Oh. My. Goodness. I really don’t know what to say about this. Barack Obama (or someone in his campaign) gets this stuff. At MyBarackObama.com you can begin your own social network in Obamaland including but certainly not limited to creating a blog, connecting with friends, making groups, tracking your fundraising, leaving messages for one another… It’s politics 2.0. And on his main site, he’s got the video thing goin’ on, the blog, links to Flickr, YouTube, Facebook. I mean “Get outta here!”
Now I know we are a long ways away from the election, and there is much left to learn about all of these candidates, but is anyone else feeling a little excited by the prospect of this candidacy. A former educator. Someone who seems to have his brain around what’s happening with technology. Someone articulate and, from all accounts, pretty level headed.
What a concept.
Technorati Tags: obama, politics20, social
No way – that’s just not on! speaking a Brit currently living in New Zealand, I take great comfort in the fact that however hopeless our politicians are, your president seems worse. Now, if you got a good one, that would really mess things up: we might have to take the logs out of our own eyes.
Will:
Sorry to throw water on the fire….
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/11/very-bad-bug-a-barackobamacom/
BTW, did you hear Wyclef Jean’s shout-out to Barack during the Grammy’s? The stars are aligning.
How about candidate 2.0?
It’d be refreshing to have someone who “gets it” on very many levels.
Ixnay on the articulateway. Remember Joe Biden…
Otherwise, I agree wholeheartedly.
Seems like not everyone is enamoured with Obama such as our Australian PM whose outburst is reported in one local paper at
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/howard-steps-up-obama-attack/2007/02/12/1171128866429.html
What I don’t get is why Americans choose Presidents the way they choose Oscar winners.
What has this guy ever done? Where is his executive experience? He’s got a great voice, he gives good speeches, he’s telegenic . . . at least Ronald Reagan had been Governor of California.
Besides his movie star assets and smarts, all I see so far is a whole lot of ambition. The guy was elected to the Senate, what, three months ago?
Sheesh.
Read SWAP by Sam Moffie. It’s got Obama type politics in it.
Again, you’d better edit the articulate out before someone goes bonkers.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,248942,00.html
Politics aside…
I’m using this as a way to counteract the “social networking is kids posting pictures of the party on the web and getting in trouble” meme.
Thanks for the comment, Kevin. Maybe I’m missing something, but that inarticulateness came from Joe Biden, not Obama. Right?
Will, the point is that ‘articulate’ is a word that white people often use to describe black people who don’t talk like black people. Sometimes it refers to intelligence, but if you listen, you’ll be surprised at the number of times its used simply as a code word for ‘white accent’ and how rarely it’s used to describe otherwise intelligent african-americans who speak with the more typical black accent. And even when it does refer to intelligence, it suggests, “You’re smart even though I wouldn’t expect you to be.”
It’s been a running complaint in the black community for some time now. I don’t think anyone finds use of the word to be malicious in intent, but rather to be well-meaning but insensitive to it’s connotations. So, it’s a good idea to avoid the word in that context.
Oh. My. Goodness.
So I’m serious…I can’t remember the last time I felt this amount of utter disbelief.
Is that really where we are at?
Biden mentioned African-American in the same sentence. Is there anything that in any way identifies race in what I wrote?
I’m not surprised in any way that Obama is black and articulate. What I’m more surprised about is that he’s a politician and articulate in this day and age.
This seriously depresses me…
I would not use the word articulate to describe our current president, so using the word to describe Obama has more to do with a comparison with the current state of the office. IMHO.
I find a President that can speak well as one that has clear thoughts and has a solid amount of self confidence… therefore, articulate is part of my screening process for presidential candidates. There hasn’t been a wealth of articulate candidates on the scene lately, regardless of racial categorization.
You shouldn’t be depressed. This is just a case of a word that takes on different meanings depending on audience and context, which should resonate with a lot of your work on new literacies. Nobody’s accusing you of racism here–just trying to make you aware of the connotations for future reference.
This Clarence Page column sums up the situation pretty well:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0702070021feb07,1,260895.column?coll=chi-navrailnews-nav&ctrack=1&cset=true
Let’s see if “Web 2.0” can do anything to refute the theory that there is nothing you can do to get young Americans to vote.
