Saturday Voting???

The article I chose to write my first blog post on is from The New York Times and is titled “A Push to Supplement Tuesday Voting With Weekends,” written by Jesse McKinley. It explains how a San Francisco Political Consultant plans to get a second day for voting in next year’s general election for the city of San Fran. The man behind the campaign is Alex Tourk and he explains that the proposal would fundamentally duplicate the Tuesday voting occurrence by opening all precincts for the entire day on the preceding Saturday. This can be considered a Rhetorical Situation that consists of an exigence, audience, and constraints. The exigence or need here is an additional day that people can come out to the poles and vote. Another need is for more people to be voting in National Elections, because according to the article America tails most of the world in voter participation. It explains that “work, child care issues and fatigue” are reasons that keep people home on the Tuesday Voting Day. This shows a clear want for change. The Audience in this situation includes the people of San Francisco that have a problem with the current voting day and would like another option. They hope to increase the audience to the rest of the nation through a successful campaign. The constraints are explained in the article and include how would they secure the votes that are cast on the alternate day, how to update rolls to prevent voting twice, as well has how will this be funded. With these three elements, the exigence, audience, and constraints, the campaign to add another day for voting is seen as a political rhetorical situation.

Coffee party vs Tea party

After reading the article Coffee vs. Tea: A political movement is brewing; it described a new group of individuals that are meeting to discuss political issues currently taking place. These members are looking for a “real” government representation. The purpose of the group is to have citizens recognize the need for them to speak out in order to get the government to accurately listen and represent them. This group does not align itself with any particular party. It relates to what is discussed in the book as “kingmaking”, the idea of one party winning and the other losing. The Coffee party believes that this idea is the problem with democracy now-a-days. They explain that the recent healthcare debate has shown the divide in our country and problems with in the political process. The tea party is very opposed to the development and ideas of the Coffee party. I however, agree with the Coffee party’s belief that kingmaking/ having winners and losers in almost every aspect of politics does cause a divide and problems with in our country. Instead of having a nation that comes together, it seems that the two political parties are always in a constant battle.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/13/coffee.party/index.html

Healthcare divide

Among the many topics being discussed recently in politics healthcare and it’s reform has been getting a majority of the medias attention. Constant battling over legislation makes it seem that the proposed bill will never actually make it further than the legislative branch. The most recent changes to the bill have been brought forth by the Democratic Party, which is aiming to add a form of student aid into the bill. Without much prior warning of such changes the Republican Party now has grounds to object the bill altogether. This opposition has caused further delay in other aspects of politics as well. The Democratic response has said it will delay President Obama’s trip to Asia for as many as three days to quickly find a resolution to the problems the Republicans are having. By having this divide the Republican party as well as the Democratic are not only wasting precious time with such a hot issue, they are also neglecting international affairs as well. Many politicians from both parties see the healthcare reform as something that can wait until much needed economic crises are dealt with. The collapse of very influential banks and lending organizations recently has strengthened such claims, and will only continue to do so for months to come. By taking a less intense approach to the healthcare issue I think both sides would be much better received, allowing some actual legislative progress to be made.

Too much sex can be a bad thing...

Our political environment in the United States allows for independent political action committees and groups to have their voices be heard. This is in line and indeed a part of the idea of the political science perspective as indicated in our course. And subsequently, this concept can be illustrated through PETA's most recent attempts at advertising to have pets spayed and neutered.

PETA has taken Tiger Woods' sex scandal and used it as an opportunity to encourage individuals to take positive actions in decreasing overpopulation of pets in the United States. Advertisements fall under the realm of political communication. With the appropriate amount of analysis, political communication can be found in almost an areas. It's important for us to apply it to Tiger's situation and PETA's attempt as well.

They argue, with a picture of Tiger, that "too much sex can be a bad thing for little tigers too." The concept is that you should get your pets spayed or neutered and falls under the concept that nothing is safe in society. Overall, anything is fair game when it comes to making your point. That includes sex scandals. Essentially, if you don't want to be used for someone's cause, then you should stay out of the mainstream.

Tiger was apparently unhappy with the concept of be used for the cause. And although PETA agreed not to make billboards, as originally intended, the design has still been seen all over the internet.

"fair" poll is sham.

This poll seems at first very accurate it has separate standings for all the political parties. Also showing However after examining it for a few minutes one notices that you can compare President Obama's standing in polls to President Bush's.

However on closer examination, one notices how the statistics for President Bush are not from his presidency, but current. This shows how the media is not impartial but pushes people to believe certain things.

Anyone just glancing at the poll would think that President Bush was much more popular than President Obama is. However as President Bush is currently not doing anything controversial, or even anything on the political scene, he will be viewed favorably. The impartial way to compare the two presidents would be to compare statistics from the same period .

Although this is not an article from Fox news it is put up by them. They are clearly trying to push a conservative agenda. They do this by using facts but twisting them to plant false ideas.

This only goes to prove the fact that no news station can be completely non partial because no human is completely non partial. Every news station parades that they are non partial and that they provide fair news. This is in no place true. While fox news clearly favors the consirvative side. NBC would favor the liberal. It is only by looking at all sides of a story that a reader can figure out the true story.

Obama's Presidency "All Just A Series of Pseudo Events?"

In our political communication class we have discusses the concept of pseudo events. Bell, Conners, and Sheckels state, "Sometimes stories are deemed newsworthy, but the events have been structured by organizations for the primary purpose of gaining new attention; Daniel J. Boorstin has termed such events as pseudo events" (69). Activity that exists all for the purpose of media publicity and has no effect on real life. A link I found from CATO Institute discusses how President Obama must move away from pseudo events. The article discusses that there has yet been changes that can be outlines from President Obama's grand strategy to implement change. All there is to point out is a series of pseudo events. The article discusses that President Obama's trip to Europe, participation in the Summit of the Americas, and meeting the top world leaders and television appearances have been regarded by most of the American media as foreign policy success, but in reality Obama can claim no concrete diplomatic accomplishments.

I do not know if I necessarily agree with the article entirely. I do feel that a lot of President Obama's appearances have been a part of pseudo events to gain media attention and to create a certain image for the President, but I do not totally agree that President Obama can claim no concrete diplomatic accomplishments. President Obama has not made any huge diplomatic accomplishments yet, but to say that all of his work is just a series of pseudo events and there is no real meaning to try to change out country for the better is wrong. I believe the media is using Obama and stating that he is not accomplishing anything for a pseudo event in itself. I believe the media is always looking for a target to gain attention and obviously the President is going to be their largest one of all.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again ...

One of the themes that we have discussed in IPC 4020 this semester is the use of popular culture by politicians. As our textbook states, "popular culture can be used to send the messages candidates and elected officials desire" (364). Our textbook focuses on how politicians go on programs like Oprah as the means of using popular culture, but we also might look at how politicians make references to popular culture, like sports, films, and music, in their campaigns. As an example, as this news story shows, Texas governor Rick Perry has utilized a parody of the ABBA number 1 hit from the mid-1970s "Dancing Queen" in his primary race against Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who is leaving the Senate to run for governor of Texas. Perry's parody of the song critiques Hutchinson as the "Earmark Queen." On the one hand, this is meant by Perry's campaign to associate Hutchinson with what it's attempting to portray as wasteful or useless spending. It's using a prominent popular culture text to do that. However, we might also examine what it shows about Perry. Does this, for instance, portray him as having a sense of humor or being a little more down to earth by associating him with ABBA and with this parody?