McCain well get him to connect with young people.  Find somebody else--maybe a Bobby Jindal--to do that for you.

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