Atheism & Politics

“..And one nation, Under God…” As schoolchildren this was a phrase we all repeated on a daily basis when it was time to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. But as we get older, our views do not stay the same. Not everyone continues to believe that we are “under God.” Church and state are supposed to be separated, and to an extent they are, but how many politicians can you list off the top of your head that are openly atheist or not a follower of Jesus Christ? Not many, if it all. Today, I would like to explore deeper into the connection between religion and politics and why it is so necessary to be a follower of God to be considered a worthy leader.

Many people would consider that only Liberalists would be atheists, and it's true that you'll probably find more liberal than non-liberal atheists. Atheism represents a challenge to or dissent from traditional beliefs and traditional religion. Liberalism, through most of Western history, has also challenged traditions and traditional ways of doing things. Liberalism has additionally generally done more to promote the rights of various minority groups, something which atheists obviously benefit from, given how much discrimination they tend to encounter. Atheism among conservatives is unusual, but not unheard of. Conservatism seeks to "conserve" traditional values and ways of doing things; atheism, however, challenges or rejects many traditions. Theistic religion is a sort of storage area for traditions in the West and if atheists don't accept such religions, upon what can they base their conservatism? It's not impossible, but it's more difficult than for many theists and presents a real challenge.

Only one of the 535 members of Congress, Representative Pete Stark, Democrat of California, publicly identifies as an atheist, according to the Secular Coalition of America, a lobbying group based in Washington. For that matter, the coalition has existed for only three years and runs with two staff members and an annual budget of about $300,000. As both presidential candidates were fervently court religious voters, atheist support is considered so controversial that several Democrats writing on the atheist blog “Petty Larseny” joked that the best way to hurt the Republicans was to form a group called Atheists for McCain. One problem with turning out the atheist vote is finding it. Atheists do not reside visibly in certain neighborhoods like blacks or Hispanics or gay men and lesbians. They do not turn up on the databases of professional associations like doctors or lawyers. And as nonbelievers, they do not come together for worship, since they do not worship anything. So where do they fit in the world of politics if they are virtually invisible? The problem is that they don’t. It is still so frowned upon to be a non-believer, and not only in politics, in other aspects of life. With someone that has very religious parents and grandparents, I know that they would be EXTREMELY upset if I was an atheist and would most likely think that I was just rebelling against the system and trying to be different.

The fact of the matter is that atheism is not accepted yet, and while I doubt that there will be riots by atheists to get fair treatment, because they do, politics hasn’t exactly welcomed them in with open arms quite yet. Many people think if a leader doesn’t have a certain belief in Jesus, then they do not hold the qualities to lead a country which is quite disappointing. In a country where there is a decent percentage who says they have ‘no religion’ in the census, it is odd that there aren’t more politicians who say they are atheists. According to religioustolerance.org, only 13% of people view atheism as positive and only five out of ten would vote for an openly atheist leader. Another poll I found was even more eye-opening: the participants would rather have a homosexual leader then an atheist leader. In fact, it was the least appealing to all of the given options, which included black, Jewish, a woman, Hispanic, Mormon, married for the 3^rd time and older than 72 years old. (http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/black_president_more_likely_than_mormon_or_atheist_/) Out of all the research I did, I think that was the biggest sign of them all. Atheism clearly does not have a spot in politics no matter how much is claimed for the separation of church and state, because the separation between the two is so completely blurred.

What are the main issues that people have with atheism to make them view them as such terrible leaders? To start, intelligence is a factor. How can intelligence come from non-intelligence? How can blind chance result in intelligence? How can an intelligent human mind come from mindless random processes? If there is no God, no original intelligence, then where did intelligence come from? That is a very fair argument; however, that is an assumption. I would bet that not many Christians actually look into atheism and why a person would come to settle in that view. Another common problem is the problem with morality. If someone doesn’t have the 10 commandments to follow, then what do they follow? Do they believe in sinful behavior, or are they indulgent in whatever they want to do? People can be atheists but believe in righteous behavior, just as a Christian could go to church and read the bible, but be a murderer. It goes both ways and it is unfair to view atheists as dumb crooks.

Bill Maher recently came out with a movie, “Religulous” where he explored religion throughout the world and tries to dig deeper to why people believe the things they do. He was frequently greeted with hostility when he asked why they believed in a certain way instead of just explaining their view point. The main point is that we cannot judge someone on their religious beliefs if they want to be a leader. Church and state MUST be separated and that currently isn’t happening. Let’s leave it with a quote by the late, great Bob Marley: "Who are you to judge the life I live? I know I'm not perfect - and I don't live to be. But before you start pointing fingers... make sure your hands are clean."

