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Obama vs Hillary Round 1

steverino said:
Um, getting back to the point of this thread, I think the ad glamorizes Hillary. She looks modern, feminine, and also authoritative, and underscores that she is in fact the front runner, which, OK, she is, at this point. But Obama is not exactly the "underdog" compared to Edwards or Richarson. Plus, Obama's photo image is not in this, so it seems more "anti-Her" than "pro-Him."

So I don't know how many votes he will grab away from her based on this video.
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Good points. I thought the ad interesting but it didn't strike me as persuasive but I didn't really give it a lot of thought. She isn't really saying anything outrageous, she doesn't come of looking like "big brother", there is nothing ominous in her tone or her message and you are right, she actually looks good considering she is the big head in the ad.
 
But it's not the specific image or text of Hillary's speech that is the focus of this ad. It is the connotaton that Hillary would become Big Brother should she become President...and that connotation is both very powerful and very negative. In that context, it not only does NOT "glamorize" her, it slams her. It does, in fact, RandFan, make her look EXACTLY like "big brother".

A word of caution: I am NOT a HRC supporter. Don't interpret this post as anything other than an opinion about the OP vid.
 
SezMe said:
But it's not the specific image or text of Hillary's speech that is the focus of this ad. It is the connotaton that Hillary would become Big Brother should she become President...and that connotation is both very powerful and very negative. In that context, it not only does NOT "glamorize" her, it slams her. It does, in fact, RandFan, make her look EXACTLY like "big brother".

A word of caution: I am NOT a HRC supporter. Don't interpret this post as anything other than an opinion about the OP vid.
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Oh, I agree, that's the intention. But watching the video, I wasn't very persuaded because she wasn't really saying anything that makes me fearful. Anyone can superimpose an image onto a big screen and make someone look like "Big Brother"; but if they then talk like Daffy Duck, it doesn't inspire a whole lot of fear.

I certainly hope Obama didn't endorse this at all. Saying that Hillary Clinton would become Big Sister (and thus, your next default choice must be Obama) is a little over the top.
 
SezMe said:
But it's not the specific image or text of Hillary's speech that is the focus of this ad. It is the connotaton that Hillary would become Big Brother should she become President...and that connotation is both very powerful and very negative. In that context, it not only does NOT "glamorize" her, it slams her. It does, in fact, RandFan, make her look EXACTLY like "big brother".
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I think that is what it is trying to do but I'm not sure it is succesful at doing it. In the end I don't think it achieves the intended goal. That's just my opinion.

A word of caution: I am NOT a HRC supporter. Don't interpret this post as anything other than an opinion about the OP vid.
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Understood.
 
SezMe said:
it not only does NOT "glamorize" her, it slams her. It does, in fact, RandFan, make her look EXACTLY like "big brother".
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Hi SEZ. When you say "It slams her..." I ask that you define "it." I mean, we are talking about an artistic, little, video piece, not a commercial paiid for by a political opponant or organization.

Her biggest plus is that she is female, which is obvious in this video as she looks glamorous.

Her biggest minus (baggage) is her husband. He is absent from this video.

I am not sure her policies are even considered big-brother-esque at all. So I guess this thread could discuss why she is considered the big-brother candidate. I think her husband's ability to raise money blindly impresses people and gives her a huge, maybe undeserved, advantage, so in that way she is big-brother.
 
I do seem to ask this a lot - but on what are you basing your decisions on? To help me (a non-USA citizen) where can I find the detailed policies the different candidates are proposing to implement?
 
Darat said:
I do seem to ask this a lot - but on what are you basing your decisions on? To help me (a non-USA citizen) where can I find the detailed policies the different candidates are proposing to implement?
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Some of them have position papers up on their web pages:

Obama

Edwards

McCain

Romney

Others seem a bit more vague:

Clinton (press releases)

Giuliani (talks about what he's done in the past)
 
Back to the main thread:

Am I the only one who sees this whole "Hillary vs. Obama" thing as a completely empty media-created non-event? I mean, sure, they're going to be competing against each other in the primaries next year, but all of this "feud" stuff just strikes me as made-up.

I mean, I know it would be asking too much of our modern journalists to write about what the candidates actually have to say about their plans for the presidency. I know they want to portray every political race as if it were a sporting event, only talking about who's ahead, who's behind, and by how much. And I know that it would apparently kill them stone dead to just not report anything about a "hot" story, even when they have nothing new to say.

