Citizentube You Choose '08 - Politubing dream come true

MAN, I feel so out of touch. This has been around a while (a few weeks) but real-life duties were keeping me from highlighting this which is probably the quintessential politubing activity out there today.

YouTube's Citizentube has launched a process by which they will highlight a presidential candidate for a week and you get to virtually townhall with the candidate. This just makes me giddy. Who knows, I may bust out of my shyness and make my own YouTube video finally. Check it out:

Hillary Clinton - a mom's perspective

For those reading this politubing blog, you may have noticed that I had not yet blogged about a pretty obvious candidate - Hillary Clinton. I mean, she's a woman, I'm a woman; she's a mom, I'm a mom; she's a wife, I'm a wife; she's an ex-first lady and a senator, I'm, ummm, not. Anyway, you would think I would relate enormously to her right? Well not so fast...

Let me start off by saying that the reason I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks was due to kids with stomach flus, spring breaks, work-related deadlines, and things like piles of laundry. Now I can imagine Senator Clinton is EXTREMELY intelligent, motivated and WAY more organized that I'll ever dream to be. But it's hard for me to relate to someone that can do so much and supposedly be on par with me. Now it may be that I have a 4 and a 1 yr old, a job, and a super motivated husband who can start his own company while still finish up his full-time UC Berkeley MBA (read "way too busy"). Maybe a few years from now when the kids are grown I'll have more time for grown-up type stuff. But right now my big plan for that time period is to sleep.

Basically we’re not at the same level. Just because she is a woman, that’s not enough to win me over. I think all of the candidates are intellectually capable of understanding where I stand regardless of gender. Of course I would love to see a woman running things and would fully support that. But other than say childbirth (which in my opinion should not be a political issue), most of the political issues that are important to me I would say should be gender neutral. In my opinion, the focus of finding the best presidential candidate needs to be on figuring out who is the most competent, well-intentioned, common-sense type candidate.

So wiping that slate clean, what is my take on Senator Clinton? My first reaction I would have to say is that she's a bit staged. Is that a problem or important? Maybe not, we can't all be Bill. Doing politubing due diligence I’ve checked out many of her YouTube videos. She has the Hillcast videos. Normally I think this is a good approach, but frankly, I tuned out many of her Hillcast videos as they somehow seemed insincere. Maybe because the setting looks like a Phillips soft-light commercial. This notion of “keeping the conversation going”, c’mon- you’re in a mansion with a camera crew and speech writer. Now meet me at Starbucks and we then you can talk to me about keeping the conversation going. Just don’t call it what it’s not. This isn’t some kind of video conference thing. Jab aside, I am glad she’s in the Senate. She is truly a very smart woman with conviction and the means to get things done. That’s a good thing. My favorite Hillcast video is her video on getting troops out of Iraq (apparently others think so too, it’s her most viewed). So I don’t fully agree with all of her plans and actions, for example, I don’t think she should polarize the issue and say “All Democrats should ban together to force the president to change course…” (what about the Republicans). But in this video she’s not playing the female card and is discussing plans for a topic on which she has strong opinions. But in general, the Hillcast keep the conversation going videos, zzzzz. Take a look yourself.

Now watching the videos where she speaks to a crowd, those I felt myself more engaged. My favorite so far was the Rutgers University video. I think for Hillary these are the types of venues she has a better chance of shinning. Maybe not surprisingly I see a trend that her recent videos are more of this type and less “Hillcastish”. Now, I am always annoyed at watching politicans playing up their specific audience (the Red Hat Ladies video) but I fully understand you don’t win the Presidency by simply stating exactly what you believe, damn be all that don’t follow. So OK, I’ll tolerate. In the Rutgers video, Senator Clinton was her eloquent self and because it was set up to be a presentation in front of a crowd, it didn’t feel as contrived as the Hillcast videos. The part of about “Dare to Compete”, that was good. Unfortunately especially because she is a woman, I think she’s going to have to be very, very careful how she presents herself. But in my humble opinion, she needs to just be herself. Don’t overplay the woman/mom/wife card, just be yourself, pretend your gender doesn’t matter. Take a look at Rutgers…

Election 2008 First Quarter Fundraising Results

OK, so now I know why I was getting email bombarded by the Presidential 2008 hopefulls all last week (Hillary Clinton was on a ROLL!). The first quarter campaign finance deadline was looming and now their TubeMogul viewership peak trend makes sense to me, duh...

