The creative class strikes again on behalf of Barack Obama:
As I've said before, I think hip, with-it irony is a losing strategy and the Clinton campaign's avalanch of lameness is about where the median voter is.
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They Make Videos
12 Mar 2008 03:27 pm
Comments (48)
I esp like the posters of Obama in Somali clothing on the walls.
I'd disagree that "avalanch of lameness" works on the internet. My mom is a diehard Clinton supporter, but unless the video pops up on the TodayShow.com website, she'll never see it.
I get the sense that they're trying too hard, that's a turn off for me. But I's middlebrow, you know?
The Obama camp just released a puke inducing clip featuring Big Stevie Wonder. Please do not link to it, use this instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuUWwZ6TFuY
Wow, Matt really doesn't know anything about marketing. As evie implied, the goal is to put the right marketing on the particular media outlet in question given the audience for that media outlet.
and the Clinton campaign's avalanch[sic] of lameness is about where the median voter is.
You know, it's really, really hard to be 26 and have Solzhenitsyn levels of world-weariness. Dude, get off it.
Since we’re no longer allowed to use Barack [Redacted] Obama’s original middle name, we need a replacement.
The first two that popped into my mind were “Mary” and “Nancy” but I’d rather not make him replace all his monogrammed hankies. (After all, we've all heard from Michelle how tightly stretched their family budget is, with the barely $500,000/year combined income.)
“Hillary” is much too butch for him to carry off.
But if you’ve ever seen the plurally eponymous movie, “Heather” has the perfect air of rich, spoiled, airheaded social-climbing fashion-plate bimbo.
So how about from now on, we refer to him as Barack Heather Obama?
In a few weeks, he’ll be begging people to start calling him “Hussein” again.
As I've said before, I think hip, with-it irony is a losing strategy and the Clinton campaign's avalanch of lameness is about where the median voter is.
This video was obviously put out by the HRC campaign, and is right in line with the "hip young black friend" line. SEE THE TRUTH.
My outrage doesn't stem so much from Clinton's constant reminders of Obama's race, but rather Clinton's subtle reminders of how black voters don't matter.
By suggesting that Obama wouldn't be where he is today without the "black vote" presupposes that there's something wrong with those votes going to Obama. Meaning..."It's just those black people that are voting him."
If Ferraro and the Clinton campaign don't understand why this is insulting, then there's nothing we can do to enlighten them.
Yeah, I'm not sure why this is particularly funny. It's SNL-funny. And the will.i.am video? I guess you have to be creaming in your jeans already for BHO to think that was some sort of genius-hip video. But that's why I'm a Nader supporter, I guess.
Eh, Will.I.Am is pretty tired now. This is just a Saturday Night Live sketch. You know, the stuff cable pundits show when they want to show their hipness.
Pwned by Topper.
You can't make these videos when you are working in the salt mines all day and night. When you add in that the walk, usually through very deep snow, is uphill each way, I generally don't have the time or energy for funnin on the intertubes
Dumbed-down, punchy, hot-button, what's-in-it-for-you and here's-how-you're-under-threat limbic marketing beats even just mildly cerebral, aspirational, or glossy brand-awareness-imprinting marketing nine times out of ten.
This is the lesson taught and retaught by a century of direct-response advertising.
This lesson, which the GOP campaign machine long ago successfully assimilated, is why the GOP so often outperforms the Dems at the polls.
Thus far, Hillary's use of this icky-but-effective-but-really-truly-disgusting approach has been that which has kept her in the race.
Attempts to be smart and/or funny win advertising awards; they don't, sadly, make cash registers ring, or poll booth levers crunch.
That's not hip. Its just moronic. Also boring. Only a kool-aid kid would watch more than ten seconds. Preaching to the choir. Won't add a vote.
I don't think all this talking about race helps Obama.
Topper Headon? Topper Headon? Is that you Mr. Joe Thatcher? What's next Terry Chimes, Rat Scabbies, Captain Sensible, Jah Wobble?
For a movement that allegedly eschews middlebrow-ness identifying oneself or others as members of the "creative class" probably isn't the best way of putting it.
I gather being called "culture workers" was enough to turn the likes of Dos Pasos and other people really good at writing, painting, making movies, etc off the Struggle.
On an entirely separate note,I couldn't resist but bring this amusing bit to attention. By your own reckoning ,Matt, you should see the light now.
The MVP race between Kobe Bryant and LeBron James is comparable to my two all-time favorite television shows. Just like The Sopranos, Bryant may end up collecting the big postseason award, even though The Wire and James produce a better product than their more popular counterparts.