I just wish the made-up stories were less ... high-school. It's "David Geffen" this and "Al Sharpton" that and "Internet attack ads" the other. All I hear is "Stacy's mad 'cause Jason went to Jennifer's party instead of hers" and "Did you hear what Jennifer's friend Mindy said about Stacy?"
 
corplinx said:
What's so great about Obama? I didn't realize people voted for anti-gun, social healthcare, tradional american liberals if they were handsome and spoke well. How fickle we are.
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Couple of points... can you describe Obama's anti-gun record?

Secondly, there is a difference between advocating for "socialized medicine" and advocating some kind of national health care plan that's better than the one we have.
 
steverino said:
Hi SEZ. When you say "It slams her..." I ask that you define "it." I mean, we are talking about an artistic, little, video piece, not a commercial paiid for by a political opponant or organization.
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"It" is the video, taken as a whole and evaluated on the message it tries to convey. Obviously, reasonable people (assumes RandFan and I are reasonable :) ) can differ in such an evaluation.

I'm unable to assess the importance of a video on the net. But the fact that HRC and others used the net to announcement of their candicies suggests that politicians see the net as an important factor in vote (and money) gathering. Again, I'm sure you could get 5 opinions from a gathering of 4 people.
 
Darat said:
I do seem to ask this a lot - but on what are you basing your decisions on? To help me (a non-USA citizen) where can I find the detailed policies the different candidates are proposing to implement?
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I would guess that many (most?) Americans vote based on factors other than specific policies. For example, both parties have platforms that supposedly detail their positions on the issues of the day. But I'd guess that the only people who read these platforms are other politicians.

The age of image in politics came in the Nixon/Kennedy debates where Nixon came off very poorly. Since then "image" has become increasingly important as TV came to dominate the election process. For example, HUGE sums of money are spent of 30 seconds TV commercials. But I'd challenge you to find any one of these commercials that spell out a clear policy position - if only because that is not possible to explain a serious policy position on any complex issue. So what is being sold is image, not policy.
 
Darth Rotor said:
Tony, did you mean to leave out Bill Richardson, or do you find him at least somewhat appealing?

DR
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For some reason, people always leave Richardson off of lists of presidential candidates. I'm baffled by this. I don't know yet if I'd vote for him, but he certainly has the best resume of anyone runing so far:

Governor of New Mexico
U.S. Secretary of Energy
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
U.S. House of Representatives
 
SezMe said:
... the fact that HRC and others used the net to announcement of their candicies suggests that politicians see the net as an important factor in vote (and money) gathering.
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Thanks for responding. Good point. I still think that controversy, like this video, helps both Hillary and Obama. I guess the reason Richardson has not yet caught on is that he is not controversial, and Americans love a soap opera.
 
Darth Rotor said:
Tony, did you mean to leave out Bill Richardson, or do you find him at least somewhat appealing?

DR
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I do find him appealing, but I didn't include him because, AFAIK, he has yet to officially announce his candidacy. At this point, I think he's only announced setting up an "exploratory committee".
 
Darat said:
I do seem to ask this a lot - but on what are you basing your decisions on? To help me (a non-USA citizen) where can I find the detailed policies the different candidates are proposing to implement?
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I don't know if this is true in other countries, but it seems to me that many voters will loyally support a politician even though they really don't know his or her positions.

I don’t get it. To use a silly analogy, deciding who to support as president shouldn't be that radically different then deciding who to be friends with or have a long-term relationship with in other areas of one's life.

It seems to me that how much you are willing to commit to someone (even a vote) should be dependent on how reliable they are. How reliable they are should be gauged by how trustworthy they have shown themselves to be in the past. This can only be determined by how well you know them. I envision this as a pyramid with knowledge being the bottom layer, trust the next, followed by reliance and then by commitment. If all these interpersonal dynamics are shaped like a pyramid -- then the relationship has a chance of being stable and making sense.

But if you are willing to trust someone more than you know them -- using the pyramid analogy the whole thing can tip and fall over. You can end up with a jerk for a boyfriend (or girlfriend as the case may be) and Bush as president. It just doesn't make sense.

Yet many people I know are willing to trust someone even if they don't know them, or even know of their history. I find that many people are especially willing to do this with politicians and also with new people they have just met but fallen in "love" with. I truly don't get it. I haven't seen this occur when people are meeting their neighbors for the first time though -- then logic seems to prevail.

So if people only went about deciding who to vote for president as carefully as they decided whether to loan their neighbor their very expensive powertools -- we might have half a chance at getting a good president. :rolleyes:
 
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