Now I can't find a cool politubing video explaining the results. If anyone has one, comment away. But this is my take:

Hillary Clinton (What Hill?): $26 million
Barack Obama (Barack oBAM!a): $25 million
Mitt Romney (Mitt I've-got-tons-of-roMONEY): $23 million
Rudy Giuliani (Rudy apparently-not-enough-jewels-IANI): $15 million
John Edwards (President McDreamy is just too fitting, isn't it?): $14+ million
John McCain (John McCan't): $12.5

The Washington Post has a good article about these campaign fundraising results.

I don't know why they need 20 gagillion dollars but if I were a betting lady (and I'm not, I always lose miserably), my money is on Barack oBAMa or Mitt roMoney. Now I am completely unqualified to pass judgment but out of curiosity I looked up who was essentially running John McCain's campaign versus Mitt Romney. My intuition told me McCain is probably using old school political network methods, and Mitt Romney has whiz-bang kid. I mean, this is the founder of BainCapital. Hello...he knows money, as my husband says "Why was it a surprise he could raise money?"

Please, do not quote me but as I understand according to Chris Cilliza from the Washington Post, John McCain's campaign man is Tom Loeffler.

I don't know if they're the same role but one of Mitt Romney's main men is Alex Castellanos. Oh, and apparently the ivory tower word for these savants is "consigliere". Doesn't that just mean "an advisor", why the heck don't they just call them advisors? They must get to wear special tights or a crown or something.

Funny thing is I see Mr. Loeffler mentioned as a consigliere but Mr. Castellanos as I think a strategist. I also read and probably just juicy unfounded gossip that Romney's campaign wants to shy away from anything France-like as they will play the card that people like Hillary Clinton want us to just become a whiny socialist country like France (ca n'est pas possible) so maybe that's why Havana boy is media-guru and Loeffler is still a consiglieremajig.

So the difference in the two:
Tom Loeffler, an ex-Texas Congressman, a lawyer and lobbyist, and obviously politically tremendously well connected. Maybe he's not anymore after this week, who knows. I read this as “old school”.

Alex Castellanos - Media mogul-type man. Not sure how to read this since he’s been the political go-to guy for many but sounds FLASHY to me.

But way more interesting than Castellanos (for me at least) is Mitt Romney's apparent use of SalesForce.com for his campaign fundraising toolset:

Salesforce.com gets into politics by ZDNet's Dan Farber -- Mitt Romney’s Republican presidential campaign has raised about $20 million so far in 2007 with the help of “com-Mitt” software for interacting (fundraising) with donors. The activity is otherwise known as CRM, customer relationship management, and salesforce.com's on demand platform is the foundation of com-Mitt. Not one to miss a new, and timely, market opportunity, [...]

Now THERE's a businessman for ya!

Anyway, in my peace and love world, I would collect all the money that the candidates who don't stand a chance collected (why on God's green earth did MORE candidates just make a bid for the presidency??? ), plus the extra gazillion these guys collected, and maybe help pay off our national debt, help our little planet with its fever-thing, make sure our kids don't come butt-last in all areas of education, or make a really pretty park somewhere.

I'm probably not going to be anyone's consigliagagaga anytime soon…

Al Gore 2008? Hmmm

Sidetracking for a moment here. My husband mentioned that Al Gore just bought a Mercury Hybrid. I'm too tired to go verify it right now but he is usually right about these things. He also says the United Auto Workers (an apparent political force) don't tend to back a president that does not buy American. Hmmm, now that the Oscars are winding down, could the VP be looking for the P?

Anyway, it's Monday, I needed levity, here's a fun Al Gore Global Warming spoof video I wanted to share. But for what it's worth, I really liked his Inconvenient Truth documentary...

Presidential Candidates - 2008 "Final Four"

Here is some analysis that's helping me narrow my March Madness Final Four, er, Six...

TubeMogul Stats
Republican YouTube views March 2007
(I know, numbers are hard to see, basically Romney was ahead and the total views of any given day of the three combined was around 9K - nothing to write home about I tell ya)


TubeMogul Stats
Democrats YouTube views March 2007
Barrack so out skews this graph it seems just plain silly. TechPresident had thought something was going crazy with his views so don't quote me on these...but if it's right, wow...



So I'm on the phone with my dad telling him I've started a blog (a "wha?"). Anyway, I tell him it's about watching online videos about the Presidential candidates. And he says, "You mean the 2008 election, you have a ways to go no?" Then I say, "Well, not really, you know how now you go into Target right after 4th of July and you start seeing Halloween stuff with the Christmas tree lights in the back? It's like that". I absolutely know where he's coming from but I have to tell you, it's way too late if you start thinking of this stuff by that time. You should basically be in your "Final Four" mode right now if you want to matter diddly squat.