R2MVP ..Maurice Brooks
avalanch of lameness is about where the median voter is
So maybe the Obama people should make some dancing-baby videos -- with a few footballs in the groin thrown in for good measure.
Is that Philip Seymour Hoffman in there? He steals every scene in every film he's in, I tell you!
You know Matt I'm really sick of Obama not standing up for Obama.
I really don't think that people "spontaneously" making internet videos is going to help in the general campaign, or in an actual term when the rest of the world mistreats him.
Ferraro is more than right on this. Obama is where Obama is entirely because he is black. End of Story.
You don't get 9/10 of the black vote being a white guy. Ask John Edwards. You don't get to play MLK while being as domestically progressive as Nixon as a white guy. And in places where black people aren't tokens or entertainers people fail to see the reality that has yet to be bridged between white and black people.
Take the Atlantic. You guys have a lot of black pundits I see. And even more black Harvard grads working as pundits. How bout TAPPED? or the Nation? or the Washington Monthly? Got a lot of Black Men working in the creative class do you?
It's why the fur coat wearing liberal class has no problem assuaging white guilt by via Obama. And the working class whites who work hand in hand with working class blacks do not back him. It's because they aren't blinded by his blackness, they see he is not MLK. They see that he looks a lot more like the Wire's Clay Davis than MLK and especially like councilman Quentin Leroux from Ice Cube's Barbershop II. And frankly the continued self righteousness from right thinking Harvard grads like yourself and Brown Phd's like Josh Marshall, are taking people like myself who have been a huge fan of both sites and turning me from a discouraged neutral to an angry opponent.
We can't afford another 4 years of Bush ala McCain, and Obama can not build a coalition around 3/4 of nebraska to win. It ain't going to happen when the Harold Ford stuff really comes out. This is not the cycle to fuck around with.
Hillary has a traditional Democratic coalition, she has working people, she has latinos, and she has all the big blue states. Why trade PA for Nebraska?
MI? LA? GA? AL? SC? NC? not going to win any of those in the general. How about VA and MD? If they Harold Ford him there; no-way. Why do you think Lieberman is so close to McCain? Because he knows he will win in the general against Obama. Lieberman, who knows the power structure of CT, and denied Lamont by a large margin.
The online arrogance that you guys are projecting via laundering every Team Obama defense, and not letting the guy aggressively speak for himself, is now pissing off the Hillary base.
It was the Team Obama bastards that were ready to take the ball and go home while they were threatening the black super-delegates. Dems who aren't voting for Obama are not buying the self righteous bullshit. And I'm telling you, if you keep playing it up the righteousness when there is no reason for it, you are going to lose that 7 out of 10 at the polls in November on the Democratic side. This kind of shit is going to split the party. And it's the self-righteous bullshit that comes from the "creative-class" that is totally disconnected from the real world where those of us who didn't graduate from Harvard are looking down the face of another great depression. And we look at Obama who isn't even attempting to call for a strong safety net, who has bankers raising money for him and passing it off as individual contributions.
You guys need to sit the fuck back and begin to understand what is being said to you about your candidate and stop plugging your fucking ears and pretending that you can will to power you way out of it, like some kind of democratic version of the Bush II base.
"Yes We Can!" is about as much of a plan as expecting flowers in Baghdad, because you are bringing democracy and freedom.
thats' MS not MI. I'm angry and you don't have an edit comment option.
Booooring.
Please, Matt, stop making every other post about how much you hate Hillary. You're one of the few blogs I read daily, and you're seriously starting to bore me to tears. I miss you're clever insight!
I actually think Matt's sentiment about America's taste (i.e. America loves crap!) and the sentiment expressed in the "Hillary" video (i.e. we're so much fucking smarter than you) are six of one/half dozen of the other.
America doesn't (usually) revel in crap per se. I mean, who actually watches SNL at this point? The crap that people like is fun crap, stuff that isn't pretentious or self-conscious about its crapiness. Like Dancing With the Stars.
What America really hates is being condescended to. And this is precisely the sentiment that I think is killing the Democratic party at this point. Just about the entire Democratic party, including about 99.9% of young Democrats, thinks everyone who is not a Democrat is a FREAKING IDIOT. Nevermind that people are just different and have different priorities. Democrats think Republicans are certifiably stupid.
Democrats need to get over themselves (and I'm speaking as one of them). America ain't as stupid as we think they are. And people certainly know when they're being made fun of.
