Product Placement in News Shows; Now There’s a Great Idea!

Just when you think we’ve plumbed the depths, we sail off another shelf into deeper waters…
According to today’s New York Times, there’s a growing trend of product placement on morning news shows at local television stations.  The report leads with the Las Vegas Fox affiliate that places McDonald’s breakfast drinks in front of its anchors [...]

2nd Cut at the Electoral College Cage Match

Faithful readers will recall that back at the end of May, I posted my first cut of how the general election contest was shaping up looked.  Back then, I posted a short list of states that were in play:

Colorado 9 votes
Florida [...]

20th Century Boy

Yes, it’s more than a song by T-Rex last heard in a Suburu commercial, it also apparently describes presumptive GOP nominee John McCain’s grasp of and involvement with our digital age:

Q: What websites if any do you look at regularly?

Mr. McCain: Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously, everybody watches, for better or for worse, [...]

John McCain Veers Right - Every Time

If you’ve noticed a certain similarity in the ads and campaign appearances of John McCain, you’re right…and I mean that literally.  Every McCain image in every ad, every camera angle at every campaign photo op between now and election day will show Senator McCain’s right side.
The reason can be seen in this relatively rare photo [...]

Another Data Point…Or Four

Quinnipiac, along with the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, has today released head-to-head survey results from four battleground states:

COLORADO: Obama 49 - McCain 44
MICHIGAN: Obama 48 - McCain 42
MINNESOTA: Obama 54 - McCain 37
WISCONSIN: Obama 52 - McCain 39

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, President Bush’s approve/disapprove ratings in those states are abysmal:

31 [...]

Electoral Data Points Ripped From Today’s Headlines…

Trying to sort signal from noise is tough in any business but particularly so in the hothouse world of presidential politics. In that context, are the following indicators or just static:
- Gordon Smith, incumbent Republican Senator from Oregon, is running ads featuring an implicit endorsement from Barack Obama.
- Team Obama says they expect to [...]

“Think Blue” - A True Story of One Man’s Obsession

On Thursday afternoon over the lunch hour two young women were observed on Nicollet Mall passing out small cellophane packages, each stickered with this blog’s address and containing a blue silicone bracelet embossed with “Think Blue - 11/04/08.” In the course of about 15 minutes the two passed out more than 200 bracelets and [...]

What Happened In Rochester Better Not Stay In Rochester

Whatever magic Al Franken unleashed this morning in Rochester to secure the DFL endorsement with 62 percent of the votes ought to be vacuumed up off the floor of the Mayo Civic Center and bottled for the fall. According to MinnPost’s Doug Grow, today’s Al was sincere, articulate, persuasive and effective, qualities not much seen [...]

Vanity Fair Profile of Clinton (Bill) A Good Read

I don’t know how accurate it is (though it seems exhaustively reported) but Todd Purdum’s profile of the post-presidential Bill Clinton in the July Vanity Fair is an entertaining and thought-provoking read. It examines the - among many issues - the question of why President Clinton - who is one of the best political [...]

The Third Rails of American Politics

Whew, we’ve had a busy couple weeks here at the Crowd.  Lots of good posts and some even better comments. Thank you one and all for making the SRC worth visiting - as it turns out Voltaire didn’t say, “Some of you are whacked but I’m totally behind your right to say any crazy thing [...]