Obama & the Internet

“The times, they are a’changin.” No less true words have been spoken by singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. That song may have been released in 1964, but it continues to relate to the world. In 1964, the internet was something nobody had even had a clue about yet, but in 2009, it is something that many people in the world couldn’t live without. According to www.internetworldstats.com, there are currently 6,767,805,208 in the world and 1,668,870,408 are internet users. In the United States though, 74.1% of our population are frequent internet users. One comparison President Barack Obama received throughout his campaign was to John F. Kennedy Jr. The difference however, is when JFK Jr. used television to his advantage, Obama used the internet.

Arianna Huffington, the editor in chief of the Huffington Post, said “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee.” By using interactive web tools, Obama changed the way politicians organize supporters, advertise to voters, defend against attacks and communicate with constituents. He used the Internet to organize his supporters in a way that would have in the past required an enormous mass of volunteers and paid organizers throughout the nation. Barack Obama won every single caucus state that matters, and he did it because of those tools, because he was able to move thousands of people to organize. Obama’s campaign took advantage of YouTube for free advertising. These videos were more effective than television ads because viewers chose to watch them or received them from a friend instead of having their television shows interrupted. According to Joe Tippi, a political consultant and runner of Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign, the campaign’s official videos they created for YouTube were watched for 14.5 million hours. To buy 14.5 million hours on broadcast TV is $47 million. Another prominent figure that agrees with Huffington is Google CEO, Eric Schmidt. He discussed the internet and its current affect on politics at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver and how much has changed even since the 2004 election. The republicans were completely blindsided by the advancement Obama used in technology. Erik Telford, the executive director of RightOnline.com said "The left was far ahead of us. The efforts that Obama put into internet campaigning and what he accomplished were extraordinary.” He used social networking, and email recruiting, among many other techniques to outwit the Republicans. When the Republicans tried to propel their smear campaign, Obama turned around and threw it right back in their face with FightTheSmears.com, which was a website ran by Barack Obama’s campaign which faced the accusations head on and gave the real answers. That includes the rampant rumor about Obama not being born in the United States, and the website put up a picture of his official birth certificate. The website also has links on the left side of the page, such as “Donate Now!” and buttons to click on that lead to other social networking pages such as MySpace and Facebook. You can “become a fan” of Obama on Facebook and also follow him on Twitter. The connection between our generation and our political leaders are becoming closer and closer which is exactly what Obama’s goal was. Homophily should really be his middle name, but that probably would have caused as much as a stir as his real one (Hussein). Obama says at the top of website: "What you won't hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon - that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize."

A common phrase connected to Barack Obama is the “Internet President” which is very true. During the campaign, I received e-mails almost daily from him (supposedly), Michelle Obama, and the campaign director to keep the followers updated to what the campaign had achieved, where Obama would be speaking, and of course to remind me to donate to the campaign. The constant e-mails made a huge impact on followers and Obama raised an incredible amount of money through this and his other internet campaigning. Some 3.2 million people donated to the Obama campaign through its Web site. The Obama campaign used Google Maps mashups to help volunteers find local campaign resources and people to contact and try to persuade. Using a custom social networking site, created with the help of a Facebook co-founder, Obama supporters were able to log in and find lists of people they could call, or whose doors they could knock on, to try to persuade others to vote for their candidate. In addition to the internet, he asked supporters to supply their cell phone numbers, and sent out regular text message chains, even announcing his vice-president selection via text. Barack Obama’s website received 5.5 million unique visitors, compared to John McCain’s, which received 3.1 million, according to Compete.com data. In social networking, Obama easily outweighed the amount of “fans” that McCain had to his own. McCain had garnered the support of 572,009 "fans" on Facebook, which is among the highest on the site. However, it doesn’t hold a candle in comparison to Obama's 2,071,473 fans. Obama's lead is even larger than this indicates because these numbers don't add in separate fan pages for Joe Biden, Michelle Obama, Students for Obama, Women for Obama, etc. Unfortunately for McCain, he didn’t have many of these support pages. For example, Michelle Obama has 127,000 fans, while Cindy McCain has 758 fans. Unfortunately for the McCain ticket, their largest supplementary group was the "I Have More Foreign Policy Experience than Sarah Palin," with 220,000 participants. The "friend" divide is just as prevalent on MySpace with Obama having 697,535 friends to McCain's 169,326. More comparisons just show that the “Internet War” was won by Obama by a landslide victory.