The average voter is not watching these videos. The hip, with-it crowd is making these videos for people like themselves. That's the thing about the internet and much of the new media, it's largely self-selective. If this were the 1960s and Obama was running these types of videos on network television I'd agree that it was a losing strategy. But that's not what's happening. Hillary and her core base of support probably are "lamer" in comparison with Obama's creative class groupies, but right now Obama and Hillary have the party pretty well split down the middle, and I don't think much of anything, and especially not these videos, is going to change that one way or the other. What these videos can do is energize Obama's supporters to work harder for him and donate more money to him, and that is significant. But to call this a "losing" strategy is silly because these videos have a very limited reach, and can't possibly affect the outcome in any meaningful way. As always, the fundamentals will determine this election, and right now they favor Obama, slightly.
I'm not wowed by Hillary, or by Obama. Neither were my candidate.
But no matter how cute 'n clever (or lame) the marketing strategies appear on either side, the flaming and viciousness both camps are turning on each other are beginning to make me feel like it's a Kang or Kodos choice going into the convention.
It's all terrific fodder for a mainstream "news" media driven by a focus on personalities and entertainment, rather than issues.
But I's middlebrow, you know?
Yo, Israel dawg, how bout showin us sum of dat Yiddish rap? Word.
Well, that was labored and excruciating.
(Yeah, it's always great when amateur performers can't keep from smirking at how funny they imagine they're being.)
Alas, one sad thing about supporting Obama is that you have to associate with assclowns like these.
Since Matt and his fellow prepschool educated, twentysomething "progressive" blog buddies seem to think tired SNL sketch comedy and lame punk rock (both as rehashed by no-talents thirty years too late) represent the height of "with it" culture, he might want to refrain from knocking the stuff that the vulgar, "tacky" working-class rubes who didn't get into the Ivy Leauge enjoy.
This is the second day in the row he's been at it and it's starting to get ugly.
It may be time compare the current tuition at Matt's alma mater The Dalton School to the annual family incomes of some of these folks in dying coal and steel towns like Scranton. (Yesterday, the boy wonder was sneering at the highschool chorus there.) That might make for an interesting comparison in the Comments section. I'm guessing those would be some interesting/shocking numbers and would generate some chat.
From there the crueler among us could then mock Matt's crappy taste in music, pointing out that it's little more than the folk music of the young, whiney, well off and well connected.
Or, hey, perhaps Mr. Yglesias could just stick to politics and remember that as a "progressive" he should try to conceal his utter contempt for his nation's lower orders.
thomas-
If you think middle America isn't watching shitty Internet videos you haven't met my parents. They just got broadband, they discovered forwards and YouTube, and my life is an absolute nightmare.
Clinton campaign's avalanch[e] of lameness is about where the median voter is.
Wow. No arrogance here!
Hip, ironic videos don't really work if they're NOT ACTUALLY FUNNY.
That was just sad.
That was like an Aaron Sorkin sketch on Studio 60.
Gloria, I'm getting pretty freakin' tired of cliched bad-taste being defended by people who are trying to make themselves out to be "champions of the working class" by doing so.... as if consuming decent pop-culture and having a disdain for poor, hackneyed writing were somehow the sole province of the wealthy (and that having decent taste is a bad thing).
"You don't get 9/10 of the black vote being a white guy."
As an insightful commenter pointed out in a different thread, there actually is a candidate who gets 9/10 of the black vote in the general election every four years. He's known as the Democratic candidate, and so far has always been a white guy.
patience: whoa. You're attributing a lot of things to both Obama and Clinton which appear to be projection.
First, on the black "advantage": there have been vanishingly few elected blacks at the state level; this suggests that there is a flaw in your logic. That flaw, simply put, is that there have historically been more white racists than black people in total. Obama has broken the racial politics mold, and that is an enormous achievement.
I hope that you do know that Democrats in general routinely *lose* the white vote and still win with a large majority of block votes; and I also hope that you know that this was very much true of the Clintons as well. It's pretty tough to argue that the first black politician running for president with a lot of crossover support is just cashing in on his skin color; instead he is a charismatic and talented candidate much like JFK and Bill Clinton before him. To claim that it is only his race isn't just insutling; it's simply unsupportable based on the evidence of the track record of black candidates in the past.
Your class hostility in service of the Clintons is bewildering; they are Ivy League graduates who get most of their money from corporate sources. Obama has enormous appeal to the young (of all races) and I think that will be a major, major factor in the election. Edwards was my favorite candidate who actually ran (Gore would have been my first pick in a perfect world.) But Obama will do just fine. Clinton hasn't impressed me with her campaign, either in terms of tactics or strategy, and at this point I think she'd clearly be substantially weaker in the general (and has a crummy set of advisors around her.) Your mileage may, of course, vary.
