Article VI Blog

News from the dark side - Take II Actually, it's analysis, but it sounds better this way!

The Romney allies list grows. No mention of religion - isn't that how it's supposed to be?

John McCain loses Dem vote in SC primary. That's a weird sentence.

Yesterday's WSJ Opinionjournal's Political Diary carried some interesting stuff. (Subscription required, but this will get you there if you spend the cash.) From the second to last item:

Mr. Kuo, an evangelical Christian, is not in a forgiving mood after his stint in the Bush White House. His book is entitled "Tempting Faith: An Inside Account of the Rise of Christian Conservatives and Their Betrayal by the Bush White House." The memoir recounts his disillusionment with a president who "campaigned that he was going to be a different kind of Republican who injected serious new funds to care for the poor" through religiously-based private organizations.

But Mr. Kuo says the administration's priorities changed after 9/11 and it never seriously pursued new funding for poverty relief. Instead, it lavished attention and small favors on evangelical leaders in hopes that they would deliver votes for the Bush/Cheney ticket in the 2004 election. But despite all the smiles and bonhomie, Mr. Kuo claims White House aides mocked evangelical leaders behind their backs as "ridiculous, out of control and just plain goofy." Mr. Kuo says that the White House wound up "mocking the millions of faithful Christians who had put their trust and faith in the president."

Let's see, half-crazed Islamic fanatics kill 3000 people on our soil and this guy claims the White house turned it back on Evangelicals because it fought back? Sounds suspiciously like sour grapes to me. Those of us of faith that fiddle with politics have to remember - religion and faith are all about the ideal, politics and governance in America is all about the possible. In this case, it's not a matter of the ideals being abandoned, it's just a matter of events overtaking desire and some ideals having to be set aside to deal with the immediate, which in turn limits the possible. If Mr. Kuo was mocked it's likely because he failed to grasp the big picture, not because of his faith.

Besides, there has been roughly $1b a year delivered in faith based initiatives, despite heavy opposition from Dems, and two great Supreme Court appointments. I'd say the Bush administration has been pretty good to Evangelicals. I would hate to think it's just about the money for Evangelicals.

A Preview of Political Techno-Warfare To Come: The Viral Video Smear?

(Lowell adds:) Also from Political Diary comes this story from New Jersey about tactics we will surely see in the 2008 presidential election:

The local New York CBS affiliate recently hosted a debate between Democrat Bob Menendez and Republican Tom Kean Jr. and noticed that Mr. Kean had to run a gauntlet of Iraq war protesters organized by Mr. Menendez to get into the studio. After the debate, a woman calling herself the mother of a Marine interrupted Mr. Kean's press conference and accused him of running away from military parents with questions about his support for the Iraq war. Of course, the resulting video ended up on YouTube and Menendez aides quickly ran out a press release calling attention to it: "Caught On Tape: Kean Jr. Running From Military Mother, Ducking Questions About War In Iraq."

That all this happened under the nose of WCBS and its reporter Marcia Kramer was the Menendez campaign's comeuppance. In a piece entitled "anatomy of a smear," she analyzed what she called the Menendez "dirty trick" and "sting." The woman, Jo Ann Sohl, had been smuggled into the press conference by the Menendez campaign, which had then made a video of the staged confrontation. Only fittingly, Ms. Kramer let a Kean spokesman have the last word, calling Mr. Menendez "a political thug who employs Hudson County boss-style tactics in an election."

You can watch the Menendez "hit video" on McKean here. Just for comparison, here's a video attacking Jack Murtha by posting video of his Abscam "sting" video from 26 years ago. On its face, it's devastating, atlhough it may not have much impact on the race.

In the era of YouTube, videos are easy to distribute and at least as effective, I think, as the simple telephone push poll and other vehicles for whisper campaigns. The current delivery mode of choice appears to be viral video. On at least one web site you can even subscribe to podcasts of the political viral videos.

I haven't been paying attention to anyone else using viral videos in political campaigns, but I'm sure we'll see lots of them in 2008. Sadly, they could be very effective in a smear campaign. They appear to be untraceble and very easy to forward in an e-mail. Governor Romney's religion makes him a potentially favorite subject for producers of such mini-movies– and I'm afraid the RunMittRun videos will be the exception. Many of the videos we'll see about Romney could be quite ugly. Imagine, for example, a video using this clip from "The Godmakers," a particularly vicious 1980s-era animated caricature of Mormonism.

I hate to be pessimistic, but it is not going to be pretty when stuff like this starts hitting the Internet.

Update:

Here's a disturbing report from Robert Cox, writing in the Washington Examiner. Apparently Michelle Malkin has been booted off YouTube:

Last week she received notice from YouTube, the world’s most popular video sharing service, that her video had been deemed “offensive.” The result? Her account was terminated and her videos deleted.

YouTube refused to say why her videos were “offensive” and there was no avenue available to challenge the decision. Today, her videos are gone and her voice is suppressed on the most important video “node” on the Internet.

This will be interesting to follow. Will YouTube find poltiical videos from both right and left "offensive?" There's reason to worry about that, Cox reports:

YouTube is poised to become the eBay of video file sharing. If you want the biggest audience for your video, you want access to the most potential viewers — and that means YouTube.

Google understands this dynamic, which is why the company announced Monday that it will purchase YouTube — a company that has never made a dime — for $1.65 billion. YouTube fits very well within the Google online media portfolio. The company already owns Blogger.com, the most popular blog hosting site online, and Google News, which in two short years has become one of the top news sites in the world.

Don’t think it matters? Consider that, according to USA Today, 98 percent of the money donated to political parties by Google employees — “Google Millionaires” — went to Democrats.

Looks like we need more conservative techno-geeks to hit it big, and quickly.

Technorati Tags: David Kuo, YouTube, viral video, Google, Michelle Malkin, Blogger.com, Robert Cox, Tom Kean, Jr., Robert Menendez, smear campaign