Category Archives: Politics

“Stuff White People Like” Gets Unfair Criticism

Posted by Andy Boyer in Media, Personal, Politics

A few weeks ago, a friend pointed me to a blog called "Stuff White People Like." If you have a sense of humor and can understand wit and sarcasm, you’ll find the site hilarious.  White people making fun of all the stupid things white people do.  Instant classic.

It’s also obvious that it’s just a site where a few guys like you and I started writing a few gags for friends and family, and it kind of went viral.  The site is still hosted on the WordPress.com domain, meaning they don’t even make any ad revenue on it.  It’s just people writing because they like to write, like most of the other 40 million blogs out there.

Well maybe they are a victim of their own success.  Or maybe the whole race issue has really gotten out of control.  But a Houston Chronicle article says, "Race-related Blog Causes Controversy." The article gos as far as to say, "It’s the latest in a string of racially charged blogs that act as a virtual shrink’s sofa for those tackling the tricky topics of race and class.’

Good god.  Are you kidding me?  When did white people making fun of white people become "racially charged."  The article’s author, Corilyn Shropshire, is really stretching when she makes claims that the site is anything more than what normal, well-adjusted people would find funny.

Check it out and tell me if you disagree. 

Pity the Poor Guy Running the Wyoming Caucuses

Posted by Andy Boyer in Media, Personal, Politics

Think about this.  As long as Wyoming has been a state, it hasn’t mattered one iota what happened in their caucus.  Heck, a caucus was simply a reason to get together in March and have a few beers and celebrate the coming spring. 

It’s not a knock against them, it’s just nature.  Being Wyoming, they couldn’t risk having a caucus in the middle of a January blizzard.  And since barely anyone lives there, no candidates were coming to visit anyway.  So they put some guy named "Joe" or "Steve" or "Sam" or something in charge of making sure ballots got printed.  And Joe or Steve or Sam had to call a bunch of buddies, or just the same people from 4 years ago, and find a few houses willing to throw a few caucuses.

But not this year.  All of a sudden, Wyoming’s 12 little delegates matter.  And now you have a whole bunch of guys named Jack or Jim or something calling Joe saying, "Uh, I only have room in my living room for 12 people.  On the latest evite, it says 237 people are coming…"

As my friend described it, it’s like being the kid in school who forgot about his science project, grabbed 5 leaves from outside and taped them to construction paper, only to find out everyone has to present in front of a live televised audience, and Hannah Montana and LeBron James are the judges. 

Look at Texas, where the Democratic Party had weeks to see that there would be a huge turnout.  Yet you have the biggest mess ever imagined, a caucus that people compared to a rodeo.  You think those guys are the only ones who are going to be stuck with their pants caught in their lassos?

I mean, pretend you volunteered up to run your kid’s Little League tournament, and then 6 months later you find out the other teams will be from Iraq, Dubai, Pakistan, Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia and the US teams will be coached by Brad Pitt, Bono, Rosie O’Donnel, David Duke and Louis Farrakhan.  It’s not your fault.  You aren’t prepared for this.  It just is what it is.

So pity the poor guy running the Wyoming Caucus.   And make sure you tune in.

 

Is Obama Starting Primary Speeches Early?

Posted by Andy Boyer in Politics

I have a feeling political marketing is going to dominate AndyBoyer.com for the next few months.  There are a lot of interesting comparisons between business and political marketing.  So please allow me to indulge myself by discussing an issue that I don’t know if anyone else has even noticed.    

Have you ever asked yourself, on a primary night, how are all the candidates able to be seen live on Cable News Networks? Wouldn’t they all want to go on about 30 minutes before the late news, in order to get their sound bites on, but also have East Coast and West Coast Audiences watch live.  Plus, the networks need to know when they are going on, so they know when to run their commercials.

So, how do they decide?  How does all this get communicated? Are there simply gentleman’s rules that everyone follows?  Maybe the winners get the choice time slots? But how do you choose if you split the primaries up for grabs that night?

So for the sake of the rest of this article, let’s assume that every night the Communications Directors talk to each other and decide what time each candidate will go live.  And then they communicate the time and order to the networks.   

Here’s  the odd thing I’ve noticed, and I don;t know where to place the blame.  The last few weeks, Senator Obama has taken the last slot, usually starting a little before 10:40 ET.  But he is the ONLY candidate I have seen that does not wait for the candidate before him to finish.  Just as the candidate rolls toward his conclusion, Obama comes on his stage across town.  Then the news networks switch over to Obama, and we miss the conclusion.

So who’s fault is this?  Are the other candidates running long to try to derail Obama?  Or is Obama coming on stage early to derail other candidates?  Or is this just a silly coincidence? Keep a watch next week and let me know what you think. 

Is This Ethical Online Political Advertising?

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Media, Politics

(Disclosure: I have not publicly supported Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.  This question comes from an unbiased political point of view.)

