happy caucus day!
Mood: curious
Posted on 2008-01-03 09:11:00
Tags: election politics links
Words: 154

And remember, caucuses aren't elections nor particularly democratic (with a lowercase "d"), so when whoever wins try not to get too excited even though presumably the media will crown him/her tomorrow morning because it's not like the media has a blatant interest in making the caucuses overly-relevant with their millions of dollars in media ads.

Also, I will say to supporters of Hillary what my mom said to me about Howard Dean in 2004 (paraphrased and mostly remembered): "Son, feel free to support whoever you want, but if Dean wins the nomination and then loses to Bush you're in big trouble".

I heard this interesting story on NPR on the way to work: a study seems to suggest the placebo effect can make you lose weight and lower blood pressure, although there are some other possible explanations. Interesting stuff, the placebo effect.

100 things we didn't know last year from the BBC (via kottke)

5 comments

Comment from djedi:
2008-01-03T14:39:38+00:00
Yeah, caucuses in particular are confusing. Also, it's kinda weird how different Dem. and Rep. primaries are. Rep. ones are all about who's the most conservative and who's the best guy you'd love to have a beer with. Dem. ones are all about who's the most electable in the eyes of the caucusers.

I have very little respect for political journalists given things like how Gore was treated in his last election, Kerry last time and Dean. I remember mainstream journalists basically failing to do research and just spreading the popular propaganda of the day.

Comment from fartingmonkey:
2008-01-03T14:45:31+00:00
While I was in Iowa this X-mas EVERY single commercial on TV (that is not an exaggeration) was for a candidate. What was considered the most effective ad? The one with Huckabee in front of a cross talking about how religious he is.

Hillary was using an ad with no words, just inspiration music/pictures, Obama 's ads showed him yelling a lot. It seemed to be inspiring to the audience, but the commercial was so short it really just seemed like he was good and angry. Chris Dodd had by far the worst one. The first thing he says is "Hi I'm Chris Dodd, some of you think I'm too experienced to be the President"

/sigh

I'm glad to be back in Texas where I can safely ignore commercials for brand new Ford trucks.

Comment from fartingmonkey:
2008-01-03T14:50:52+00:00
Chris Dodd ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfwkc1QHfgw

You may notice that the entire ad has 0% content. Just babble about 'experience'. Nothing to even back up his experience.

Thats just one of the worst ones, pretty much every ad was the same emotional propaganda. I guess they are the most effective at bringing in the sheeples so they sit in the right seats for the caucus.

Comment from gregstoll:
2008-01-03T15:15:27+00:00
Wow, that ad was yaaaaawn. At least we don't have more ads from him to look forward to...not that we'll see any down here anyway.

Comment from djedi:
2008-01-03T17:12:40+00:00
Hehe. Yeah, political ads are right about 0% excitement.

I did miss Texas truck commercials when we were up in Maryland. None of the vehicle commercials up there talked about Maryland pride or anything like that. Hell, they don't even brag about their Picante sauce.

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