Obama and New Media

Another busy day here at headquarters but wanted to make a precient comment about Obama and his impressive use of new media. Over on his website they are live streaming his speech in Berlin (or at the moment, a lot of photographers taking pictures of people waiting for his speech in Berlin.) For once I feel like we have a candidate who is living in the same world I am and appreciates the power of technology to democratize not just information but democracy itself.

Obama Understands Marketing

Obama has thus far out positioned the competition in the Democratic and Republican primary season. He stands for change. While change is perhaps not the clearest positioning when you dig into it, on the surface it resonates. It depositions Hillary, his key rival, as a Washington incumbent. All that’s missing now is “we need a change from the Bush-Clinton-Bush way of doing politics,” which would resonate with both Democrats and Republicans. And this Super Bowl spot is one of the best political ads that I have seen, not that there was much competition.

Democrats Are Smarter Than Republicans

Clinton(Democrats are sexy)Originally uploaded by Cal-el

I discovered an interesting little widget on my travels around the blogosphere yesterday: The Blog Readability Test. Type in your blog’s url and presto! It gives you a nifty little digi-sticker with your blog’s reading level on it. But it gets better– it works on regular websites too! Since I’m a nerd I looked up presidential candidates’ websites straight away. This is what I found…

DEMOCRATS:

BarakObama.com – College, Post Grad

JohnEdwards.com – Genius

HillaryClinton.com – Jr. High School*

REPUBLICANS:

JohnMcCain.com – High School

MittRomney.com – Elementary School

MikeHuckabee.com – Genius**

JoinRudy2008.com – High School

RonPaul2008.com – High School

When reading these results, keep in mind that half of America is below average at everything, always.

*which may explain the crying. Junior High can be a nightmare.

**if you hate evolution