Obama calls on Democrats to vote on Tuesday

In the article, “Obama calls on Democrats to vote on Tuesday,” Obama and Biden stress the importance of voting for this upcoming midterm election. In fact the article states that “Both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden depicted the elections as a choice between Democrats wanting to move the country forward versus Republicans seeking to return to past policies that led to economic recession.” It also states that "When you get knocked down, there's only one thing to do. Get up. Get up and vote," Biden told the crowd, eliciting cheers. "Make sure the same thing doesn't knock you down again." This kind of talk coming from both Obama and Biden reminds me of a discussion we had on ethos. By both the President and Vice President choosing the words that they chose to share with the public, the audience is emotionally struck. It is almost as if Obama and Biden are saying that it is up to the audience and anyone representing the Democratic vote to make this country move forward. By both leaders portraying the idea Democrats need this vote to move forward suggests that the audience cannot move forward if they do not cast their vote. This particular statement emotionally charges anyone who supports the Democrats to act upon what Obama and Biden stand on. It also charges anyone who supports the Democrats to “not want to get knocked down again.”

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/31/ohio.obama/index.html

Obama on the 'Daily Show'

I read an article yesterday from the USA Today titled, “Obama gets his ‘Daily Show’ moment of Zen”. The article talked about Obama’s visit with John Stewart. While on the show, Barack stayed mostly serious, often defending his record as Stewart poked him about the promises of “change” he made during his campaign. After being ridiculed by John Stewart, Obama felt the need to revive his name and the work he has done while in the White House. He told John, “His team prevented an economic depression, revived private sector job growth, and passed a historic health care plan.” He continued to say that they have done a lot that he had talked about in his campaign, and that they are going to do more.

At one point in the article, the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, Obama “obviously has a constituency of younger voters that watch that show, and it’s a good place to go and reach them.” The article in the USA Today made me think of the discussions we had about the mixing of politics and popular culture, and the reading of real news versus fake news. I am sure Barack new that Stewart was going to give him a hard time throughout the interview, but knowing that his young audience was likely to see the show justified his decision to go on.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-10-28-obama28_ST_N.htm

Worthy of Acknowledgement

In an MSNBC article "ARK. school official accused of Anti-gay screed" by Jill Zeman Bleed, Clint McCance, a member of the Miland school board used a Facebook post to protest people wearing purple to show support for bullied gay and lesbian youth. His post stated "The only way im wearing it for them is if they all commit suicide. I can't believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin". The school district has made it clear that he was not speaking as a member of the district but as a free citizen. When I looked at this article I thought a lot of things. First, is this man serious? Secondly, what on earth is the public relations department for this school district going to have to do to fix this and third, this is an event that is definately news worthy and will be reported on. For something to be news worthy it must meet seven different criteria including timeliness, proximity, conflict, impact, prominence, currency and uniqueness. The statement made was done so in a period of time that was crucial to the success of this awareness event and because of this it creates and uproar. The news article even states that by Wednesday afternoon only one week later 23,000 member had joined the group on Facebook to fire McCance. The families and members of the community and society believe that his remarks should be shared with others. The impacts of his remarks have also shown that men like McCance have not helped but harmed the students who have been victims of bullying. This story as well has a lot of power to it in terms of equal rights and gay and lesbian rights and his statement has made it a startling response to a topic that is now frequently supported. This man clearly has veiws that are not publically supported by the American people and therefore this story has become newsworthy.

Newsworthiness of Michelle Obama

An article published online by CBS news titled 'Michelle Obama's Fashion Home Run’ reminded me about the idea of ‘newsworthiness.” The textbook describes newsworthiness as the evaluation of news or events based on seven different criterions which include timeliness, proximity, conflict, impact, prominence, currency, and uniqueness (68-69). This article focuses on how fashionable the First Lady is. This seemed extremely un-newsworthy to me. However, upon further examination I was able to see how this article did in fact meet some of the criteria for newsworthiness.

The article was timely, had prominence, and currency. ‘Michelle Obama’s Fashion Home Run’ was published on the CBS website four days after the event and the first lady was said to have appeared at the event looking like “a budding fashion icon.” As the wife of the President Michelle Obama is a prominent figure which means that even if the story met no other criteria it is likely to be published as she is a well known and popular public figure which draws interest from the general public. As not only the wife of the President but the first ‘black’ President stories about the Obama family are of current interest to the public. The audience is interested in stories about Michelle which means that articles concerning her address the currency criterion.

Women Voting

For my blog assignment this week I read an article on CNN.com This article was about how many women are pushing away from voting.  The article starts out very positive saying how women are taking up more and more positions of power in the government.  Over 262 women ran for a congressional seat this year, that is 40 more than there was in 1992. In a study done by CNN.com  that came to conclusions that only 23% of women are "enthusiatic" about voting compared to the 38% percent of men who are "enthusiastic" about voting.  It seems that even with all of the progress women have made with gaining higher positions throughout the government moral is still down.  The article goes into stating that the feeling of being let down much, and poeple not doing as they say they are going to has been part of the reason why voting enthusiasm is down among women.  Another reason why voting enthusiasm is down with women is because unemployment rates are going no where.  Now a days women account for 2/3 of a families incomes in order for their family to survive.  Women have to work so hard to do anything now a days, between working harder to have a fair chance of power within either its a large company trying to climb the ladder, or its just simply gaining ground in positions of power in the government.  Women are simply starting to lose hope over the face that they have so much on their plate and are not getting the respect they deserve.  I chose this articly because I remember talking about in class why people vote certain ways.  Such as demographics why certain areas vote a certain way or why they do not vote at all.  For this instance, this article seems to target many women that are most likely middle class hard working busy women who seem to be losing hope.  Therefore, with loss of hope they are voting less.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/25/wefald.gould.women.voting/index.html

