Month: June 2012

Clay Shirky compares social media campaigning in 2008 and 2012:

Clinton used mailing lists in ’92, and every election since then — famously Howard Dean to Barack Obama — has involved considerably more imaginative use of social media. And this election has not. I’ve been quite surprised by that.

I had a student looking at Super PACs a while ago, and we said, “Let’s try and find out what the Super PACs’ social media strategy is.” As she came back about ten days later, she said, “I think I know what the Super PAC’s social media strategy is: Don’t use it.” That’s exactly the whole point of being a Super PAC, to be able to spend unlimited money on the kind of media where no one has the right or the ability to respond, and to minimize transparency. This election feels to me, right now, more Nixon-Kennedy than Obama-McCain because television has become the tool of choice for the source of unlimited fundraising. Politicians like television better; nobody gets to yell back to you if you’re yelling on TV.

Alec Macgillis hypothesizes that a marginally stronger GOP candidate would be in a much more commanding position than Romney: 

Ask yourself: if the other side had settled on a truly generic Republican—that is, a moderately conservative fellow, a senator or governor or former governor who came without the trappings of Bain Capital and car elevators and dressage tax deductions and Romneycare and the serial flip-flopping and "America the Beautiful," how would that candidate be faring right now? I say, purely on gut instinct, that he’d be up two, three, four points.

Naturally, the Romney campaign differs: 

They believe Obama has made radical miscalculations not just in governing, but in positioning his campaign. "One of the advantages in this race," [strategist Stuart] Stevens said, "is that the Obama people don't respect Mitt Romney. And that's how the Republicans were with Bill Clinton, and it always hurt us. I can't tell you how many meetings I sat in in 1992 where it was like, 'are you kidding me? Bill Clinton is gonna beat George Bush? Do you know what the GDP of Arkansas is?'" The Romney family bus, parked nearby, cut on its engine with a throaty roar. "And then he went out and kicked our butts." 

 

Ed Yong marvels at them:

The tunes embedded above weren’t written by a composer, but fashioned through natural selection. They are the offspring of DarwinTunes, a program which creates bursts of noise that gradually evolve based on the preferences of thousands of human listeners. After hundreds of generations, tracks that are boring and grating soon morph into tunes that are really quite rhythmic and pleasant (even if they won’t be topping charts any time soon).

Erika Christakis advocates for better sanitation. She points out that the "impact of poor sanitation — and its economic consequences — is well-known":

So why hasn’t this become an issue of global concern? Instead, between 1997 and 2008, the percentage of international aid that went to sanitation and water fell from 8% to 5%. Concerns over safe drinking water get much more attention, despite a recent World Bank study that found a more pronounced impact on health from building toilet infrastructure than from drinking-water improvements. Few people enjoy talking about bodily functions, and it’s hard for emerging economies to get excited about pit latrines and compost toilets when they’d rather showcase their shiny new buildings and high-speed trains. Feces and open sewers are a hard sell for donors too. There’s no pretty logo — no babbling brook or fresh water spring — for a toilet.

The Obama campaign continues to court women: 

Alex Burns adds: 

Between this ad focused on women, the Obama camp's ad earlier this week starring Hispanic media mogul Cristina Saralegui and the two negative spots targeting Romney's record in business and as governor, we've seen a pretty good Cliffs Notes version of the Obama strategy in a short period of time.

Total Super PAC spending now exceeds $125 million (Romney's Super PAC leads with more than $46 million in expenditures). Previous Ad War Updates:

June 20, June 19, June 18, June 15, June 14, June 13, June 12, June 11, June 8, June 6, June 5, June 4, June 1, May 31, May 30, May 29, May 24, May 23, May 22, May 21, May 18, May 17, May 16, May 15, May 14, May 10, May 9, May 8,  May 7, May 3, May 2, May 1, Apr 30, Apr 27, Apr 26, Apr 25, Apr 24, Apr 23, Apr 18, Apr 17, Apr 16, Apr 13, Apr 11, Apr 10, Apr 9, Apr 5, Apr 4, Apr 3, Apr 2, Mar 30, Mar 27, Mar 26, Mar 23, Mar 22, Mar 21, Mar 20, Mar 19, Mar 16, Mar 15, Mar 14, Mar 13, Mar 12, Mar 9, Mar 8, Mar 7, Mar 6, Mar 5, Mar 2, Mar 1, Feb 29, Feb 28, Feb 27, Feb 23, Feb 22, Feb 21, Feb 17, Feb 16, Feb 15, Feb 14, Feb 13, Feb 9, Feb 8, Feb 7, Feb 6, Feb 3, Feb 2, Feb 1, Jan 30, Jan 29, Jan 27, Jan 26, Jan 25, Jan 24, Jan 22, Jan 20, Jan 19, Jan 18, Jan 17, Jan 16 and Jan 12.