So the question remains: did the internet elect Barack Obama, and could he have done it without it? On a financial level, of course, the Internet really has changed everything about American politics. Certainly Obama couldn’t have challenged Hillary Clinton or radically outspent John McCain without the estimated $500 million in small donations mostly raised on the Internet. Nor could his campaign have had its remarkable success without its effective use of the most up to date viral marketing tools of digital technology such as the microblogging service Twitter and the cell phone texting technology Obama used to broadcast his selection of Joe Biden as his Vice-Presidential pick. But then again, the 2008 election proves that popularity on the Internet doesn’t guarantee success. The more than $20 million the libertarian Ron Paul raised on the Internet is now forgotten. Internet evangelists also conveniently forget the other 50% of Obama’s money which was raised conventionally, by a wealthy, politically powerful leaders calling other wealthy leaders on the telephone or meeting them at their private clubs. What Obama’s success proves is that having a strong Internet presence is only half the story; the other half is having the Chicago Senator’s charisma, his political judgment, his speaking skills, his intellect, his personal network, his advisers. And, of course, what is also conveniently forgotten by the digital crowd is that while Obama himself is a BlackBerry addict and a social network fiend with hundreds of thousands of Facebook “friends” or “fans”, his key political relationships, with advisors David Axelrod and David Plouffe and with Joe Biden, were all forged in the classically analog environments of the US Senate or on the streets of Chicago rather than in the concept of cyberspace.

Obama: Biggest Celebrity in the World?

The 2008 presidential campaign may have fused politics and entertainment once and for all.
In fact, McCain desperately tried to make Obama look bad for being in synch with popular culture but it ended up biting him in the butt. A brilliant move by Obama after a bruising debate with Hillary Clinton: he brushed the shoulder of his suit jacket, quoting a music video by rapper Jay-Z, “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” He instantly distanced himself from Clinton on the cultural level, and was embraced by American youth, who remixed the Obama moment, and unleashed it on the Web. This moment crystallized how politics can start to think about popular culture in a productive way. The official definition of pop culture is this: contemporary lifestyle and items that are well known and generally accepted, cultural patterns that are widespread within a population. Ellen DeGeneres hosts the extremely popular daytime television show “Ellen” and she is known for her eccentric dancing. When Barack Obama came on the show, he easily jumped in with her dancing even though the amount of rhythm he has is slim to none. There was the ever popular “Obama Girl” who was apparently in love with Obama. She used her sex appeal for that music video and skyrocketed to fame. I definitely didn’t see any “McCain Girl”, which may have been why he was a little bitter.

President Barack Obama was more in tune with pop culture than any other presidential nominee before him. Yes, Bill Clinton may have gone on the Arsenio Hall show to play his saxophone, but Obama completely and 100% embodied the pop culture icon and used to his advantage. One of the most popular campaigns out there for young people is “Rock the Vote”, and when you have a nominee like Barack Obama, it will encourage young voters to register and “get their voice heard” as it was promoted. Like I mentioned before, McCain tried to use Obama’s celebrity against him, but it definitely backfired against him. Obama wanted to relate to everybody, and it just so happened that he was so relatable that it pushed him into the pop culture limelight. Obama crossed the pop culture/politics divide by praising Lil' Wayne's rhyming ability at a campaign event in Powder Springs, Georgia. Before dismissing this development as trivia, consider that Lil' Wayne was both the most acclaimed rapper of 2008 and is one of the biggest pop culture figures in the nation. I also remember reading an article during the election when he discussed what was on his iPod. That goes back to earlier in the semester when we were talking about ability to relate to candidates, homophily. The iconic photo of Obama can’t be left out of this discussion either. These pictures are some of the most famous from the campaign, they could be put in the same category as Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe or Campbell Soup Cans pictures are. A popular feature in magazines such as Us Weekly or People is photos that display that celebrities really are “just like us!” Obama was featured regularly in them, like when he was on vacation in Hawaii and he was photographed running on the beach with his shirt off. Many celebrities are photographed on the beach frolicking about, but not many presidential nominees are, so when that happened it was a huge deal. People were talking about how the president had a “hot bod” or things among that nature.