Obama is The Devil

The article Mississippi Democrat admits he didn't vote for Obama is an interesting one. I truly believe to be a good politician it is not what you say but what you don’t say. Gene Taylor, Mississippi representative said that he did not vote for Obama and added that “better the devil you know.” This political socialization that takes place on certain websites and/or television channels is aggressive. This article is on Fox News website which is mostly a republican news source and this supports this theory. The ethos that Obama has with many Americans may not be too high however I don’t believe a candidate from the same party should be referring another member of his same party the devil. Taylor then continues to dismiss the current speaker of the house Pelsoi and how she has “veered towards the left.” This extreme cause to separate oneself from Obama really does not say anything to me as a voter. The guy is a democrat and it is hard to believe he is not going to have the same perspectives as the majority of his party. I believe this extreme cause will only hurt Taylor as it proves no loyalty to his fellow party members.
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/25/mississippi-democrat-admits-he-didnt-vote-obama

RI Dem: Obama can 'shove it' for not endorsing me

RI Dem: Obama can 'shove it' for not endorsing Me
By MICHELLE R. SMITH, Associated Press Writer

For my blog post, I decided to be different and use BET as news source. http://www.bet.com/News/NationalRIDemObamaCanShoveItForNotEndorsingMe.htm
I believe this article used forms of persuasion with Ethos being a big part of it.
Ethos is an appeal to the authority or honesty of the speaker. It is how well the speaker convinces the audience that he or she is qualified to speak on the particular subject. Ethos is involved with this article becaause they use President Barack Obama has a notable figure, and with him stating his opinion could persuade voters to vote another way. Rhode Island Democratic Frank Caprio's told reporters that he would welcome the president's endorsement, but since then Obama made his decision that he would would endorse no one, Caprio told WPRO-AM in an angry way that Obama can "take his endorsement and really shove it." Obama chose not to endorse Caprio because his opponenet, independent candidate Lincoln Chafee, who was a onetime Republican, endorsed Obama in 2008 while running for presidency in against John Maccain.

Sink, Scott Clash in Final Debate

The article that I chose to write about for this week is titled “Sink, Scott clash in final debate” by CNN’s Allison Harding. A very simple concept that can be applied to this is “free media”. This article is about Republican Rick Scott vs. Democrat Alex Sink final debate and what went down. It stated some of the attacks that each side gave to each other about what they felt about their topics and the others response. It describes how it became hostile. Both candidates leveled charges that the other had engaged in fraud during previous careers. They both pretty much just took blows at each other. The article corresponds with free media because if this debate was not sponsored by CNN, the St. Petersburg Times and the University of South Florida, it is not sure that anybody would have paid any attention to it. What also makes it free media is because of the intensity during it that made it an interesting thing to talk about. To tell you the truth I had never even heard of these two before I read this article and for them to get publicity like this is very helpful and hopefully their message will reach the masses and make people begin to think about voting for one or the other. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/sink-scott-clash-in-final-debate/

Federal Agent guilty of murder?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/25/virgin.islands.atf.agent.case/index.html?iref=NS1


The article I selected I found on CNN and it was a story about an ATF agent who shot a man five times and killed him in the virgin islands. Allegedly, AFT agent, William Clark was off duty and noticed a nude man screaming at his girlfriend and shouting racial slurs at a neighbor who had come outside to see what the commotion was.The victim of the shooting had a high blood alcohol level and was also under the influence of other drugs. The victim went inside his house when Clark approached and put on shorts then attempted to attack the off duty agent with a large flash light. The reason I selected this article is because this agent is now on trial for second degree murder. Similar to celebrities, I feel like and assume people in the military get special treatment when going on trial for crimes. Due to the fact that this man serves our government his sentence if he does receive one will be far less than anyone else would serve for this crime . the man who was shot 5 times was not carrying any other weapons and due to the training of the ATF agent I would assume he would know another way to disarm the man from his flashlight. Instead he shot the man five times. I always notice and do not understand how people get such special treatment than others who do not serve in the military.

First lady makes West Coast swing

In Michelle Obama’s speech for the West Coast tour she explains what real change is. In her explanation of what real change her speech is shown to be relative to Law Professor’s Thomas Emerson’s four main purposes for free expression relative to the functioning of democracy. It is in this speech that we are able to see how free expression helps individuals achieve self-fulfillment by Michelle’s redefining of what real change is and how change will come about. The way that she explains how change will come about was by saying that it is a timely process. The way that she explains how free expression allows for the advancement of knowledge and the discovery of truth entails her explanation of how important it is to vote democrat for midterm election and what will come about for that particular vote. The way that she advocates for free expression being essential to provide for participation in decision making by all members of society is by trying to get the people to vote. Lastly, the relationship between free expression and consensus within stabilizing communities is shown by her speech being developed to get all the members of the particular community to agree that what she has to say is reason enough to vote democrat.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/25/michelle.obama.campaign/index.html?iref=allsearch

Obama Pleads Ohioans to Repeat the Magic of '08, but is the Magic Gone?

