After his keynote speech, do you think Mark Warner has it takes to be the next president after Barack Obama? Is it time for Mark Warner 2016?
Or is town dogcatcher a better destination?
Just because the issues of the 2008 presidential election are serious doesn’t mean that your involvement in the election always has to be serious. Sometimes, a little bit of humor can go a long way to spreading a message you believe in.
Take this bumper sticker, for instance: I Wish Michelle Obama Was My First Lady. Yes, it means you’d like to see the Obamas in the White House, with Michelle Obama as the First Lady there. But, the bumper sticker also means that you would like to have Michelle Obama as your first lady.
Hey, Barack Obama is the most popular politician of our time. I think he can take the competition.
| How do you react to the absurdity that is John McCain forgetting how many homes he owns? You could just focus on the quote, letting it speak for itself…. and it does speak volumes about McCain’s elitism, his gimpy memory, his thoughtless wealth and his inability to relate to Jane and Joe and the rest of us people whose names begin with J.
You could do that, or you could turn it on its head. The reporter from Politico who asked the question didn’t ask a follow-up. I know what my follow-up question would be: “Um, hey, Mr. McCain. Could I have one of your houses?” |
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Over at Democrats.org, they’ve put together a sweet little website, Exxon-McCain 2008, a parody site that reveals the connections between John McCain and the oil industry. Did you know, for instance, that John McCain has put together a little $4 Billion legislative gift to the oil companies while he runs around telling the rest of us little people that he can’t afford to do anything that would help us out of this energy crisis? For shame, John McCain!
Here is an Exxon-McCain 2008 bumper sticker to help spread the meme, using the style of the George W. Bush 2004 bumper sticker to help reinforce the idea that John McCain is just four more years of George W. Bush.
The print-on-demand political merchandising system has been hit hard this month by the waves of inflation surging through the economy. CafePress has increased the price of its bumper stickers by about one third, sending the price of a bumper sticker, with shipping, over five dollars.
That’s a hard price for people to swallow, when their jobs are insecure, when their homes are defaulting, and when more of their income is swallowed up in essential expenses like food and fuel.
There is an alternative, however, to print-on-demand bumper stickers. Over at Irregular Times, they’re offering pre-printed Barack Obama bumper stickers, and are able to do so at a dramatically lower price than what the print-on-demand services can offer.
Instead of a price over five dollars, this Barack Obama bumper sticker is sold at a price of just $1.40 when bought in packs of 25. Yes, that price includes shipping and handling.
People want to get involved in politics. They want to do the right thing, but right now the cost of involvement can seem prohibitive for many Americans. Thanks to Irregular Times for bringing the price of political speech down to a level that people can really afford.
Barack Obama is going to be the next President of the United States, and you had better get used to the idea. Some people won’t have a hard time accepting the idea, especially those people who felt a touch of bile rise up the throat every time they say “President Bush”.
Others will have a harder time. They cannot conceive that a man like Barack Obama could become President of the United States. It makes the bile rise in their own throats.
The poor dears. Let’s not allow them to get flat footed by Obama like we were by George W. Bush. Let’s help them out. Let’s expose them to the phrase, President Obama, so that they can get used to seeing it, even before the election takes place. That way, they won’t panic on Inauguration Day.
Practice saying it - President Obama.
They don’t have to like it, but if our democracy is to survive, they have to learn to accept it.
I’m writing this post through a service called ThisNext, a kind of social networking web site that focuses on shopping. People recommend things to buy, writing short reviews of them and arranging them into lists.
Among the items that are reviewed and recommended on the network are political bumper stickers - this one, for example.
I appreciate this bumper sticker’s effort to stretch Americans’ political memories. Back in the year 2000, America chose George W. Bush, believing his promise that he would bring honor and integrity to the White House. Barack Obama is offered by the sticker as a long-awaited fulfillment of that promise.
It’s a great message for Obama supporters, but I do want to offer a caveat emptor message: Barack Obama is making a lot of promises, just like George W. Bush did. We won’t know whether he’ll fulfill those promises until he’s actually President. Progressives, as much as anyone else, will need to watch Barack Obama like a hawk, and work to hold him accountable to his promises.
