Samson, you hit the nail right on the noggin.

When will the American sheeple realize, that this country belongs to zionazis & big business. Democracy, my ass!

Please get more such essays from the “mystery” consultant if you can.

In 2004, there was a vast difference between the coverage Kerry got during the primaries to what he got during the general election. He went from the golden boy during the primaries to whipping boy during the general election. And that campaign always seemed unable to deal with that and adjust.

Obama was the golden boy this time around in the primaries. The difference is that he seems to be corporate America’s choice this time around, so it might be interesting to see just how pro-Republican the media is this time. Probably still some, as the corporations still seem to prefer a Republican president.

But when you see that Obama has raised more than $350 million, and that its the Republican having trouble raising money and is instead taking public financing, that points to a real shift in who the corporations are backing this time around. They’ve carefully groomed the Democrats to be corporate America’s B-team to take over in just such times as these when the Republican brand is sinking.

This meant he got blasts of very negative corporate media coverage. Just for instance, how often did you hear about his hair? And much of the rest of his message got blocked from reaching many people.

In many ways this article is correct, but he fails to account for the way the corporate media helps shape a race like this. Obama was very friendly with corporate America, and well supported by them financially. And the corporate media gave Obama wonderful coverage during the campaign.

All of this helps to create the pop culture affect described in this piece. Lets just posit that Kucinich actually had charisma. My point would be that his campaign would still go nowhere because the corporate media wouldn’t help to promote him and would turn on him and ridicule him if he became a threat.

For the culture described in this article, which is rather shallow politically and very susceptible to fads in popular culture, it is easy for campaigns and the corporate media to manipulate that pop culture to make sure that candidates that are acceptable to corporate America are also the ones that get that cool buzz from pop culture.

What we need to do is to build an attitude of mistrust towards the corporate media, and in that way teach people that whoever they are pushing is automatically not cool. While the cool edgy candidate that also happens to support people over corporations is the one you won’t see on tv.

Oh, and, BTW, according to this new Zogby poll (at http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2008/07/23/poll-nearly-half-of-americans-think-political-system-is-broken-and-cannot-be

-fixed/)
nearly 50% of Americans say the political system is broken, and nearly 20% would vote to SECEED their states from the union! And only about eleven years ago out here where I live, a faction of the “Republic of Texas” tried to do just that. Oklahoma legislature is on the verge, and so is Hawaii (reestablishing the monarchy of Hawai’i), Vermont has a strong secession movement, so does New Hampshire, and no doubt, so does Texas.

Joe, as usual, great article. Thanks! Your blog is on my blogroll.

First I’d like to say that he who owns the newest form of media winning is not a new by any means. I’d cite Kennedy’s success over Nixon in the televised debates or Roosevelt’s use of the radio as a way to rally his base and out manuever the competition. The Rovian use of viral e-mails to slur Kerry was just a prototype to the Internet success Obama is having now.

Second, I think he’s way off the map when he says that under politicized youth seek the least social benefit from the system; How many youths do you know without piles of college loans? Youths are also the least likely to have health care coverage. Also, Obama does not necessarily have a majority amongst middle class whites (depending on the poll) and that group has traditionally gone for the Republicans anyways. If he means the most energized part of the Democratic electorate well then your source is only half-right as its only educated middle class whites who seem to be active for Obama.

The characterizations of the Clinton and Edwards campaigns were poor as well. While “inevitable” was a poor Hillary strategy, the post super-tuesday underdog Hillary was very much the class warrior and it was then when her polls saw the boost. So, obviously class isn’t what killed Edwards, and in fact, looking at the Bluedogs recent success it isn’t a political killer, its that Edwards tried to package it up in such a one-sided “I come from a cotton picking history” story without the marketing materials to go along with.

Finally, I think your source has a blindness between the people and the institutions which are perpetuating Obama’s presidential bid. The media, the advertisers, the campaign advisers and even the politicians themselves all have a financial interest in seeing Obama win and because of the profit motive have only an interest in covering that which is the most dramatic, not the actual issues. The perfect storm of Obama’s message, media structuralization, and newness did hit the internet hard, but only at first.

The very uncontrollable nature of the internet is already having an unraveling effect on that storm. While it is easy to peddle propaganda the problem with the internet, as opposed to TV, Newspapers and Radio, is the ability for those without a profit motive to get their message out. While Obama and Hilary were trading “Bitter” and “Bosnia” gaffes for the mainstream media to absorb the netroots nation and the Hillraisers were having it out with each other online in very sophisticated ways.

The trend towards more knowledgeable debate online has also backfired on Obama to an extent, as recent repudiations of his candidacy amongst netroots nations members have shown that their ability to garner information outside of the Obama message control. As the MSM sits around and eats up the Obama media machine the non-profit driven, or minimally so, bloggers and net activists find less and less reasons to accept the party line and dig around on their own.

Pew’s most recent poll shows indications of as much as youth voters appear to be just as clear or more clear than older voters this election and a full 72% of likely voters say they are very aware of what is happening in the campaign. That’s better number than in the past 5 elections. So as the cultural left grows on the internet it stands as a counter to the more profit-driven right. Yes, netrooters are more prone to mass hysterics in their democratized form of media than the more monolothic mainstream, but that same variety prevents the hysterics from going on long. The profit driven mainstream media, while having political opinions on both the left and right’s bottom line is still, well the bottom line; therefore its more in their interest to peddle hip culture in the long term, long before the netroots have woken up.

Look to any blog, left or right, and you’ll find a dissatisfaction with the news, media and message being peddled. Look to the mainstream media, whose first victims are the newspapers, and you’ll find sagging interest and subscriptions.

Obama has hit the end of his leash as far as the newer internet form of media goes… It’s the mainstream which continues to peddle new and hip. So while marketing absolutely is important to the campaign, I disagree with the manner of trend. New and hip is driving us more into our politics, not less so.