Matt: ...Clinton campaign's avalanch[e] of lameness is about where the median voter is.
TFisher: Wow. No arrogance here!
I don't know if it's arrogance--I feel much the same way and the feeling is more one of frustration. I can't provide any kind of quantifiable link between "lameness" and (for example) holding the opinion that waterboarding isn't torture, but they both seem manifestations of a lazy ignorance that's the dominant mode of thinking in America today.
Hey Patience ... nice rant!
Too bad MY and Josh Marshall and Kos aren't listening. They know everything already.
Agreed with "Undecided," Very interesting rant by "patience," best comment on the thread.
"Patience,"
On your intro. point: "You know Matt I'm really sick of Obama not standing up for Obama", don't you wonder if this is part and parcel of an intentional vagueness to let people project their own hopes on him so far? More than just the race thing alone, I think that is what got him a new base (not the old Democratic base) that made it possible to get where he is now in the primary. It was an amazing, clever feat, It's now a problem going forward, he can't just keep doing that, especially as the nominee, and I am looking to see if he's got other things in his pocket. Not seeing them yet. That he can switch to another marketing ploy is what I am actually waiting to see, that will prove to me that he's got the chops for the presidency. I am thinking this no longer 1960, you can't get presidency that way anymore being "new" and with the zeitgeist.
Sometimes I think that the fact that the black vote is going totally with him after realizing he has a chance (before SC, more were undecided--and of course, Bill Clinton's modus operandi helped there) is something that he may not have planned for that well. He really seemed to want to be more into a position of selling his biracial and exotic background, a new post-race thing, he didn't seem to want this kind of division, would have preferred a momentum built more on more non-blacks voting for him than all the black votes. That's the way it seemed in the week before SC, and when the female black vote seemed very much still in play.
It was interesting that Hendrik Hertzberg in this week's New Yorker was pushing the idea of John McCain picking Condi Rice as his V.P. While unlikely to happen, what a loop that would through into this whole race/gender card thingie.
----
Yglesias, re:
As I've said before, I think hip, with-it irony is a losing strategy and the Clinton campaign's avalanch of lameness is about where the median voter is.
Thanks for clarifying that once again, I think so many misinterpreted your "Choir" post.
Both spoken like a true reality-based person and the son of movie screenwriter, you have renewed my faith in your sense. ;-)
Where you might further refine it is thinking along the lines that Obama mostly already has the hip, ironic demographic tied up, what he will be trying to get is all the rest? I think he very much knows that. That's why I think he did the Sister Souljah on DKos, "Tone, Truth and the Democratic Party." (Read it again, with this topic in your mind.) Seems to me like in the past he's always making an effort to preach not just tolerance but respect towards the "non-hip." I don't know if his campaign knows how to effect that going forward, though, or whether they are waiting on it because they think it's not time yet to use that. It will be interesting to watch.
Artappraiser:
Some thoughts. First, I've never found Obama to be intentionally vague, personally. I've seen him mix up between lighter "rah rah" motivational speeches and more substantive, longer stump speeches, sure, but he's had a reformer message from the start, he's laid out a clear and concise view of how big legislative and cultural changes are effected (by citizens organizing and advocating in large numbers), and he's demonstrated that he can actually drive that type of effort with his campaign.
Second, while I'm sure Obama would love to sweep up the last of Clinton's base that he hasn't already stolen (remember, 6 months ago A-A women and some men were still a key part of the Clinton coalition, as were just about everyone else), I'm not sure it's that vitally important. They've both built pretty strong coalitions, and Obama's, at this point, is simple bigger and stronger. If he simply doesn't lose his coalition, he'll win this race. He's strong enough with A-A votes, voters under-50 (and especially under-35), college-educated, higher-income, midwestern whites of all socio-economic status, Indies and cross-over GOPers, etc etc. That's why I don't get all this hand-wringing over PA and Ohio; it presumes that somehow, if Obama can't win them, Clinton might pull this out. But that's simply not true. See: Wyoming. Obama might lose PA, but he'll still have Indiana and NC behind that, where his coalition is strong and where he'll probably get all those popular votes and delegates right back. Yeah, he might lose W VA and Kentucky, but...he's got Oregon right behind there, which is stock full of Obama-friendly white folk.
And I agree with Marc about patience's comment...