President Obama and his wife were doing their first day of campaigning together since the 2008 election cycle here in Ohio this last Monday and he was working hard to remind Ohioans just why they voted for him in the last presidential election. He remarked about the economy and how his policies for the last two years helped stave off a Second Great Depression. This article is showing how despite the fact that it isn’t only thirty seconds that what he said was basically an attack ad. He used issues that worry people to make sure that his policies look good and that he strikes the fear of god into anyone who wants to vote Republican. The question is that is it too late Governor Strickland is having issues in his race, there are four Democratic Reps in fear of losing his race, and Fisher’s Senatorial race vs Portman is being seen as a loss already. President Obama realizes he and the Democrats are in trouble and he’s pulling out all the stops, but the entirety of his visit and his presidency can be summed up in a pair of quotes from a Cleveland fundraiser between himself and the first lady. Mrs. Obama introduced the President as "the love of my life... and more importantly, the president of the United States." To which Pres. Obama said "It is not true that more importantly I am the president of the United States," the president replied when he got the microphone. "More importantly, I am Michelle Obama's husband, and Malia and Sasha's father, and Michelle has put up with me through thick and thin, and I'm grateful for her each and every day." We’re not quite sure what we’re getting from him nowadays and it seems he and his wife can’t even agree on it. So if that’s our President how do we trust the Democrats in Ohio?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/17/obama.ohio/index.html?iref=obnetwork

Text Message Causes Campaign Loss

An article I found on cnn.com titled "Trending: Aide fired over Florida debate foul." This article is about a political debate that is taking place in Florida between Alex Sink and Rick Scott. During a break, a campaign member texted Alex Sink on her Driod smartphone. This is a breach of the rules during a debate. There is no outside help or communication with anyone and because of this mistake, a member of her campaign, Brian May, had to be fired. This article made me think of these past few classes where we are talking about the different debates and how one was favored over the other or one completely fumbled and screwed their debate or public appearance up. This incident has seemed to cause some controversy between the two candidates and between the public and Sink. Even though what happened was wrong, she still tried to justify it with a reason why one of her campaign member's wanted to get a hold of her and let her know some information. She stated that Brian May texted her because he was upset with the things Rick Scott keep repeating and how distorted and wrong they were. He admitted doing something wrong, but he still lost his job and position in the campaign.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/florida-debate-foul/

Why Democrats are hurting

In the article, "Why Democrats are hurting" author Julian E. Zelizer explains how the Democratic Party has become disconnected with America. Zelizer states that the Democrats failure to recover the poor economy has left the party and President Obama with a "conversational record and an angry electorate", This article demonstrated several terms and concepts we have discussed in class throughout the semester. For example, Zelizer's purpose for writing this article is to persuade the viewers that the Republican Party has made a remarkable recovery since the last election in 2008 while slandering the Democratic Party and pointing out all their parties issues and flaws. He then states that the Republican Party is looking forward to the 2012 election implying that they will do well. This reminded me of a few of the campaigns we explored in class and the attacks on the opposing candidates or parties. Zelizer also frames this article to visitors of CNN.com that the Democratic Party is falling apart, struggling, and "hurting". He even states that people in favor of the Republicans are framing the political media, "Conservatives have also done very well at playing the politics of the media by staying on message and framing Obama and his policies in a negative light."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/25/zelizer.democrats.woes/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Obama on the Hot seat again!!

Things just aren’t looking good for Obama. Unfulfilled promises, avoiding political questions, and changing -policy issues a couple of years into his presidency, are just a few things (to name a few) that media has been able to address about Obama’s presidency. It’s becoming a dark and lonely finish for Obama as we get closer and closer to the 2012 elections. Media has been all over Obama that it’s no wonder patches of gray and white in his hair have sprouted over the past couple of years. Every time Obama makes a mistake, the media is sure to create for him another patch of gray and white hair. To make it even worse, now Obama is being coined for the loss or future loss of so many democratic seats in the senate. As this article suggest Obama’s campaign in 2007-2008, did not expect that with his win so many former democratic seats would and were in jeopardy of being lost to the Republicans such as his own seat when Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was the likely democratic candidate to fill Obama’s vacancy, was convicted of trying to sell Obama’s seat. Hilary Clinton’s seat was in Jeopardy as well once she got promoted to Secretary of State, as well as Ken Salazar’s seat, when he was elected to be Obama’s interior secretary and V.P. Biden’s seat which was almost lost to Tea party Candidate Christine O’Donnell. This article reminded me of another example of the ever dominate practice of framing and priming in news organizations. FOX news aligns itself with Republicans and the way they frame their news and primes them such as the title of this article, “Turning Victory to Defeat? How Obama's Election Helped Put the Senate in Play” Shows it. The title is primed so that people reading it will think that Obama’s victory has somehow led to a defeat and once they read the article, the readers clearly see that the defeat is for all democrats.
-Damian

Analysis: Professor exposes more voting system flaws

The story that I found on CNN.com talks about how these days it is so easy to tamper with voting systems in the U.S. When I saw this story immediately thought about the situation in Florida with Bush and the votes. I think that these days’ officials are not always the honest nice guys that they seem. The hacking of the voting system was done by a professor at University of Michigan. He was able to look at data and even put the Michigan fight song on the site just for fun. This makes me wonder in the future how someone who wants a certain person to win a certain spot will use their computer skill in order to sway a vote. If it was easy for this professor than any person with computer hacking skills will be able to get in the system where ever they have a computer. Political databases that handle voting numbers I feel should be more secure and safe, because you never know what could happen.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/25/voting.system.flaws/index.html

California Governor Campaign Ad, Nothing New But a Practice That Works

While looking at my Google news feed I came across a story I felt was especially worthy of a blog entry as it is all about the governor election race out in California and a specific ad that was recently ran. In this Jerry Brown advertisement, it shows footage of Meg Whitman saying in a previous interview how great California was and the opportunities in the state thirty years ago when she moved to the state, it then shows that Jerry Brown was the governor at the time and what he has accomplished during his time as governor and as a statesman. This ad is a shot at the Whitman campaign because it uses her own words against her and truly capitalize off the statement at the end of the commercial, when Meg says, “I mean it’s why I came to California.” This statement along with her praise of the way California was at the time of Jerry Brown’s governor term thirty years previous, really speaks highly of what Brown was able to accomplish and has truly hurt her campaign along with series of other advertisements and allegations regarding her hiring of an illegal immigrant. These ads’s really seemed to have a similar look to those of other campaigns we looked at in class, and while it does not clearly attack Whitman it definitely offers the audience a message that will be hard to combat for Meg Whitman’s team. The article mentions that Brown has a 52% leading up to elections currently and ads similar to these will definitely help him keep that lead for Election Day.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/brown-ad-uses-whitmans-words-against-her/65142/

