Day: September 18, 2008

What Does the Media Mean When It Quotes Sarah Palin?

Buck Banks

If you think listening to VP candidate Sarah Palin speak is bad, it’s actually worse when it’s reproduced in phonics in writing by reporters in the MSM. I can’t remember a time when a politician’s annoying accent and pronunciation was so faithfully reproduced in the media. Well, there was Billy Carter’s colorful language punctuated by “ain’t.” But one is left to wonder about the intent of the media in reproducing the peculiar Alaska vernacular that is PalinTalk (hmmm, an anagram for “plain talk?”).

Here are a couple of examples from today’s Washington Post:

  • “John? John?” Sarah Palin called to John McCain. “Can I add somethin’?”
  • A woman wanted to give her the chance to address those who say Palin can’t be a mother and vice president. “Well, let’s prove ’em wrong,” Palin said to cheers.
  • She talked about her role if the ticket is elected: “Let me tell you, I know a little bit about energy. That’s gonna be my baby when I get to Washington, D.C.”

My question is, would the Washington Post reproduce the phonics if Palin spoke like the cartoon character Sylvester the Cat or Elmer Fudd? They don’t reproduce every one of Barack Obama’s professorial ums or ers he inserts into sentences. Obama is also prone to dropping his Gs when he wants to sound less “elitist” or to make a homespun point, but I don’t recall seeing that phonically represented.

It’s either a) because it makes Palin sound like just “plain folks” or b) it makes her sound stupid and therefore unfit to be veep or c) because it’s all about accuracy in reporting, the foundation of our free press, and to hell with the English language.

I don’t know which it is, but I’m gonna start watching it in this here space. Oops! It’s infectious.

McCain’s Problem: He IS the Problem

Trish

Today’s humorous in a wry, mocking way web site is Lobbyists for McCain. The group made a splash in suits and alleged Ferragamos during protests at the Republican National Convention but continues to sock it to McCain on a range of issues. Of course, as the Washington Post pointed out in light of McCain’s statement that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” this is not hard to do.

Were McCain known as a student of the economy, this instance of a badly delivered statement would matter little. Because he is known as someone who is not, it matters plenty. McCain has responded by ratcheting up his rhetoric about cracking down on Wall Street and its regulators in Washington.

Plus they have this great yard sign

And yet the problem for McCain is that he IS the problem. The Keating Five scandal, in which McCain was No. Four, involved McCain and four other senators trying to prevent regulators from doing their jobs in overseeing risky real estate loans by Lincoln Savings and Loan, chaired by Charles Keating. The later collapse of the savings and loans industry, of which the Lincoln mess was an integral part, cost us taxpayers $125 billion.

Cindy Hensley’s son and McCain’s adopted son, Andrew McCain, resigned from the board of Silver State Bank in July. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) shut down the bank and its parent company six weeks later. Guess who’s on the hook for all those assets now?

Which is precisely the kind of thing Lobbyists for McCain would like us to remember. Barbara Walters asked the 40-year Washington insider on The View, “Who are you going to change in Washington? You?” To which we can only add, “Who are you going to change on Wall St.? You?”

Find Lobbyists for McCain on our blog roll under “Campaign Sites.”

McCain, Obama Waging Rumor War Inside The Google

Buck Banks

If you think what you read in the paper, see on the TV or hear on the radio is bad, wait until you see what comes up on the most popular search engine when you type in “Obama Muslim.” On the left under results you get links to Urban Legends and Snopes that debunk the Internet rumor.
google-results.jpg
But on the right, where the sponsored links are, the first link says, “Searching for Experience/Instead of Researching Obama/
Learn More About John McCain.” The next three links are “Christians for Obama,” “Jews for Obama” and “Barak Obama Facts.”

If you search “Obama Biden,” the top sponsored result is owned by MoveOn.org, followed by McCain and then three sticker/button sites.

Score two for McCain who, according to U.S. News & World Report, is winning the bidding war on sponsored links:

Overall, the McCain campaign has been more aggressive in bidding on Google search terms. In August, McCain’s site managed 21.6 million sponsored search-link impressions (the number of times users click on a particular sponsored link), compared with less than 1 million for Obama’s site, according to Nielson Online, another Internet monitoring firm.

The way this works is, the campaigns enter online auctions and bid on search terms. The higher the bid, the higher the placement in the ranking of sponsored links. The real winner here is The Google, but that’s another story. Apparently, the bidding/search war is heating up:

Specifically, Obama’s campaign has waded into online auctions for Google search terms to snap up not only obvious phrases like “Barack Obama” but also potentially negative ones like “Barack Obama birth certificate” or “Barack Obama as a Muslim,” according to Hitwise, an Internet audience monitoring firm.

This means that, as of Wednesday morning, Google searches for Obama being a Muslim (a false but pervasive Web rumor) often turn up a prominent “sponsored” link at the top of the results page that connects to a page on Obama’s campaign website that debunks the myth and details his Christian faith. Searches for Obama’s birth certificate produce a link to a page showing the official document.

How effective has the rumor war been? According to Hitwise, the number of click-throughs from the sponsored links have been low. Is it worth the money and effort for the campaigns? Probably not, but in the age of Web 2.0, The Google provides just another battle front in a campaign that seems to have no bounds.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

The first time I saw this particular fashion, I disliked it, and then I realized I’m getting old.

— Palm Beach, Fla., public defender Carol Bickerstaff after a judge says Riviera Beach’s “saggy pants” law is unconstitutional in the case of a 17-year-old who spent a night in jail for having his underwear showing. Bickerstaff said her office wants to get the law tossed altogether.

Poll: Obama-Biden Up 16 Points Over McCain-Palin in California

Jon Ponder

It’s another beautiful day in California:
Democratic women are now 83-9 percent in support of Obama.

The survey shows that the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden leads the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin by a 52 percent to 36 percent margin. The 16 percent point lead remains significant but is down from the 24 point lead the Democratic team enjoyed in July. An aggregate 3 percent of voters prefer other candidates, while 9 percent remain undecided.

Palin has not helped McCain among California independents, who represent one-fifth of the state’s electorate:

[McCain’s] choice of Palin has not helped him get to “stage two … broadening the (GOP) base to include the nonpartisans,” said DiCamillo. “He’s made very little headway in that regard.”

The independent and decline-to-state Californians – a rapidly growing number who represent 1 in 5 state voters and are increasingly younger and ethnic – are “still with Obama,” he said. Those voters are “what elected Arnold Schwarzenegger,” another star candidate who portrayed himself a as a maverick outsider, [said Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo].

But with that critical electorate, “(Palin) is not moving the needle much. … That (independent voter) number would have to get very close or even in McCain’s column for him to be competitive in California,” he said. “And it doesn’t look that way.”

Palin did not help McCain woo California’s Democratic women either:

[…]