Barrack Obama released one of his most crucial attacks on John McCain in Virginia at Granbury High School but this was overlooked by the all of the day's blogs and tv commercials and newspaper articles and video press releases and many many others things that caught the publics's attention. The media coverage on the two canidates is phenomenonal. Every day there are blogs and magazine articles that keep us up to date with the campaign's everyday events. In this article, Matthew Dowd, who is the chief strategist for Bush's re-election campaign in 2004, said that, “At this point, the ability to create and drive a message narrative is all but impossible,” he said. “There’s just so much stuff. The average person has 90 channels. They all get the dot-coms. They all get a newspaper. There is so much flow of information that they just to begin to discount it all.”
We have become gluttons for information. Almost like babies reaching out for more with our hands we want more. The politicians are doing their best to keep up but what the public wants the public gets(so to speak of course). The ads put on by Obama and McCain are almost not worth it. I couldn't tell you what they are about or which one stands out to me but I can tell you that when Obama referred to either McCain or Palin in his reference to putting "lipstick on a pig" my ears perked up. The media knows what to cover and focus on and they also know HOW to cover it. The internet, blogs, online articles, news coverage, etc. If this is how politicians can get us to pay attention then by all means, do what you can to get our attention! Like this article says, maybe they should not put all of their focus on their campagin ads on tv but more on their debates because that is where they will have the public sitting on the edge of their chairs(hopefully).
“The only things that are going to change the equation of the election are the four debates,” Mr. Dowd said, referring to the three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate. “That’s it. “
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8 comments:
I agree with your statement that the candidates need to focus more on their speeches and less on their campaigning ads. I have always found that in a presidential campaign the candidates always seem to not have as many interesting speeches as they have smear ads. I do not think the running should focus on bashing opponents as much as it should focus on getting the issues they stand for and do not stand for out there. Then again, I've recently come to think that the election would be better if the candidates gave one speech, one speech saying "Yes" to standing for this and "No" to that, so the voters do not have to listen to all the garble in between. I think this is why Internet sources are so big these days, the quick report on what happened without having to listen to all the attempts to convince you to vote for them, the quick "Yes" box to what the candidate stands for, etc are things that people read because they are tired of hearing the smear campaigns or the candidate boasting about how well they would do in office. People want the facts about the candidates without having to listen to the crap they put in there with it during ads and many of the speeches.
Overall I liked the article topic and found it to be timely in today's race to the presidency campaigns. I liked what you had to say and the quote used at the end. However, the post was slightly choppy (some commas missing for example) and a little difficult to read at times because of it. My suggestion would be to go to EDIT POST and change it if you want to or just keep it in mind for next time. Great job though!
In terms of what really matters, the media is not sufficiently portraying WHAT THE CANDIDATES SAY on the issues. Yes, it is interesting to read about their lives and their pokes at their competitor; however, as time winds down for the elections, I personally do not care about the extra. I want to know what the candidates say, how they plan to back up what they say, and what the proposed long-term effects are for their plans.
In October, the Campus Voice will be releasing an article that gives students a run-down of what the candidates say on the issues.
Look for it!
Also see http://www.issues2000.org/default.htm for more information
Most candidates running for an office tend to put a lot of effort into downsizing their opponent in campaign ads, speeches, and interviews. But, it makes perfect sense because they are competing against each other for the popular vote. In addition, that is how the game of politics works.
I found your post to be a little difficult to read.
I agree that speeches and debates are more effective than tv smear ads. I believe that how a candidate handles himself in a debate reveal incrediblily much more than edited tv commercials.
Like pillarmerech said the websites are useful for finding out quick facts about where a candidate stands on an issue. A great thing about a chart is that candidates can't side step answering the question on paper like they can in speeches.
Also I don't beliveve any polictical tv ad i see on tv anyways. From my cynical point of view all policians are liars. Every ad contains a distorted fact, whether it be democratic or republican.
I do agree with Madison, in that she wants to start hearing about the actual policy plans that candidates will put into place if elected. I honestly think that there is such an explosion of media coverage today that the REAL issues are being lost behind least important things, like personal lives, family history, negative ads, or silly comments (think: lipstick.). Enough is enough.
I am looking forward to the debates. Hopefully there we will finally hear what the candidates actually plan to do, rather than just hearing "about" them.
I, for one, am pretty sick of all the scrutiny placed on personal matters of the candidates.
The whole thing with Governor Palin's daughter being pregnant and all the quips about Obama being the anti-Christ.
Let's just hear some real coverage of the issues the country faces, and how the candidates plan to deal with them.
If the media focused more on informing the public of where each candidate stands, and less on making the race seem like a popularity contest for some high school presidential election, we would be better off.
There are conservative media outlets and there are liberal media outlets. They both have an agenda and its damn near the point of propaganda on both sides.
You are right we are getting force fed so much information that really isn’t relevant to either candidates’ policies or stances.
Can we please stop worrying about daughters, religious beliefs, race, gender, and age? We need to concentrate on the important issues like foreign policy, taxes, improving the housing market, creating jobs, and stabilizing the economy.
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