Jan Brewer is a Loser

Ok, ok...the title may be a little harsh, but let's face the facts. Jan Brewer has just about as much eloquence as a spitting cobra, and nearly the same charm. After seeing the video in class, where Jan Brewer has obviously mugged Big Bird, I researched a little bit about her. It turns out that Jan Brewer is not only a lousy public speaker, please reference said class video, but she is creating a police-state out of Arizona. What once was a happy-go-lucky state, known for its beautiful canyons, and peaceful retirement homes has now turned to racially profiling anyone of Spanish origin, and calling upon officials to act in an unconstitutional manner. Jan Brewer should be ashamed of herself, not only for her poor showing on various media outlets, but for crapping on the great state of Arizona with her horrific laws and inhumane calls for action

Pack Journalism: Democrat Tells Obama to 'shove it'

Pack journalism is so common. I feel like I am seeing the same boring stories on every television channel and on different online news sources. This form of journalism is when different news outlets tend to cover the same stories/topics. As I was surfing the web, I noticed the same story repeated over and over. I narrowed my search down to four different media outlets including Fox News, CNN, The New York Times, and WWW.News.com. Each of the four websites displayed a story about Frank T. Caprio, who is a democrat running for the senate in Rhode Island. All of the stories state that President Obama was making a campaign stop in Rhode Island (a dominantly Democratic state) today, but he was not getting a particularly warm welcome from the state’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Obama was receiving a negative welcome because previous to his stop in Rhode Island, he said that he would not be endorsing Democrat Frank Caprio. This did not sit well with Frank. That same day, Caprio told a local radio station that the president can “take his endorsement and really shove it.” Mr. Caprio continued to say, “"We had one of the worst floods in the history of the United States a few months back and President Obama didn't even do a flyover of Rhode Island like President Bush did when New Orleans had their problems. He ignored us and now he's coming into Rhode Island and treating us like an ATM machine” (WWW.CNN.com). The point is, and I feel this is more common with political news versus other news, that different media outlets continuously report the same old story.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/25/rhode-island-dem-gubernatorial-candidates-tells-obama-shove-endorsement/

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/dem-candidate-obama-can-take-endorsement-and-shove-it/

http://www.news.com.au/world/democratic-candidate-tells-obama-to-shove-it-after-not-receiving-endorsement/story-e6frfkyi-1225943509676

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/r-i-democrat-tells-obama-to-shove-it/?ref=politics

Gay conservatives target Democrats in ad campaign

What I liked most about this article, is that It kinda goes along with some of the articles from last week, where people discussed about attack ads. This week though, the attackers are attacking much differently. The article, by Evan Glass, discusses how GOProud, a group of gay conservatives, is attacking democratic candidates, including an openly gay candidate, Congressman Barney Frank. The group has also purchased $50,000 worth of airtime to air commercials attack other candidates such as Nancy Pelosi. The attack commercials will air on Lifetime and Bravo, who caters mostly to women and the LGBT community. What I don't like about this article, is that it plays so much on the fact that Frank, and the attack group is gay. In reality, once you read the article, the orientation of any of the parties really plays little effect in the success of the article. Constantly stating that Frank is a gay man isn't necessary to the article, because it's about conservatives going after democrats, who just happen to be gay. Finally, this relates to our class because this is an example of free media. The group, GOProud, is getting their name out there because of the controversy. I'd never heard of them before, but I'm aware of them now thanks to their free media

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/25/gay.conservative.ad/index.html

Bush and Cheney Absent on Campaign Trail

The article I looked at this week was called Where are Bush, Cheney as election nears?. The article explains why the former President and Vice President have been missing from the campaign trail as the election this year nears. A lot of the reason for their absence has to do with the state of their Ethos. "Ethos is the persuasive appeal a rhetor makes based on who the audience believes he or she is" (Bell, Conners, Sheckels 29-30). In other words it is the credibility of the person in question, and according to the article it is the reason why Bush has been absent. Republicans want to run for office without the chance of being compared to President Bush, while democrats main strategy is exactly that; convincing voters that voting for any Republicans will be like voting for more of the Bush era. The article suggests that President Bush is aware of his diminished ethos and out of respect for other Republicans is "staying out of the spotlight". Regardless of Bush staying out of the spotlight, President Obama has brought up President Bush's presidency several times during the campaign this year. As for Cheney, he has been vocal about some issues but has been dealing with health issues such as heart surgery. Unlike President Bush, most conservatives would like former Vice President Cheney to publicly speak on issues and help campaign, suggesting his ethos might be intact; regardless of how many liberals compare him to the devil. The article also talks about President Bush's book that will be released after the elections this year which might help him regain credibility and ethos.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/22/bush.cheney.campaign.trail/index.html?eref=ib_topstories

The Rent is Too Damn High Succeeds in Distracting Everyone

I love CNN.Com. I know I must be a 22 year old dude in a 50 unhappily married mans body, but I love it so much. Anyways, last week I found an amazing video, which I then sent to my teacher...or you? Our teacher? Anywhays, it was sent to whoever it was sent to because it was about a debate. In this case, it was about a debate for New York governor position. While I am not good with names, the two "official" people running...or rather, the people that have been king made, have gotten pretty darn heated towards each other in these past few months as the race has been getting closer and closer to the finish line. So in order to take the heat off of the two main candidates, they basically had a farce of a debate. They had three independent candidates up for the debate as well, making a total of 5 people "debating". The thing about this though--is that no one really debated. There was no clashing between any of the candidates, but I believe that was 100% intentional in order to take the heat of the other two main candidates, who had already been at eachother's throats for quite a while now. To the inattentive public, I am sure that this was a very awesome and hilarious thing to see...mainly based on how ridiculously funny parts of it were. Even the moderators were laughing at times because they could not even take what was going on seriously. This debate seemed even worse than what political debates normally are. I think of political debates as cars that keep spinning their wheels in the mud, but will move forward and backward--if nothing else based on the passion of one candidate or another. In this case though, it just seemed like all five candidates were spinning their wheels in the mud with absolutely no intention of moving forwards or backwards. It was simply a show, almost like an SNL skit, or the one we watched in class.