I'm in California and they moved the primaries to I think February. Here you also have to be registered for the party (as I remember) to even be able to vote for a candidate for that party. So I figure I have to do my homework, pick a candidate, register for that party so that I can even vote him/her to be a candidate and then maybe sit back and relax. Because at least in this state, as much as we would like to consider ourselves individuals, the Nov 2008 election, is not as critical the "before" stuff. This notion needs to be more publicized I think. People are just waiting before the final exam and frankly, it's usually too late.

With that in mind, unless I see something just truly amusing, I'm going to stick to watching the top six candidates and what they have to say. No doubt someone is going to argue with me but really, cmon, I'll be the first to be seriously amused if this isn't the list (in no order): Dems: Clinton, Edwards, Obama. Reps: Giuliani, Romney, McCain. I'm just guessing of course.

Fun little heavy hitters Republican vs Democrats comparison, Romney vs. Obama (it's not even fun watching this...). Now keep in mind, Romney has 66 videos posted as of today and Obama has 26.

Rudy Giuliani's "A Proven Record"

Here is the quintessential New Yorker, discussing his proven record. Now I liked Rudy (we're on a first name basis of course) during 9-11 and I've been to New York before and after Time Square was Disneyland and frankly I like Disneyland better than the scary ghetto drug thing it was way back before he was mayor. The very few New York friends I have did have positive things to say about Mayor Giuliani so right away, even though I'm a little leery of his ability to make good personal judgement calls, I'll keep watching. What I'll be watching for are signs of pig-headed stubbornness. That's my major beef with our current President (and I voted Republican plenty of times so back off, I'm still very much a down-the-middle person). I can appreciate someone following their conviction, but sometimes your conviction may have drank someone else's Kool-aid a little too hard and it's OK to take a step back and hear what everyone else has to say.

I don't think you can be President if you're not first of all, absolutely a Type A, and secondly, somewhat enchanted by the personal fame. And that's totally OK. But I'll want a President that has enough Type A in them to get the job done, but not so enthralled with himself that he forgets who his/her boss is (we may be tiny but we're many damnit!).

So Mr. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the way I "saw'r" it, keep it real, take it down a notch on some issues, and keep making me believe you'll do a better job running our country that some of your personal affairs and I'll keep watching.

This was a good politubing video in my opinion. Got his points across, not overedited, not politube contrived, and for whatever it's worth, he may be a good spokesperson, but he made me believe him. So I'll say thumbs up.

ParkRidge47 explains "Vote Different" ad

Two great videos explaining how ParkRidge47 (a.k.a. Phil de Vellis - my very first blog post, awww) happened. Truly, truly fascinating. I wrote Phil telling him he seriously left a legacy. Sure, things like this may be fleeting, but he will no doubt be referenced for a very long time I predict. I also told him he was like the Kevin Bacon of politubing. For anyone involved in politubing or its outskirts, you'll figure out what degree you are away from him. Hmm, I'm going to look him up in LinkedIn, this just keeps getting more fun.

ParkRidge47 explains "Vote Different" ad:

YouTube's news and politics editor Steve Grove interviews Phil de Vellis on the making of "Vote Different"

What he says about politubing's affect on the political homefront, it's like I'm talking. When my (very smart already by the way) 4 year old gets to be of voting age, there will be no townhalls. She'll just make a 2 minute video of what she fervently believes in and why, and I will expect that she also provides thoughtful consideration on how it could be solved (otherwise it's just whining) and the candidates will be having to schedule time to watch the million videos the citizen's create so they truly get to know what is important to the country and some really good ideas on how to solve things. THAT would be cool.

TubeMogul John Edward's Stats

This is a screen capture of TubeMogul stats for John Edward's YouTube videos. I don't know but my point about the news conference being "big" is spot on (OK, so it didn't take rocket science to figure that out).

If you are into the YouTube, MySpace, Revver, video "thing", you should know TubeMogul. You sign up, it's free, and tada, you get really, really cool charts and info. You can compare across videos, publishers and sites. I just started tracking the candidate's YouTube video viewership so I'll try to remember to keep posting some interesting info...