Conor P. Williams is wondering:

The Republican Party has done its damnedest to sustain brand purity—which is both a rhetorical strength and an intellectual anchor. Ideological discipline comes with costs and benefits, and it turns out that a coolness deficit is among the former. Here’s a theory for dissection in the comments, then: the benefits of ideological discipline are political, whereas its costs are cultural. Whereas it behooves rhetoricians to build snappy, compelling rhetorical arguments for their platforms, such rigidity is kryptonite for the cultural cutting edge. Perhaps (and only perhaps) that’s because coolness relies heavily upon emotions—especially inchoate, unspecific ones. And hey, no one does amorphous and emotional platforms like the Left.

Today on the Dish, Andrew addressed the question of the cultish qualities of Mormonism (a reader's thoughts here), revisited his 1992 essay on the AIDS quilt, and celebrated the photography of Alon Reininger. Readers weighed in on Democratic strategy, Republicans shunned important empirical truths, and the GOP overhyped young, under-qualified leaders. Jonah Goldberg issued a virtual endorsement of marriage equality, Sister Gramick tackled the HHS mandate, and 45 couples competed for free IVF. Obama is the boring choice, at this rate he'll be outspent 3-1, and November turnout will likely underwhelm. Readers filled us in on dressage, commented on the ultra-Orthodox Jewish warning, and the 33-page change-of-address form debate grew more complicated. 

We debated the radicalism of Brave, discussed the challenge of "writing the rich," and hashed the Jonah Lehrer self-plagiarism contretemps. Sorkin imitated the "sound" of intelligence, honeybees mastered risk, the Palins embraced a desperate fate, and the media lamented the smallness of the media. Fossil fuel subsidies around the world remained firmly in tact, technology exerted moral power, and McDonald's styled food from scratch. We wondered if it was possible to have it all as a parent and professional, and a congressman confronted DEA absurdity on marijuana. When it comes to FCC regulations, SCOTUS is more comfortable with violence than it is with bad language, capitalism has inherent limits, and low-skill immigration boosts the economy. 

Poem for Thursday here, cool ad watch here, end of gay culture watch here (and above), hathos alert here, poseur alert here, email of the day here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here. 

—M.A. 

Maggie Koerth-Baker shares her own deeply personal story:

I am lying awake in bed, trying to decide whether or not to have an abortion. Of course, we don’t call it an abortion. We call it “a procedure” or a D&C. See, my potential abortion is one of the good abortions. I’m 31 years old. I’m married. These days, I’m pretty well off. I would very much like to stay pregnant right now. In fact, I have just spent the last year—following an earlier miscarriage—trying rather desperately to get pregnant.

Unfortunately, the doctors tell me that what I am now pregnant with is not going to survive.

The experience has reinforced why she's pro-choice:

If you are pregnant, and do not want to be, all of your options suck. If you cannot seem to get pregnant, and want to be, all of your options suck. If you are pregnant, and won’t be soon, all of your options suck. There is no universal good option. There is no universal bad option. But for each individual there is an option that is the least bad. Here is why I am pro-choice. If someone has to make a decision and the best they can hope for is the least-bad option, I don’t believe I have any business making that choice for them.

(Photo by Flickr user yosoyjulito)

A fertility institute is awarding free IVF to three couples. One of the winners:

Bonnie Rochman has mixed feelings:

[T]he panel of judges probably shed a lot of tears watching the 45 competing videos. Their job was to submit their favorites to the institute, which then shifted the contest to Facebook: in the end, the chance to make a baby for free came down to a social-media popularity contest. For the three winners, it was fabulous. For the others, it must have felt like yet another loss. And for the rest of us — watching these tales of woe on our computer screens — it felt undeniably voyeuristic. Or perhaps it’s just a sign of the times, when everybody shares everything and voting on Facebook is the ultimate democracy.