John McCain and Obama debate versus the 2011 Republican Debates

This clip talks about a debate for the 2008 election between President Obama and Senator John McCain. I found it interesting the similarities and differences in the thoughts about the debate from 2008 and the debates between the Republican Candidates going on right now. They talked about how the debate was dull and not interesting enough, however, I would say for the Republican debates going on right now, they are a little to interesting. The policies and political thought are not necessarily what has been making this years debates animated and interesting. Maybe the reason the debates going on right now are interesting and animated is due to the fact that it is all republicans fight against each other versus a republican and a democrat running for the presidential seat.

I can’t remember the title to this post......

To be fair, I did not watch the whole debate on Wednesday. The first 30 minutes was enough for me to shut the television off and walk away. I had no idea why everyone was talking about Rick Perry until I forced myself to finish the debate to see what all the comments were about. This spared Rick Perry a good day of criticism by me, before I began to really ask myself, why? Why is Rick Perry still running, how was he ever front runner, and how is he still taken seriously? 

Everyone makes mistakes. This is a concept I understand all too well. Everyone has made a comment about something to someone and later realized, wow did I really say that? It happens to the best of us. All we can say is dust off the embarrassment, get back up, jump back in and make up for it with a stunning next performance.

Now, Rick Perry has not seemed to grasp the concept of making up for his stupidity, and instead reinforces his stupidity. 

http://youtu.be/b8jcis-0dr8 (CNBC interview with George Stephanopoulos... Everybody makes mistakes).

Why am I now calling Rick Perry’s screw ups stupidity and not mistakes? 

Mistakes are made once or twice, within a couple months. Some mistakes are bigger than others. However, in the past two weeks Rick Perry is batting two for two. He first acted outrageous and out of control during his speech in New Hampshire making me believe he couldn't top that with anything more unprofessional. Low and behold he proved me wrong!

When I plan a speech in front of class, I practice it a few times, have some notes, know exactly what I want to say. Now, a debate is a little more challenging, not knowing what exactly is going to be asked and what is need to be said. However, the concept, of practicing for a debate is very similar to practicing a speech. you must memorize the main topics that you believe and practice the key points to your beliefs, or in Rick Perry’s case, his federal government reform ideas.

We all know the tax plans, health care plans and plans to regulate the federal government are not written by the candidates. They have advisers and staff to help with the expressing of their ideas. I am not saying the ideas are not the candidates but they are expressed by someone who knows the candidates ideas. This is understandable. The candidate has the ideas and knows what they need to do to fix the government (in theory), and they pay someone to write them into a plan that someone may actually want to believe in. 

In college, if someone writes a paper for someone else to hand in, that person should really read the paper before handing it in, to know what exactly their “stance” really is and knows answers to questions a teacher may ask. In politics you would think this same idea would apply. For Rick Perry apparently not. 

How can a politician forget the third federal agency they want to shut down? If it would really impact the United States and help job creation, it should be important enough to remember. The more shocking thing, is one of the other candidates says in a joking manner, “the EPA” is the third agency and Rick Perry laughs out a “yeah”, although really meaning, no!

This was not a laughing matter, although Rick Perry seemed to think it was. I do not want my president to say, ‘I am going to shut down three federal agencies that are killing jobs’ and only know two of them and randomly pick the third by the next one that pops to mind. 

The question is now, was this a "death blow" to Rick Perry's campaign? Well have to see.

So what have I learned from this debate and Rick Perry’s stupidity? Be sure to watch the whole debate next time, you never know when you’ll miss a good laugh.

CSPAN and social media

This video talks about C-SPAN being a part of social media. This however, also, talks about how social media is becoming more and more important in congress and the politics.

52% Popular Vote….. Where is the Media?

I realized I have been focusing on Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann. They seem to be the ones that alternate off and on with either the frontrunner status or the most publicity. Although some now, more than others; Michele Bachmann’s popularity has been plummeting for a while.  

There is another nominee that not only I seem to have been ignoring in my posts but the media has been ignoring as well. Ron Paul has been steadily near the top of the polls and seemingly popular with voters but not so much with the media. Why is this? Maybe because of his age, or maybe he is just not as interesting as the other nominees.

Let’s face it, everyone wants some type of controversy or interesting story when they turn on the news at night. Who, other than the politicians, wants to sit and watch a two hour debate by 8 or 9 republicans on views you may not agree with, wearing suits of all similar colors and no changing facial movements? No one.

Now, watching the debates and the banter back and forth from Rick Perry and Mitt Romney actually adds a bit of interest to the presidential debates. This puts the focus on Perry and Romney, also giving them more media attention. 

Herman Cain, has his 9 9 9 plan which enacts a lot of controversy and interest from voters, making him an interesting target for the media to cover as well. His not so understandable explanations for why his 9 9 9 plan is so great and not to mention his lack of proper grammar makes him an interesting candidate to watch in interviews and debates, if not for anything more than to hear a couple of his not so clever jokes. Cain seems to be the funny man in this election, making inappropriate jokes about electric fences and claiming blacks are brainwashed. Herman Cain is a journalist’s dream come true. He puts himself in situations that warrant media attention. Somehow, Cain also managed to be front runner and high in the polls for over a month gaining major publicity. 