ExpertVoter Candidate Issues Chart - Way Cool

Now here's some politubing at it's finest. ExpertVoter.org lays out YouTube videos in a chart that list specific topics. How cool is that!? For me it's perfect, I don't necessarily care about all of their views on every topic. So being able to easily scan what's important for me and click what they have to say!! Niiiiiice. OK, I wouldn't be a girl if I didn't comment on their colors though. A little jarring, a more subdued professional choice and this site is on to something.. Check it out:

OnlineMaven talks politubing

I don't know OnlineMaven guy but I just happened to watch this video which I very much agree with in regards to politicians needing to build some "politubing" savoir-faire when it comes to posting their campaign videos to real people TV (YouTube, etc.). Who knows, maybe Hillary Clinton's campaign will watch and take note of the tips from the commoners...

Mitt Romney - prolific polituber but needs substance

Decided I needed to branch out and take a peek at some of the heavy hitters out there so let’s pick on Mitt Romney this time. What do I know about him? Let's see,... I know he led the Salt Lake City Olympics and I heard that they were the first well-run, I think even profitable Olympics we've ever had - a definite plus in my book. I remember seeing him during the ceremonies and thinking he was a poised, intelligent and stately man – also a plus. I like the idea of a savvy poised businessman running our country. Our country should be run like a well-oiled machine. I’m not here to Bush-bash at all but compare Romney against Bush from a “poised” perspective, well, you can just see the visual.

I just took a very quick peek at his YouTube video repertoire since it seemed pretty "prolific". He has 65 videos posted to his official YouTube campaign site. Now keep in mind that YouTube heavy-hitter Obama has 24. Given that there is no way I'm going to sift through 65 videos, I clicked around and found that a mighty large portion of them are I'm guessing politicians doing the Mitt Romney love-fest thing. That's all well and good but unless I'm having these guys over for Sunday dinner, I'm not just going to assume if they think he's great so should I. He also has a good chunk of videos from his vast array of news interviews he's done (many from Fox which unfortunately is a bit of a minus for me since they tend to be a little on the "dramatic" side).

Again, I know nothing about how this should get done but speaking from the gut, instead of blasting all of these videos out there (many hardly get any views at all, somebody this famous should be getting some VIEWS no?), wouldn't it be somehow refreshing if one day while he's in his little flannel button-down PJ's and a cup of coffee, he gets on his laptop with his built-in Web Cam and just says, "Hey America, this is my take on such and such". Just a little heart-to-heart with some real substance. So OK, realistically, maybe not exactly this scenario, not sure if I want footage of our future president in his PJ's at the next World Summit of course, but you get the idea.

Take this video for example. This is one of his official YouTube videos and it seems to be one of his most viewed, that's not saying it's the best, most popular etc. But whatever, I'm guessing one of the reasons for the viewership is that it's not just a CNN interview news replay or one of his cronies asking us to vote for him. It's his response to a dicey situation when an ancient video of a debate with Ted Kennedy he had 13 years ago surfaced. Now I don’t actually agree with some (most) of his beliefs that he covers. But what I could appreciate was his candid and brave response to some truly SAUCY issues.

So maybe next time, loose the 1980’s phone, get a headset, and every once in a while, take a peek at the “Web cam” and let us feel you’re reaching us (but um, maybe next time pick some slightly less salty topics too. I know they’re important, but to me Presidents are here to run our complex country and properly represent our global leadership role, we’ll take care of the nuclear family on our own thank you, just please trust us …).

Here, what do you think?

Hunter, ummm why are you bothering?

Newbie girl here again to talk about a topic that has always plagued me but I've always been too apathetic. But as I've said, this time, I'm trying to care since now I see it probably is important and I've got some kids to think about. Let's talk about these Presidential 08 hopefuls. Off the top of my head without researching and if Jay Leno were to ask Joe Smith off the streets the same question, I'm guessing they'd come up with the same answers. So there's Obama, Clinton, Guliani, Edwards, Romney, McCain, I know there are more but couldn't tell ya who they were. Now let me check the list.... HEY, I'm pretty good! They are all hopefuls, I think I misspelled Giuliani, sorry.

Ok, so my topic... now I realize we're way ahead of the real campaign yada yada but my message to, wait, let me go look up their names.... OK, let me pick on Hunter, my message to you is, umm, why are you bothering? Who are you playing golf with that is still funding your campaign? And I'm guessing there are still many, many more genuinely hopeful Presidents out there. But just picking on unfortunately Hunter, who I'm sure he's a fine fellow, is it that you want to be President next go around and you need your name in now? Let me show you guys a politubing stat from techPresident.com:


Already the "top" names are so beyond their league it's not even funny. And there are many, many, many "top" names actually. More than I would have ever known to blurt out. At the point where Mickey Mouse starts having a better chance of being a write-in candidate, don't you just say, "Well, that was fun, but now back to work..".