A new web site launched today and was mentioned by CNN.com.  The site is called DelegateHub.com. Now, at first glance this site appears to be a neutral, non-partisan site in which questions about the delegate process can be answered.  But if you look at the writing,it is a blatant attempt at the Clinton Campaign to twist your perception of the delegate process.  The site claims to provide "Facts" not "Myths" about the delegate process.  Here are some "facts" it mentions.

1)  The first fact is fairly tame and may lead you to believe the whole article is unbiased.  "Fact: The Democratic Party chooses its delegates in three ways: 1) through primaries where millions vote; 2) through caucuses where thousands vote; and 3) it gives a role to elected leaders and other party activists in the process."   However, read it carefully and you’ll see specific language was included to strip the caucus process of some of its legitimacy.  "Millions vote in primaries, thousands vote in caucuses." Nowhere does it mention that Obama basically sweeps caucuses.  That line is designed to show you that Caucus delegates are unrepresentative of the election process. 

2) "FACT: Neither candidate can secure the nomination without automatic delegates."  There are 4,049 total delgates, of which about 3,200 come from state primaries and caucuses.  Obama has 1158 of the 2174 (Clinton has 1016).  So technically, Obama could mathematically sweep 867 out of the remaining 1100 or so.  So, this is unlikey, but not a true fact.  Another werid part of this statement is the claim, "These delegates represent nearly half of the 2,208 delegate votes needed for the nomination." CNN says you need 2,025, not 2,208.  And 2,025 seems to be the right math.

3) FACT: Automatic delegates are expected to exercise their best judgment in the interests of the nation and the Democratic Party.  This seemes accurate, bu tmeans, "They don’t have to, and shouldn’t, listen to their constituents."

4) FACT: Florida and Michigan should count, both in the interest of fundamental fairness and honoring the spirit of the Democrats’ 50-state strategy. Now, this is no more a fact than me saying I think it’s going to rain today.  This is like when you are playing kickball and a car drives up, so you yell "Time Out."  But the kicker doesnt hear you and pops it in the air and you catch it.  Then you claim the time out didn’t really count.  This is even more shady.  All the candidates adhered to the Democrats’ wacky decision to punish Florida and Michigan and not seat their delegates.  Now that Clinton "won" those states (no one else was even on the Michigan ballot) her campaign wants to take away the punishment.  Just plain slimy if you ask me. A revote could be fair, but simply counting votes based on a race only one person participated in seems wrong.

5) "The race is currently a virtual tie, with the campaigns now separated by a small handful of delegates, barely 1% of all the delegates to the Democratic Convention."  Obama today leads  1319 – 1250, a margin of 69 delegates.  True, 40 delegates make up 1% of all delegates.  That is one way to look at the numbers.  Another way to look at the numbers is that Obama has 51.3% of votes between them compared to Clinton’s 48.7%, which is a 2.6% spread.  And another way to look at the numbers is to only count the "Pledged" delegates  – the ones from the primaries and caucses (aka the non-Super Delegates.)  In that race, Obama has 53.3% and Clinton has 46.7%, a spead of 6.6%.

Why do I care? Because this kind of marketing seems non-genuine.  It feels a lot like a web page Mortgage companies put up in order to generate leads.  Or maybeit reminds me of web sites that sell "How to Get Rich" books.  So I’m curious if I’m over-sensitive, or if this carefully spun web site makes anyone else just a little uncomfortable.  

Where is news on the Google China Tax Evasion story?

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Marketing, Media, Politics

So, here’s something that’s news because there’s no news about it.

On November 19, TechCrunch reported that Google was being investigated by the Chinese government for a number of tax issues, all of which were too difficult for me to understand or techCrunch to analyze or give perspective on.  My initial thought was that this was simply a follow up shot across Google’s bow.

If you remember a few months back, all the U.S. search engines in China had their traffic redirected to sina.com, in what many said was a response to President Bush meeting with the Dali Lama.  So now after a "tip" from someone, the Chinese government is going to fine and/or punish Google for some allegedly shaky financial bookkeeping.

Now if you ask me, when a company has more money than it knows what to do with, cheating a few bucks in taxes in a country it desperately wants to do business in would be downright foolish.  I simply can’t believe Google would purposely do anything improper in dealing with Byzantine Chinese tax laws when they desperately want to do business in this market.  It simply makes no sense for Google to try to cheat the Chinese government out of less than what one of their GM’s is worth in stock options.

But the bigger question for me is, why is TechCrunch the most respected news outlet covering this?  On a search on the terms – Google Tax China – there’s no WSJ, New York Times or even anything from the Bay Area papers.  Why isn’t anyone writing about the Chinese accusing Google of tax improprieties?   Is it part of some U.S. mandate that "We will not question the Chinese government?" 

 

U.S. Search Engines Have New Pot Hole in Dance With China

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Politics

When you have a few billion potential customers living inside your country, and a totalitarian monopoly on who gets to sell to them, you wield quite a bit of power on the global business climate.

Such is the case this week as the government of China is now redirecting searches from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft search engines, and sending them to the China based Baidu.com.