Michele Bachmann gets media attention due to her lack of common sense and her racist bigotry. Is that good publicity? In the presidential election it hasn’t seemed to make her anymore liked. If anything, it has sent her down in the polls. Now, who says no publicity is bad publicity? 

This weekend however, Ron Paul gained 52% of the popular vote in Illinois. None of the front runners have managed to gain this high of a popular vote yet in any other straw poll. My question is, why do I barely every hear about him. I know of him, and I watch him in the debates, but the debates usually seemed to focus on Romney, Perry and recently Herman Cain with a comment from Bachmann every once and a while. Although Ron Paul talked for about the same amount of time as Perry and Romney minus a few minutes it seemed like most of the debates have a focus on them. Whether that is just the way it is taped I don't know. But it is not a mistake, nothing in media is.

Why are Ron Paul’s voting rates so much higher than the other candidates; who knows? Maybe it is because Herman Cain is in the middle of a sexual harassment dispute, Rick Perry acted drunk during his 30 minute speech, Michele Bachmann doesn’t know what she is talking about, Mitt Romney flip flops his stance on topics and the other candidates don't really make a dent at all. Now, who wants to vote for people like that?

With Ron Paul gaining 52% popular vote you would think he would get much more media attention. Sadly, the fact is he is just not as interesting, meaning media worthy, than the other candidates. Although it is wrong and should not be the case, that’s the way, it is.

Are they serious?!

This past week a lot has happened within the realm of the republican candidates. Now people ask me why I am not a republican. If you watched the news last week at any time, there is my answer!

First, there is Herman Cain and the sexual harassment claims. I mean come on. First off, the sexual harassment case has been settled and happened more than 10 years ago. It is time to move on. However, do I trust Herman Cain after hearing the allegations; not really. Need I reiterate the fact that Herman Cain does not know how to explain things properly or defend himself without putting himself into a deeper and deeper hole?

First he says he had no idea about any settlement, then he says he knew about “an agreement” but not a settlement changing his story. Although sexual harassment is not acceptable in any way shape or form, the fact that Herman Cain may have sexually harassed a woman is not what makes me frustrated. The fact that Herman Cain’s explanations and stories always change from day to day, and he doesn’t seem to know what he is talking about. 

When he was trying to explain the 9 9 9 plan all he did was reiterate the fact that state and federal taxes was mixing apples and oranges. I did not get a full explanation of why the Washington posts’ analysis of his tax plan was wrong, he just said it was with little to no proof. Herman Cain may be a business man and able to run god father pizza, but to run the country you need a little bit of a mix between business and politics. Most politicians are too much like politicians and not good business men, but Herman Cain is a business man and not really a politician. The fact that he is also needing to even defend himself against a sexual harassment claim, that in fact did end in a settlement or “agreement” as Cain puts it, is also unsettling but not the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Herman Cain however, does not take the cake as the most unrespectable candidate. Rick Perry managed to win that one this week with his outrageous display during a speech in New Hampshire. Now there is a fine line between being “passionate” about his view points, as his advisors had called it, and being unprofessional. His voice mumbled at points and his facial expressions where extremely animated. Now, was he drunk? I can’t say. To me it sure looked that way. He giggled unprofessionally and his body movements didn’t seem to make sense. 

When I look for a politician to run the country that I am a part of, I expect them to be a bit animated but not overly so where they come off as if they are on a comedy show. When he tried to point out multiple points, he was not able to count them properly on his fingers. Now, if that was not enough, at the end of the speech, he oddly played with maple syrup and seemed a little too excited about the gift. Whether or not he was drunk, it was unprofessional and it seems no one would take the United States seriously if our president acted like that at an important meeting. I know I wouldn’t take him seriously.

I am all for a little bit of fun, but come on, that was just too much. To me, it doesn't matter if he was drunk or not. Frankly, I would preferred if he had been drunk, because then I would know that he would not act like this at any meeting or address that he had.

Here is the whole video:

Here are just clips of the video: 

These both portray his out of control behavior. Some may not want to watch the whole 25 minute speech so there are the shorter clips of about 8 minutes as well.

Congress Tweeting?!

 

Tweeting on the floor of congress?! Social media is really playing a part in politics now and days. Congress and the media can tweet their opinions on the floor of when listening to the state of the union speech. We can get peoples reactions from the speech, during the speech.

Social Media Use During Campaigns

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SocialMedia/start/505/stop/823

(8 30 to about 14 minutes )

Although this video cannot be embedded, it talks about social media during the campaigns and is a great video to explain this. This is interesting, because they not only talk about twitter and Facebook, but blogs and YouTube as well in the political campaigns. It is talks about how most people using the social media to follow the campaigns are younger. Does it work well, is now the question.