http://tv.gawker.com/5667182/crazy-rent-is-too-damn-high-candidate-steals-the-show-at-ny-gov-debate?ref=nf

Pathos Used as a Voting Tool

The article, Democrats Plead: don’t Vote Angry by Carrie Dann from MSNBC is an example of how pathos, which is appealing to an individual’s emotions, can be a tool of persuasion (29). The article comments on how “unemployment [is] still hovering close to double digits, frustration and dissatisfaction has been running high in the lead-up to the election.” The Democratic Party has realized that people’s emotional state and more specifically the anger and frustration they feel towards the current government may persuade voters not to vote for the Democratic Party. Former President Bill Clinton’s recognition and concern of how pathos and its power to persuade is evident through this comment, “People are angry, but when you make a decision when you're mad -- about anything, not just politics -- there's an 80 percent chance you make a mistake." The thought was echoed by Obama who said at a fundraiser in Massachusetts that “Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument do not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared." Here Obama is acknowledging that in politics pathos and our emotions play a role in how we understand or feel about certain issues.

The Republican Party has been emphasizing how the dissatisfaction and frustration the current government has created amongst citizens. There advertisement campaigns use pathos to evoke feelings of frustration, angry, and dissatisfaction by highlighting all the empty promises and current economic situation the democratic government has caused.

link: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/10/19/5317600-democrats-plead-dont-vote-angry-

USA Today, The New York Times and MSNBC all report on the Chilean Miners Struggle after the Rescue

The Chilean Miners have been rescued! If you have yet to realize that then you must be living under a rock. Every news station around the world has been covering this event on both the local and global levels. The articles I choose to examine came from the USA TODAY, The New York Times, and MSNBC, all of these articles are focused on the Chilean miners and their struggle now after being rescued after 68 days underground. The struggle and frustration is occurring because the miners all made a pact to not talk about the worst things that happened while they were down there to reporters because it is not fair for some of the men to profit and for others not to. The reports always find the stories that are the most emotional and the media is trying to create drama around some of the 33 miners. The main point that I want to address is the importance and significance that pact journalism is playing in these miners lives as well as in the lives of all the people around the world who are constantly being bombarded with this story. Pack journalism is when journalists all cover the same “big news stories” focused on the same topics and are essentially making it so that viewers and readers have to consider this event extremely important and relevant to their daily news intake.

Four Candidates to Share Stage in West Virginia Showdown

On Monday, October 18^th a group of four different candidates in the running for an open West Virginia Senate seat will be meeting in debate in the city of Morgantown. The debate will be between current Democratic Governor Joe Manchin, the Republican nominee John Raese, Jess Johnson who is a member of the Mountain Party, and a member of the Constitution Party by the name of Jesse Becker. It is thought that the debate will help Joe Manchin, because the debate is expected to continue to divide the followers of the other three candidates. This should be quite an interesting event for all viewers.

I believe that this is a strong example of a pseudo-event that the media put together. A pseudo event is something that is created by the media in order for them to cover it. A four person debate in a major city such as Morgantown is definitely something that a large majority of the attentive public would look to watch, or even attend. Furthermore, it also meets the necessities for a reasonable news cover, which are timeliness, proximity, conflict, impact, prominence, currency, and uniqueness. It is a smart idea for the media to have put together this pseudo event that meets the necessities for reasonable news coverage because I believe that a lot of people involved in West Virginia politics will tune in to the debate.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/18/four-candidates-to-share-stage-in-west-virginia-showdow/

Palin Launches Tea Party Tour

The article, "Palin launches Tea Party tour by telling Republicans to get on board" has several elements of the mass commmunicaton perspective in political communication. In this article former republican vice president candidate, Sarah Palin stresses that the Republican party needs to "man up" in the kick off of Tea Party Express' fourth national tour. In this article, the CNN journalist has used the concept of framing from chapter four to cover the issue by interpreting and organizing the issue for the media audience to view. For instance, on the CNN.com website, this story has the largest photo and is the top story of the day. The journalist has entitled the article, "Palin launched Tea Party tour by telling Republicans to get on board" by making this the title of the article and the first thing that CNN.com users see, it is implying to viewers, especially Democrats that the Republican Party is slacking and steering away from contributing to the Tea Party Express movement. This is promoting a particular problem or issue in the Republican Party by stating that even Sarah Palin who is a republican, governor, and past vice president candidate is threatening to "be through" with the Republican Party if they do not step up and join the Tea Party Express. This has framed the context of this issue for the media audience and will have an effect on their opinions of it and of the Republican Party's lack of involvement.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/18/tea.party.tour/index.html

Negative Campaigning In Colorado

The Washington Post article titled, “In Colorado, Big Coffers means slew of negative ads” is about the record spending money on the Colorado senate race, much of it focused on negative TV ads. Republican Ken Buck’s and Democrat Michael Bennet’s campaign have spent a combined $17.5 Million during the senate race, which is far more than any other race in the country. Bennet’s campaign is portrayed Buck as a flip-flopper who is “too extreme for Colorado.” Buck’s campaign is claiming that Bennet is a “rubber stamp of Obama,” who lets spending get too far out of control. Even though the TV ads have been prominently negative, they appeal to the public because they remind the public of the importance of civic engagement through voting, they raise important matters of public concern for discussion and debate, and they provide a reminder that, in the United States, governmental power is not held indefinitely and indiscriminately by any one individual (85). In general, the public knows little about politics so campaigns focus on an appeal to emotion by using these attack ads. Even though the negative ads drew complaints from residents in Colorado, there is no doubt that these ads can significantly impact an election. It certainly helped George H.W. Bush in the 1988 Presidential Election (89).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/18/AR2010101805333_pf.html