So far the web is a great way to raise money and generate heat. It just hasn’t brought young’ns to the polls.
Some pundits actually think that Howard Dean lost the 2004 Iowa caucuses because of all the young out-of-staters who descended on the state and alienated “the locals.”
What is exciting to me is that the primaries are over a year away and people are already talking about the elections. Too few Americans exercise their privilege to vote. The fact that Obama is a fresh face, has teaching experience, has experience in state government as well as at the federal level, sways my vote in his direction. I like that he is liberal in his views and makes attempts to represent those who have elected him to office. I have read both of the books he authored and they gave me a good feeling about him and the direction he hopes to go if he is elected to office.
I believe that Obama knows to win the 2008 election, he will have to motivate the younger voters and to do that he will have to campaign using the media of the twenty-first century. The energy Obama processes is exhilarating and I look forward to watching his campaign.
Barrack has been podcasting since early 2004, so this is not surprising. Being an Illinois resident, this has been a nice way to keep track of what he is up to. Now, if he will post his schedule on his senate website so we can see just how much legislative work he is doing, that would be great!
I believe Edwards is using bloggers to get in touch with those backing his campaign as well. Maybe all of the presidential candidates are “digitally savvy” these days.
My goodness. Much ado about nothing, where Obama is concerned. He appeals to the dreamy Utopians and people who write to the star of “House” for medical advice.
Obama gives a good performance and sings sweetly and lullingly, but I’m terrified that his will be a siren’s song. We will only know the truth by his mistakes. I don’t want to elect him to find that out.
On the other hand, there’s Hillary. I shiver and quake. I kind of see the two as Frank Sinatra and Phyllis Diller.
Right now, give the keys to Rudy.
There’s an article in the Feb. 19, 2007, issue of Time Magazine about bloggers being the hot new compaign hires to get the word out in election ’08. The blogger that John Edwards hired has already had some issues about comments made in earlier posts on her pandagon.net site. Interesting. Will all candidates use bloggers to influence the next election? I’m betting on it.
An ironic update to this:
http://www.midwestbusiness.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=16629
A legislator from the Senator’s home state has just proposed a bill that would ban sites like MySpace from both schools and PUBLIC libraries.
I recently wrote about an interesting new site–TechPresident–that documents web 2.0 use.
http://futura.edublogs.org/2007/02/15/politics-20/
Evidently John Edwards even has a presence on Second Life!
It’ll be interesting to watch as the use of these tools becomes more mainstream, but the concerns around them continue to be debated.
As a senior citizen I am thoroughly impressed
with Barack Obama. The fact that he is not a seasoned politician is an asset.
Although I don’t know why anyone would want to
walk into the diaster our country has become,
am convinced that with his intelligence, sincerity and quest to represent the American
people, not big money and corporations, he is
the person for the job. Go Senator Obama.
Although I admire Mr. Obama, I don’t feel that if the Democrat nominee he could win in 2008. I suggest a Gore/Obama ticket that I feel would be a sure winner. The experience as a VP would position Mr. Obama for a future run at the Presidency. I am a Democrat that has voted for 64 years and feel that I have a feel for what goes on.
Senator Obama I invite you to our home to see some art from Iowa and discuss what we can do for the arts in our country instead of bombs in other countries. Thank you.
I feel Barack has the integrity,honesty,compassion,intelligence, and experience(!)to bring this divided country back together to aggressively solve our many problems and restore our standing in the world. Let’s not pass up this opportunity to have an outstanding leader like him.
If OBAMA were the only candidate, he would look
great. Next to the two parties other candidates, he does look like the ONLY candidate. Guiliani and Clinton are both DREADFUL choices. Gore
is a childish NUTCASE. Fred Thompson….well,
as an older white female, I am VERY tired of
old white men. Watching the judicial committee
make up partisan stuff has made me feel more than ever that it is time for CHANGE. I almost
don’t care about OBAMA’a politics. The office
molds the man, then beats most of ’em down, then
they retire into years of trying to build an
image for the history books. Obama may be too
GOOD for the job, but if he gets into office,
let’s not tear him apart and undermine our gov’t.