On the Western Banks of the Shenandoah

CPAC currently leads in the polls, and since I may otherwise be engaged this weekend, the Advance is looking out for me. However, that doesn’t mean an end to our continuing team coverage of RPV’s Advance this weekend. I’m working on plans for a correspondent during the event. Bella has volunteered, but unfortunately there’s no way for me to humanely get her there, and I have yet to discover a way to discreetly mike her, despite the large frame of your average Norwegian Forest cat. Not that I think that a cat would be out of place. This is the confab where there will be much discussion of the Grand Old Party’s new outreach to a wider swath of voters, and I can only assume that includes Feline Americans, given the “Cat Lovers for McDonnell” button I spotted on the trail (and still seek for my collection, FYI).

Ok, enough of my insane ramblings. On to my very real thoughts about the coming weekend. First, some background on the event. It was started by former Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Donald S. Huffman, who served from 1983 to 1992. The event is an annual gathering of Republican activists to both discuss the past election’s results (there’s one every year in Virginia) as well as to prepare for the coming year. One would think this of this as a retreat, right? Well, Huffman and the original organizers were of the mind that the GOP should never retreat but always “advance.”

Read more…

Gabriel Sherman of The New Republic goes inside the misunderstood, highly caffeinated, just get the scoop world of Politco.com, the news source that took the world by storm during Campaign 2008 with its gossipy but always tantalizing stories:

But Politico reporter Jonathan Martin wasn’t there to chat. Martin pressed Obama about the president’s decision to nominate William J. Lynn III, a former defense lobbyist, to deputy defense secretary and about Obama’s pledge to curtail the influence of lobbyists. The exchange turned tense. “See, this is what happens. I can’t end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here,” a visibly exasperated Obama said. Martin wouldn’t relent. “I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys–that’s all I was trying to do,” the president added. Within an hour, Martin and Politicowriter Carrie Budoff Brown reported the exchange on Politico‘s website: “OBAMA FLASHES IRRITATION IN PRESS ROOM,” the headline read.

It was–as world events go–a small story. But Politico writers and editors are masters of knowing what will make prime time. Within a few hours, both The Huffington Post and Drudge Report linked to the story, and, by that evening, the conservative blogosphere lit up with items detailing the exchange. The next morning, Rush Limbaugh used the exchange to mock the new president (“You’re not supposed to ask The Messiah questions unless he’s cleared it,” he sniffed). By the end of the day, the “affair” had made the rounds on CNN and Fox News.

Although an excellent exploration of the intersection of old and new media and the slow death of traditional print media, it also raises some important questions about just what news is and means to modern society. It seems that as we become a society of specialists, each with our own niche and area of expertise, our thirst becomes not for the why and how but for the what. What will become of the exhaustive investigative report, the veritable “think piece” considering who and what we are as a society.

Indeed, at more than 250 words, this post itself is considered long for the blog generation. Whatever happened to analysis? Is there still room to really dissect it all, or do we just want “the scoop”?

From Hot Air, word that the AP is suing the creator of the iconic Obama poster that defined the “unified message/diffused effort nature of the campaign. By their account, the court will likely come down on Fairey’s side:

The nature of the copied work is simple documentary photography of a press conference, not something fictional or highly creative. And the poster doesn’t reduce the value of the AP photo; if anything, it greatly increases it. The only factor that cuts the AP’s way is number three, the fact that Fairey swiped pretty much the whole image to make his poster — but then, that’s what Google does to make its thumbnails and everything’s copacetic with that. Verdict: Fairey wins in a walk. Rock on, “rebel” establishment hagiographer!

Some might expect me to express schadenfruede over the lawsuit, but really, I’m on Fairey’s side with this one. (Plus, however creepy and Che-esque the image may be, it really helped coalesce Obama’s strategy, and you can’t argue with success) With the explosion of the availability of images, sound and video over the internet, there has been alot of discussion over copyright, and with good measure. I respect AP’s copyright and the work they do; however, when they ferociously defend their copyrights in such a manner and almost seek to limit their relevance to the professional newsmakers, they’re actually harming their reputation. With freely available material, news websites have made possible an explosion in citizen activism. Whether they like it or not, the challenges bloggers make to the mainstream media actually help bolster their position, as they will always be a need for “reputable” organizations with the resources and reach of traditional news organizations. Markets thrive on choice, and we’ve already seen the value of competition. However, when news organizations such as AP want to make themselves available to only one player, they’re sealing their destiny in the dustbin of history.

In a sign that we are indeed nearing the apocalypse, some are chattering that, perhaps in these pre-RNC Winter Meeting days, Rush Limbaugh is the closest thing we have to a leader on the right. And I, for one, could not be less thrilled. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

 

It happened the other day while Obama was visiting with congressional Republicans in an effort to get them to support his economic stimulus package. Said Obama to the lawmakers: “You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.”

On his Monday program, Limbaugh shot back that the president was “obviously more frightened of me than he is of (Senate Minority Leader) Mitch McConnell. He’s more frightened of me than he is of, say, (House Minority Leader) John Boehner, which doesn’t say much about our party.”

It wasn’t that Obama’s mention was mean or personal, analysts said. But in citing Limbaugh as influential, the president of the United States elevated a talk show host to his level – the leader of the free world. And in a leadership vacuum like the one that conservatives find themselves in after last November’s devastating electoral losses, loud voices – like Limbaugh’s with his 13 million weekly listeners – echo even louder.

 

I have the utmost respect for Rush Limbaugh. He was able to rise up from nothing to become on the most recognizable voices on the right. He is able to spin ideas in very folksy turns of phrase and able to coalesce his followers around an issue or politician. One thing he is not, however, is a heavy thinker. He is a conveyor of ideas, yes, but he is not one who thinks into the wee hours of the night about how to solve our national crises. He is also not a political practitioner; he is not into himself able to influence policy or make deals. He is influential–he surely deserves some credit for zero Republicans voting for the stimulus yesterday. At the end of the day, however, he does not care who he offends. 

 

But while an Oval Office shout-out may temporarily elevate a man who refers to himself as El Rushbo, it doesn’t make Limbaugh the de facto leader of the Republican Party or the conservative movement. He is, analysts say, a “conveyer belt” of information, influencer of the wider talk radio universe and an outside-the-Beltway party whip who reins in wayward Republicans – as in those veering toward political moderation.

“Whenever a national party is in search of its identity, its mojo, figures like Rush will fill the vacuum,” said Mike Franc, a vice president for government relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “But in this situation, he doesn’t fill the idea. He’s more of an idea aggregator.”

 

Read more…

The Bush and Dean campaigns in 2004 revolutionized the way tech was used in politics, and the Obama campaign built upon the revolutionary rise of social networking to solve the free rider problem (at least for one campaign. Bush didn’t continue to heavily use tech to communicate with voters and the public, but it looks like Obama will (granted, Bush didn’t have a re-election fight ahead of him after ‘o4, but perhaps it could have spared him many of the PR disasters in his second term). 

Read more…