Joe Miller and journalist handcuffing incident

The article I chose to read is called "Miller responds to journalist-handcuffing incident". This article talks about The Alaska Dispatches editor-in-chief, Tony Hopfinger being handcuffed after trying to ask U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller a question at a campaign event on Sunday. Just last week Miller said he would no longer answer questions about his past due to leaks to the media from his personal file claiming that he and his family received many of the benefits that he is against such as farm subsidies and Medicaid. The Alaska Dispatch was first to discover that Miller had accepted subsidies and are also among the many news organizations suing for Millers personal file from his last place of employment. Although this event was open to the public Miller's campaign had banned The Alaska Dispatch from being let into the event.

I think this incident is a good example of a journalist being a watchdog. Our textbook says "This is an adversarial relationship between the two parties, perhaps reflected in officials refusing to comment or be interviewed for a news story and reporters investigating what they perceive to be 'wrongdoing by officials" (70). Hopfinger was doing his job as a journalist watchdog and get to the bottom of Joe Millers accepting benefits. When he asked just one question he was handcuffed presumably because Miller did not want the public to know this about him. Miller is facing trespassing charges while the security at the event is facing charges of assault for handcuffing a journalist.

Former Surgeon General Calls for Marijuana Legalization

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/10/18/former.surgeon.general.marijuana/index.html
This article that was on CNN.com is about the former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders who told CNN Sunday that she supports legalizing marijuana for recreational use because resources could be better spent on other things than criminalizing young people for a harmless, non-toxic substance. I found this in the politics section on CNN.com under the Heading "The Buzz" in which this article was the main highlight. This made me think of agenda setting, framing, and priming. The agenda setting of this and why it is important is because voting for proposition 19, which legalizes marijuana in California, is next month and for a former surgeon general to make a comment like this is very important because she is certainly a credible source to make such a comment. The framing of this is what I just said with that it is pretty significant that the surgeon general supports the legalization of marijuana. She does not just support it, she demands it. They are the leading spokespeople for matters of public health which makes you think why it is still illegal for recreational use in all states. The article is framing her opinion on the issue around legalization and Proposition 19. Lastly the article is priming readers and voters to make their own opinions after reading or watching on whether it is actually a good idea to vote yes on proposition 19 because of Joycelyn Elders' credibility and rationale.

Witch or No Witch?

The article I chose to read was from CNN.com. The article is titled Collegians on O'Donnell and Coons: What debate? What witch? This article is all about the political race to fill the Delaware seat in the Senate that Joe Biden had formerly held. The race is between Christine O'Donnell and Chris Coons. In the past, O'Donnell in a television clip stated that she dabbled in witch craft. Now, that has come out during the political race and it is all anyone is focusing on. There were many students, on the campus where the debate was held, that were carrying signs about their feelings towards O'Donnell and her past statement. This just goes to show that even though some college students do not follow politics there is still media coverage that catches their attention about any candidate. Many of the students knew O'Donnell's name and knew something about her, but others did not know anything about her opponent. This brings in the earned and free media that we talked about in class. The old saying of any media is good media, is present int his article, because even though some students have not been following the race, they still knew something about at least one candidate.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/17/youths.odonnell/index.html

WWE Getting In the Connecticut Political Ring

The article entitled, “WWE responds to criticism in Conn's political ring” by Pat Eaton-Robb, seemed to be a perfect example of media and entertainment effecting politics and where we are at now-a-days in accepting such. I thought this article only seemed appropriate after reading chapter six and seeing how Jesse Ventura used some of his WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment, fame, coverage, and other variables to win his governor seat. This situation is involving the WWE founder’s wife, Linda McMahon, senate race in the state of Connecticut. In this article it talks mostly about WWE’s response to comments and allegations that have been made against Linda and her husband in the way they run and have operated the WWE. Many questions focusing around the hyped up sexual image of female wrestlers and around the steroid testing, or lack thereof, in the league; none of which are focused on the Senate race at hand. Since the WWE has a niche market that would be considered my most as a “cult following” this coverage and WWE’s marketing response to this coverage may give Linda the voters and the coverage to win this election. Media and entertainment play a big role in this political situation, by taking an entertainment event and using its media strangle hold in promoting a candidate from within its system. I think it is an interesting move seeing how WWE is asking fan’s to change facebook status’ and to spread the word about the allegations being made against the so happened to be the victim, Senator candidate, and WWE founder’s wife; Linda McMahon. I look forward to seeing how this election goes, and end all be all if these publicity tactics pay off.

How much do attack ads damage our faith in our leaders

How much do attack ads damage our faith in our leaders?
CNN's Jack Cafferty reports an interesting article thats correlates to our course so well. The article presented is about how political campaigns are going too far and how they are getting more nastier and even more personal. I instantly refered back to the episode of South Park that was about voting for a school mascot. The two running were trying their hardest to persuade their classmates to vote for their party and it caused much chaos. In conclusion of the episode the characters came to agreement that the people running for these polllitical offices are nothing but giant doushs and turd snadwhiches. In class we learned how candidates will go to the extreme to get people to vote for them even if calls to bashing the other candidates for their benefit. The articles entails how this year candidates are taking attaack ads out of porportion by saying they are cruel and sick. They are stretching the truth to make us believe candidates are wanting to gas shelter animals, of wanting to inject young girls with dangerous drugs, of letting men beat their wives and most are coming from polititans who are already in office who thinks their job is in jepordy. One Florida Democrat calls his challenger "Taliban Dan." which makes voters believe that he is down with the Middle East which cause him to lose votes.