The fact that this action comes about 3 minutes after the Dali Lama received a Congressional Medal of Honor is at best, "sketchy."   

This kind of activity puts American companies in a tough spot.  From everything I know, supporting the Dali Lama is the *right* thing to do.  China is effectively pushing American companies to try to convince the U.S. government to change their chance.  This will not be the last time a U.S. firm is going to have decide on whether they are beholden to shareholder value or global ethics.  Redirecting IP packets is simply the easiest thing China could do.  It will be interesting to see what comes next.   

Is Google trying to Affect Politics?

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Marketing, Politics

So, here’s an issue that only matters when you are a company serving 40% of the ads on the Internet.

According to an article written by someone named Robert Cox, founder of the Media Bloggers Association, Google is not allowing a Republican senator to run ads that denounce MoveOn.org. 

According to the article, the banned advertisements said, “Susan Collins is MoveOn’s primary target. Learn how you can help” and “Help Susan Collins stand up to the MoveOn.org money machine.” The ads linked to Collins’ campaign Web site with a headline reading “MoveOn.org has made Susan Collins their #1 target.” The Collins Web site claims that MoveOn has contributed $250,000 to her likely Democratic opponent and has run onine ads against her costing nearly $1 million. The Web site also displays MoveOn.org’s controversial “General Betray Us” ad.

So, is this paranoia?  One one hand, a company should be able to run whatever ads it wants.  But on the other, if you are the ad serving technology running ads on millions of blogs and web sites, doesn’t the line get blurry if you are banning ads you may not agree with?

Google uses the argument of, "You don’t have right’s to MoveOn’s Trademark so you can’t use it in an ad."   But that’s a pretty slippery slope, and I’d be shocked if every other ad in Google Ad Sense avoids using an unlicensed trademark.  In fact, the article states, "Google routinely permits the unauthorized use of company names such as Exxon, Wal-Mart, Cargill and Microsoft in advocacy ads. An anti-war ad currently running on Google asks “Keep Blackwater in Iraq?” and links to an article titled “Bastards at Blackwater — Should Blackwater Security be held accountable for the deaths of its employees?”"

If Google’s not careful, long term these kind of issues could turn into a reason for the DOJ to start looking into whether Google is a monopoly that needs to be broken up, using the same logic they used on Microsoft a few years back.  Exept this time it’s not a piece of software Google isn’t allowing to be distrubuted, it’s censorship of speech. If a single entity that controls 40% of the online ads decides to censor those ads to affect public policy, even the non-paranoid might get a little spooked.

Targeting the Young (and Single?) Voter

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Media, Politics

Young crowds, a charasmatic performer, a lot of hype, affluent people – it has all the makings of an event or concert designed to drive single people to a bar or show. 

But this is not a bar promotion, it’s a polical event.

If you believe the New York Daily News, there are more than a few undertones from the Barack Obama campaign team that Obama rallies have become the new *it* scene for young single people tired of the bar scene, office romance or match.com.

According to the article, "Like-minded city singles are looking to tonight’s Barack Obama fund-raiser as more than just a politically charged soiree: It’ll be a raging pickup scene."

With a web site featuring social networking (complete with photos), events that seem to purposely weed out the old and stodgy, and a candidate that can almost be described as "hip and cool," it’s hard to think this is an accident.  It seems like the campaign team developed a smart strategy of, "Smart single people don’t have a great outlet for meeting other smart single people.  Let’s have our campaign be their meeting place." 

If it works, it won’t be the first time someone used sex to sell a product, but it might be the first time it was done for a political campaign.

Do Protesters Need Image Consultants

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Politics

So President Bush visited Seattle, or more accurately, Bellevue, this afternoon for a fundraiser for Congressman Dave Reichert.  I happened to be driving by the hotel a few hours before the President’s appearance, and was surprised by the hundreds of protesters gathered on street corners around the hotel.

As I drove through this collection of people, I was struck with a thought. Just based on their appearance, I don’t know if I could ever agree with them.  They were ragged, dirty and unkempt.  I found myself wanting to disagree with whatever their signs said, just so I couldn’t be classified with them.

It made me wonder whether protesters could be more effective if they spent a little more time tuning their message to the mainstream, rather than preaching to the fringe.  How many worthy causes are derailed by failing to observe basic tenets of marketing and public relations?  Furthermore, if a protester’s goal is to sway and persuade, and their actions instead make me sympathetic to the cause they are protesting, shouldn’t the protester stop attending events?  Isn’t in the protester’s best interest to evaluate the effectiveness of his campaign?

I wonder if the power of Freedom of Speech is diluted by zealots and  loonies who use it to push people away.  From a marketing perspective, how do you control your zealots, and make them unharmful to your cause?  If you were the Prius Marketing Manager, and someone started a blog campaign asking people to send in pictures of where they get stoned in their car, how would you react?  In today’s internet where everyone can be heard, how do you control your fans that can do harm to your ability to market to the mainstream?