Oh, I just saw one of Hunter's videos. I'll post if for you politubers, it's a classic - "VOTE FOR ME, I'll make sure we build us a GREAT BIG OL' WALL smack dab in the middle of Mexico and the US. Just think, it will be so grand, you'll be able to see it aaaaallll the way from the heavens. Now there's a legacy I want to leave my grandbabies with!"

Oh man, now I know why he's in the dust. A wall? You post a low-resolution video of yourself pounding your chest about a wall that will be an ugly scar in the face of American History?

I just don't get it, do you?

Ok, well, at least I can say this is getting easier for me. I don't think Hunter would have my vote.

Hey! This politubing thing just makes it so much easier for me, I don't have to get epileptic attacks watching multi-screens and fly screen-thingy's on any of the news channels.

President McDreamy's Cancer News Conference

Just thought of a funny skit John Stewart from The Daily Show should do. It's horribly crass since it is based on John and Elizabeth Edwards' announcement today about her cancer. Probably too touchy of a subject buuut well, couldn't resist.

John Edwards News Conference regarding Elizabeth's Cancer

I lost my mom to cancer as a young teen, went through four years of remission roller coaster hell and unfortunately things did not work out. So yes, truly, my heart goes out to the family. It's certainly a defining moment in their lives and I can only sincerely wish them the best.

I'm one of those wishy-washy middle America mom's that is both a Republican and a Democrat. Yes let's take care of our kids and the sick but let me keep my money thank you very much. So I truly don't have a strong opinion on which candidate I would vote for at this point. But today's press conference called by the John Edwards campaign on Wednesday night mindyou... well, let's just say it left a decent amount of suspicion in me on their handling of this topic.

I'm trying to go through their thought process... She goes in Monday morning with a suspicious pain, gets scared to death, summons John home, they go through the necessary test, get them back UNBELIEVABLY FAST by the way (not that this is suspicious, just funny, I'm still waiting for some lab results taken 3 weeks ago...) find out that though things are not necessarily good, they could be worse... "HEY, I have an idea, let's call a press party together, invite our zillion friends over and announce this to the world! That's a fine idea indeed."

I don't know, me... I would have taken say, the WEEKEND at least to simmer on things see how it pans out... Maybe send a press release about it, no doubt the media would have still picked up the story and it would have done them just as good, but a major news conference!? Somehow, it didn't seem like the appropriate and discreet venue for this.

Somewhere though, some Desperate Housewife in middle America (I can say this, because I'm one of them, kinda...) is swooning over President McDreamy and his pure adoration for his lovely wife. She's probably thinking (in a Southern drawl - I can say that too, I'm from Texas)... "That's just so special. Isn't he just pure and good? Look at him, so strong and normal and white , a real man I tell ya... kinda cute too, tee hee. That Chapel Hill story of their wedding reception (birds chirp), I can just picture it now, lovely white dress, little children running around, they really are strong people aren't they? Sigh....Well I'll tell you Freda, they sure got my vote!".

Edwards is then (with a reeeeeallly heavy drawl now) "Well if we can't be strong through what life brings us, than we couldn't be President now could we? So uh, we'll get through this folks and oh, while I have ya'll here - Vote for me! Thank you..."

I don't know, it seemed sensational-milking to me. He lost some street cred in my book.

Unveiling the father of politubers - Vote Different video

Well the guy who will no doubt be named the father of "politubers" has been unveiled (term coined by TubeMogul). "Phil" from Blue State Digital created a very cool YouTube video in wich he did a mash-up of a 1984 Apple ad and Hillary Clinton with Obama as the go-to guy.

Hillary 1984 Video

He did this on a Sunday from his home (read "watch out big ad agencies who charge the big bucks for these things). Blue State Digital is responsible for creating the Obama 08 web site I believe. He didn't mean to represent his company but that's a side point (he got fired from there because of this).

What we should all be reading from this is what the Internet has provided for the people. Joe Shmo really can influence now. Probably not for too long, Darwinism has a way of working its way into these things but for now, "Politubing" has exploded. Right now it's uncharted, feisty, frivolous, sometimes ridiculous, usually entertaining, chaotic and fun. Just like the wild west should be. YouTube viewership for Obama official video campaign has registered over 1 million views. Will YouTube be so influential as deciding who the next President will be? Crazy. Rest assured, by the next presidential campaign, politubing will become an art mastered by the few. So for now, let the people decide what the course of this chaos should be.