A caveat emptor for ThisNext too. ThisNext offers a means through which people can write articles like this, for their own blogs, on the ThisNext web site.
Think about it for just a second, and you’ll realize that people who write blogs can ALREADY write blog articles about bumper stickers, or anything else for sale for that matter, without the ThisNext widget.
Writing a blog article on ThisNext actually is more difficult, because it doesn’t allow the use of html. A blog article with no links? How useless is that?
Well, it’s actually very useful for ThisNext, because there is one link in this article - to the bumper sticker listed on ThisNext, which provides ThisNext with a source of affiliate income. How very convenient for them. How very useless for bloggers.
My experiment with blogging through ThisNext is done.
Post script: Dear Goodness me. ThisNext blogging is even worse than I thought. Not only is it super-controlling, stripping out html, it doesn’t even work properly. There’s supposed to be a bumper sticker graphic with a link for buying the bumper sticker in this article, but look for yourself: No graphic, and no link, is there.
Now I’m going to have to go back in and remove that garbage code, and place in my own link to the bumper sticker - direct, without any extra affiliate nonsense. Thanks for nothing, ThisNext. I’ll keep blogging for myself.
The more I see of social networking sites like ThisNext, the more I think that independent web sites are really the way to go for substantial networking. Making links and “friends” comes quick and easy on social networking sites, but so easy that the benefit is ephemeral, the relationships lasting just as long as a click.
Watch out, Barack Obama - progressives have endured seven years of hearing from Democratic politicians that the Democratic Party would stand up for strong progressive change, but only after the current election, during which certain compromises of progressive values would have to be made. Every time, after the election is over, we get the same excuses. They say that the Democrats can’t act now, that we need to wait, that they need just a little bit more power.
They must think we’re pretty stupid, because they’re trying to pull this trick on us again.
This time, Barack Obama promised unequivocally that he would filibuster the FISA Amendments Act and its retroactive immunity for telecommunications corporations that helped George W. Bush illegally spy on millions of law abiding Americans. Then, Obama went ahead and voted to kill the filibuster, and voted for the FISA Amendments Act.
This broken promise has inspired a huge progressive backlash against Barack Obama. It’s spawned bumper stickers like this one, asking, Why did Barack Obama turn his back on our civil liberties?
It’s also spawning a new network of anti-Obama web sites by political progressives. See Progressives Against Obama.
This FISA Amendments Act vote has got to be the most obtuse piece of political triangulation I have ever seen. It has cost Barack Obama his image as an idealist, lost him progressive votes, and hasn’t brought Obama any more support from Republicans.
If Obama loses the election, it will be the FISA Amendments Act that did him in.
It’s like Lucy, telling Charlie Brown that she promises to hold the ball still for him to kick this time.
Sorry Lucy, but you’ll have to find some other sucker to play around with.
What with Barack Obama breaking his promise to actively oppose the FISA Amendments Act, I’m pretty downhearted about the Senator as a presidential candidate. The Constitution is kind of sort of the core document of our nation and all, and if he won’t protect and defend it, what can we depend on him to do?
This is the closest I can come to designing a pro-Obama bumper sticker lately:
Sigh. At least he’s not John McCain.
In less than one hour from now, Hillary Clinton will give a speech to concede the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton herself indicates that she is not seeking the position of Vice President in the Obama White House. Besides, it would be too tricky for Barack Obama to manage both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton maneuvering within his own administration
So who will the vice presidential nominee under Barack Obama be? Let’s consider someone who is like Hillary Clinton, but without all the baggage.
Consider Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. Governor Granholm has obvious demographic similarities to Hillary Clinton, without all the baggage that Hillary Clinton would bring.
Besides that, Granholm has executive experience of the sort that Barack Obama needs to balance his ticket. Finally, consider the rancor with which the Michigan delegate problems were resolved. Adding Jennifer Granholm to the Obama for President campaign would go a long way toward Democratic Party healing.
If you agree, show your support for Granholm. Put this Obama-Granholm 2008 bumper sticker on your car, and promote a better choice for Obama’s VP everywhere that you drive.
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