Future:Media:Change

Last week, I blogged about the hilarious reaction of children to Palin’s book, Going Rogue, at a New York City bookstore. The team at New Left Media take us for a look at the real Palin supporters lining up to meet her in Ohio. It seems that the children John Oliver interviewed know just as much about Palin’s policies as her die hard supporters. It is stunning to witness how little they know about the policies of the women they desperately want to be president.

Jon Oliver tried in vain to get kids in New York to listen to some passages from Palin’s truth-challenged memoir. This was just one piece in a brilliant episode of The Daily Show that examined the deep divide in the US and the Right’s Rage. In the mess, I find a few lessons for campaigners of all persuasions.

There are a number of key conferences leading up to Copenhagen that will make or break the final agreements including the US-EU Summit happening right now and President Obama’s visit to Beijing on the 14th of November.

In order to make any real change, we will need to start raising the noise now so that politicians know coming home without a concrete climate change plan will not be acceptable.

Today is the one year anniversary of the Presidential Election. Obama’s, Organizing for America is marking the day with reunion parties across the country and asking supporters to phone bank for health care reform. MoveOn is looking to the future and asking their members to pledge donations to oust Democrats (or Joe Liebermans) who block a vote on the health care legislation.

When a top down, unified and celebrity-driven brand failed to realign the public’s view of government’s role, FDR’s New Deal administrators dropped the failing mark and embraced a new propaganda structure. This media strategy allowed a thousand flowers to bloom and embraced then unknown artists like Woody Guthrie and Dorothea Lange. FDR’s prescient PR style had much in common with some of the best campaigns of the New Media Age.

A crazy day of sports firsts offers a peek into Yahoo!’s headline magic. The MyBO gang tries to reinvigorate Barack O’ Lanterns for some much needed HOPE-mentum. Kanye West is still weird.