This isn't funny! Much less clever or cool or hip!
The Hilary choir kids were lame lower-middle-class kids and this is unfunny, lame upper-middle-class adults.
The choir can't sing and this isn't amusing.
Only one (the proles for Hilary) inspires sneers. So Gloria's got a valid point there.
But they both totally suck!
They suck so bad I'm almost tempted to make an Elliot Spitzer joke about worldclass sucking.
Emm. Matt, you are right, the Clinton borg-boys-and-girls (CBBGs) are wrong. Hip, funny ironic for sure. Won't get any votes since the CBBGs are all crying since hey already lost.
Come November, I think most will suck up the tears and vote Democratic, anyway.
DN
patience,
I'm not sure where to begin. Should I start with your racism in that the only comparison you can think for Obama is another uplifting black guy? How about your claim that Obama's situation is "entirely" due to his race? Or is it your easy use of the elite-liberal slur? How about the Chicken Little, oh noes teh racism! schtick? Or the claim that Obama can only add 3/4 Nebraska? I could go on, but clearly you're a nut.
This video is no longer available.
Any chance of fixing the link for late-comers?
I like patience's rant. I especially like how it couldn't think of any real black people to compare Obama to, so it used movie characters. I also like how it thinks the Kerry/Dukakis coalition is a winning election formula.
But its broader point is right on. Why is everyone picking on white people? Can't white people catch a break these days?
"Just about the entire Democratic party, including about 99.9% of young Democrats, thinks everyone who is not a Democrat is a FREAKING IDIOT... Democrats think Republicans are certifiably stupid."
Well, as a radical Transhumanist, I think the entire Democratic party are freaking idiots. And Republicans are certifiably stupid - not to mention certifiably insane.
And both of them are just different wings of the "War Party".
As for the video - well, I chuckled. It wasn't a belly slapper, but it was mildly amusing by the end.
In other words, probably wasn't worth the time and effort to produce it - if there was any time and effort expended producing it, that is.
As for Undecided's Youtube video, that was way too long and not terribly interesting. I preferred the other one.
But I could do with another episode of "Terminator" just to erase both from my short term memory.
Meanwhile, Condi Rice as McCain's VP? Heh, that would be a nightmare ticket - almost as bad as McCain-Lieberman. If either of those materialize and win, better have an open one-way ticket to Switzerland handy, because this country is toast.
The Cake song is exponentially more "hip" than will.I.am. {Not that that takes much.}
Please, Matt, stop making every other post about how much you hate Hillary. You're one of the few blogs I read daily, and you're seriously starting to bore me to tears. I miss you're clever insight!
Wait, this blog featured clever insight?! Where was I? I thought we just came here for fake cynical-cool world-weariness and occasional political commentary.
folks, there are a lot of issues that the race baiting has led us to face. first, yes, 90% of black votes routinely go to white democrats, but at what turnout? Secondly, by offending black voters at a core level, will democrats lose any hope of ever again winning any national campaigns? Finally as for wanting Obama to stand up for Obama, please remember the lesson of Jackie Robinson, who was abused in city after city, teams and fans and players doing everything they could ("kitchen sink", as it were) to get him to explode, to show that their racism was justified by his reaction. Obama has not once asked people to vote for him because he is black (as opposed to Hillary who keeps reminding women of what a hsitoric thing HER election would be), and he has kept his composure when all are looking for that crack in the armor. One outburst, one true appeal to race, and he will lose all that he has gained.
I was all for Edwards, but a corporate hillary is a slim upgrade over a republican (judges might be pro choice instead of pro life, but will most assuredly be pro business aand pro executive branch), and the only way to even imagine a change in the level of influence of corporations is to have politicians worried about voters booting them out, so a 51% victory will do nothing to dislodge those interests, or incumbents. Hillary can never be more than a 51% candidate, rightly or wrongly (and before the last month I was sure unfairly) too much of the country wants nothing to do with her, having nothing to do with her gender. Obama has upside (or had it, hillary keeps chipping away at it), mobilizing a disinterested public and the chance to install REAL majorities that can do things and frighten the entrenched. I don't know if yes we can is true, but to save our country from the corporations, yes we must is the only chance left.
Comments closed March 26, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Yeah, but it's not supposed to actually get people to vote for Obama. At the least, it's a fun way for the comedians to get attention. At its best, it could be like the SNL skit by crystallizing something for the media, in this case that the Clintons will be blowing the race dog whistle from her through April 26.
Posted by NHCt | March 12, 2008 3:44 PM