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/18/how-much-do-attack-ads-damage-our-faith-in-our-leaders/

Is Consumerism More Important Than Religion?

When I was looking into what I would do for the first blog post I found it in an interesting place a Jesuit Facebook Fan Page. Millenials and Consumerism was an article found on Fast Company discussed how to the generation known as Millennials (1980-1995) are so impacted by different brands that they use them to define themselves more than their own religion. This is a demonstration on how consumerism is growing to be more prevalent in our society to the point where different brands are impacting people so much that political campaigns are focusing on them to impact their decisions. By the fact the our generation focuses so much on the brands that they wear or products that they use because we have been so impacted by advertisements much more than other generations before us. This use of advertisements and the relationship between them and the impact that they have on our generation is such that companies are able to put political messages into their advertising which can impact our decisions much more than the religions that many of us belong to because we relate more to them. In our consumer based society it isn’t surprising that we as consumers relate more to brands than anything else because we are always obsessed with getting the best of the best and we know what stores are for what social class and it appears what religious group.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1695062/brands-and-millenials-a-deep-connection

Obama laughs at presidential seal mishap

This article discusses how popular culture relates to politics. In chapter 17 of the textbook it talks about how the current popular culture of music, film, television, and other forms of entertainment have an impact on politics. Even though these forms of popular culture can be seen as negative, they have a positive impact on politicians credibility when attempting to relate to an audience, sometimes. In fact, it is a way of showing the audience that politicians are not always serious. Jon Stewart is one example.
In Obama’s case, the presidential seal drops and after it drops he cracks a joke. Once he got the audience to laugh, he continued to entertain them by going deeper into the fact that he dropped the presidential seal. When politicians like Obama are amongst crowds whose attention is in need of being grasped, entertainment can be a route that draws the attention of the crowd. The more a politician entertains an audience in some way, shape, or form, the more the audience is going to attend to the message being given. Obama is very successful in getting the audience to laugh, not only by relating to the audience, but by adapting to their level of sensibility.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2010/10/05/sot.presidential.seal.falls.cnn?iref=allsearch

While looking for an article, I found this one on CNN that I thought was pretty interesting, and goes along with what we are learning in class. The article, entitled " How much do attack ads damage out faith in our leaders?" was posted today on CNN blogger Jack Cafferty's blog. Cafferty explains that while attack ads have a long history of being misleading and sometimes false, that this years ads seem to take that a step further than usual, by saying "Campaign ads accuse candidates of wanting to gas shelter animals, of wanting to inject young girls with dangerous drugs, of letting men bear their wives, and of helping child molesters-either by buying them Viagra or protecting their privacy." This reminded me a little of the Bush - Dukakis campaigns, where a lot of the facts were taken out of context. The article also points out that, surprising to me, a lot of these vicious attack ads are from the incumbent candidates, who are worried about not being re-elected. I feel like thats just immature, and unacceptable of people who we have already elected into office. These are officials that we have already given our trust to, and they are belittling other candidates on accusations that aren't entirely true, or true at all.

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/18/how-much-do-attack-ads-damage-our-faith-in-our-leaders/

How Much do attack ads damage our faith in our Leaders?

The story that I found was from CNN.com and it is all about how campaign ads are very brutal these days. All the time we see ads that are meant to destroy the other person’s name. I feel that in class we saw ads that were meant to make the candidates look like scum bags and that is wrong. In the story that I found it lets the reader know that all these ads are making people question who they can trust. When all we see is shot being fired we never see what the person is trying to get accomplished.
In chapter four of our book “a mass communication perspective” on page 63 it states “as campaign coverage has been found to be more negative in recent elections than in the past, so has political advertising. Darell West reports from 1952 to 2004, 56 percent of presidential advertising were predominantly negative, with the greatest increase in the 1980’s”. These days it seems that opponents use lies and low blows to get in office. Now some of the stuff may be true in the ads but the people running should be more concerned with letting people know what they stand for instead of how horrible the other person is.



http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/18/how-much-do-attack-ads-damage-our-faith-in-our-leaders/

I was watching “The Today Show” this morning and they had a segment called This Years Best and Worst Political Ads. Within this segment, Matt Lauer, NBC’s Political Director and Chief White House Correspondent, and the chairman of the ad agency Deutsch Incorporated all sat down and discussed several political ads from this year. A couple things immediately came to mind from class, but the one topic I have chosen to talk about is free media. Free media is exactly what it sounds like. A politician is covered in a news story; therefore their name, ideas, and beliefs are being reiterated for them. Christine O’Donnell was the first politician covered in the segment. She has a new political ad out, and all three men said it was well done. Next is Joe Manchin, the governor of West Virginia. His ad did not go over so well with the three guys, but then again, Joe did just get free media. The next ad shown was of Joe Miller who is running for Senate in Alaska. The guys really loved his ad because Joe chose to be humorous. Joe Miller did a mock “Old Spice” ad. You have to see it, it’s very funny. The moral of the story is no matter if the ads were effective or not, each of the candidates received free media. So, someone like me who lives in Ohio and would not get the chance to see some of these ads got the chance to see them on “The Today Show” this morning.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/

GOP Doubts Global Warming

Recently an essay was published that argues the GOP is the only major political party that does not believe in climate change and global warming. According to Ronald Brownstein from the National Journal, "the Republican Party is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that makes it unique among major political parties around the globe". This viewpoint all started because of the Republican opposition to cap-and-trade legislation designed to reduce emissions of gases linked to climate change. They are encouraging the idea that global warming is not occurring regardless of what scientist say. The article also quotes Ross Douthat from The New York Times as he states how half the country, roughly 49%, do not believe in global warming, therefore the GOP is basing their views off public opinion. There is an ideology behind the GOP's stance of global warming. "Climate science denial is a product of the Republicans commitment to anti-government ideology" according to Jonathan Chait at The New Republic. The GOP is taking a stance against the science of climate change and global warming because the party rejects the solutions to these problems. Regardless if you believe or don't believe in climate change, there is a clear ideology that can be seen here. That ideology is the justification of anti-government and opposition to legislation that would hurt American businesses but lower emissions. http://theweek.com/article/index/208197/why-republicans-doubt-global-warming

The Prime Example!

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/18/is-the-pope-catholic-is-homer-simpson/?test=faces

I thought that this was a pretty interesting news article. The article is titled, Is the Pope Catholic? is homer Simpson? Instantly this title caught my attention since I am Catholic and I also like the Simpsons however, what I noticed was that the title of the article was hardly related to the story. This made me think of the concept of priming and how news organizations prime or give us the idea of what kind of idea we should have about those being discussed. By titling the article “Is the Pope Catholic? Is Homer Simpson?” first of all it catches the reader’s attention, esp. devout Catholics who are wondering what the news is trying to get at with the question “is the pope Catholic”, and secondly, the news article is trying to get you to think that the Simpsons is Catholic as well. The news article talks about how the Vatican has approved the show The Simpsons as long as its watched with a “grain of Salt” because the Simpsons are constantly having reoccurring themes over Faith, Religion, and the question about God. However, the article does not cover anything about Pope Benedict IV. It just states that some Catholic news articles and Fr. Francesco Occhetta who writes for the Catholic newspaper La Civilta Cattolica, approves of the Simpsons. I found this news article on FoxNews.Com. When you watch the Simpsons, what channel does it usually come in on? Fox is the correct answer. Also what political side is Fox mostly addressed for? You got it, the conservative side, which most Catholics would be considered conservative. Therefore, Fox News covered this story in order to get more Catholics to watch the Simpsons by stating that the Simpsons are Catholic and that the Vatican approves of the show “The Simpsons” which Aires on Fox in order to get more viewers. It’s a pretty good idea when you think about it!
-Damian

The CNN article Sarah Palin kicks off Tea Party pre-election bus tour is a prime example of “free media.” Free media according to the class’s text is compared to pay in the form of advertising (60). This article gives the fifteen day schedule of Sarah Palin “Liberty at the Ballot Box” tour. We see the media being a “lapdog” (public officials are interested in using the media to get their message out) to the Tea Party (70). This article promotes the Tea Parties efforts to support close primary races throughout the United States.
The article uses the power of the media to states the time and location Sarah Palin is going to be and what she will be promoting. The article outlines some of the close races in the primaries and top targets. For example, “as the group hopes to knock off the Senate majority leader and elect Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle.” The article continues to outline other close elections and Sarah Palin’s goals. The Tea Party realizes that when using a figure such as Sarah Palin will create large mass media and therefore help the goal of the organization. Even though Sarah Palin is viewed in a negative light throughout her political history she still has media power.

Free Media for Bill Clinton

The article ‘Bill Clinton the Man in Demand for Democrats’ is an example of free media. The article lists a number of Clintons stops along the campaign trail e.g. “The former president starts Monday in Kentucky, where he teams up with Jack Conway…Next Clinton heads to West Virginia, where he's the main attraction at a rally in Morgantown, West Virginia for Gov. Joe Manchin. Later Monday Clinton flies to Syracuse, New York, where he headlines a rally for Rep. Dan Maffei.” The article goes on to say that Obama is very popular with a favorable rating of 65%. This article, by Paul Steinhauser is an example of free media according to the textbook which states that free media is news coverage about a political campaign as opposed to paid advertisement material for a campaign (60).

As well as providing the audience with times and locations it also provides a context for Clinton’s campaign trail. The article states that the locations that Clinton plans to speak at have something in common which is that they are, “all areas where moderate to conservative voters predominate, and where arguably the former president may be more popular that President Barack Obama.” The democrats are relying on Clinton to rally the democrats who aren’t supporters of Obama.

Bloomberg Scapegoating the Education System

On the USA Today website, there is an article called NYC takes aim at teacher’ ‘tenure for breathing’ The claim had been made by a charter school leader in an educational documentary called Waiting for Superman, which places much of the blame for bad schools nationwide on union rules “tenure” that protect unskilled teachers. New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg is taking the stand to raise the bar for students through higher standards for teachers and for principles to allow teachers to be tenured. It is apparent that the documentary and Bloomberg are scapegoating tenure and turning it into a negative thing in all cases and one that takes all of the blame for the faults in the education system. According to our textbook, “scapegoating becomes responsible for all that’s wrong, and the rhetor and the audience unite against this scapegoat and achieve a kind of redemption by purging the scapegoat from their midst”. In this case the rhetor is the school leader from the educational documentary and partially Michael Bloomberg because he helps to push all the blame to tenure. And all the inattentive public who read this believe that tenure will be the worst possible thing for education and have a negative outlook on it.

The King of Trump

Recently, an MSNBC interview with Donald Trump discussed him running for president in 2012. MSNBC even framed the discussion by mentioning that similar talk of Trump for President occurred in 1999, when he considered running for the Reform Party in 2000. While Donald Trump is not primarily associated with politics, being a celebrity and having a lot of capital place him in a role of prominence that few others occupy. So, when Trump discusses the possibility of running for president, news sources latch onto this as news. This illustrates kingmaking, which, according to our textbook, is the process of "identifying the serious contenders in an election" in which the mass media take on "the historical role of winnowing the field of candidates to the 'serious contenders'" (60). As, two years before the election, the mass media discuss Trump running as a third-party candidate in 2012, they help position Trump as a serious contender should he decide to run. Meanwhile, other potential third-party candidates who are not prominently known do not receive this attention because they are not seen as having the resources to be "serious contenders." In the process, those already with many resources gain more resources, while those with few resources continue to struggle to increase their resources. The press, thus, do a large part of the job of determining who will stand a chance of winning the 2012 presidential election.