Another thing to take into consideration is what I talked about earlier, how he wants to relate to everybody and he does a damn good job at doing it. He was named one of Ebony's "25 Coolest Brothers of All Time." Yet he did not mind spending a little of that coolness capital during an interview on MTV, of all places, when he announced: "Brothers should pull up their pants. A lot of people may not want to see your underwear. I'm one of them.” Parents around the country rejoiced. Clothes were a big thing for Obama, one popular retail chain, Urban Outfitters, had an abundance of t-shirts representing Obama. They ranged from saying “Barack Star” to “Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican”.

Fast forward to January 2009. The inagural filled the National Mall in Washington, D.C., with 1.8 million people, played on jumbo screens in Times Square and in multiplexes across the U.S. (exhibitors devoted 27 theaters in 21 cities to a real-time news feed from MSNBC), and aired live around the globe. By Wednesday morning, as many as 2 billion people worldwide had seen footage of Obama putting his hand on a Bible. About a third of all the human beings on Earth. Coming straight from a celebrities mouth, “What a presence. Stunning. Just stunning,'' Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles said, who performed for Obama at a concert at the Lincoln Memorial. ''People who have such charisma have a higher message, a higher vision. That's the difference between a celebrity who is popular on some level and someone like Obama who can imbue the rock-star spirit with everybody they come in contact with.'' So is that what it takes to be the “biggest celebrity in the world”? Charisma? JFK Jr. had plenty of charisma, and he is probably the only other candidate that could come as close to the pop culture level that Obama has. Obama was able to take pop culture and turn into something none of us even had thought it would go to. It became popular to register to vote, if one of my friends hadn’t registered to vote I thought it was weird. He was able to pull people together, even if they weren’t going to vote for him, and make politics into something completely new, something that everyone wanted to be a part of. Political debates in classes became popular again; everyone had an opinion and wanted to share it. Obama was speaking to voters in a visual language that we understood: the celebrity obsession of 21st-century consumerism.

Attack Ads: Facing the Inevitable

Political advertising is something everyone knows about and definitely gets sick of at some point or another. During a major election, our politicians take over our television, mail, and phone (calls from supporters), among other things. They talk about how great they are, what they plan on doing to better our county/city/state/and or country, and, of course, how terrible their opponent truly is. A campaign without attack ads is like Ft. Collins without Cam the Ram. However, how far is too far? The attack ads in the last Presidential campaign were fairly innocent compared to the first attack ads. Attack ads can be effective to some degree, but there has to be a boundary to some of the outlandish claims that have been made in the past.

Let’s take a look at two completely different ads in two completely different time periods, both presidential elections. First, there is the “Daisy Girl”, used in the 1964 election with Lyndon B. Johnson attacking Barry Goldwater. This remains one of the most controversial political ads to ever have been aired, and it was aired only once. The ad is credited to having a huge impact on the landslide victory that Johnson had over Goldwater, and even though Goldwater is never mentioned by name in the commercial, the scare tactic was enough for voters and they didn’t need to hear his name to know what the commercial was trying to get at. Goldwater previously had said comments about using nuclear weapons in Vietnam, so the Johnson campaign jumped at the opportunity to pinpoint Goldwater as a reckless weaponry user who was going to make the Vietnam War reckless and more dangerous for Americans. The ad was pulled after only one airing because of the criticism Johnson received for painting a portrait of Goldwater as someone who was going to lead America into a nuclear war. When people are fighting, a phrase that is used commonly is “you’re putting words in my mouth.” Well, that is exactly what Johnson did, he used something Goldwater said and turned into an extremely effective ad that scared people into believing that voting for Goldwater would have dire consequences. Goldwater discussed the possibility of using low-yield nuclear weapons to defoliate infiltration routes in Vietnam, he never actually advocated the use of nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese, and so while the Johnson campaign didn’t completely make it up, they twisted something that was fairly innocent into something it wasn’t, which I think is taking it too far. It should be allowed to use the facts of your opponent to your advantage, but when you twist something so far as they did, it should not be allowed. Yes it was only shown once, but it should have never been shown, especially since it had the impact it did, it virtually single-handedly took Goldwater out of the race, since Johnson won with 61% of the vote.

Now, let’s fast forward to the present. The 2008 campaign is still fresh in all of our minds, due to the constant criticism of President Obama and many people are still upset at how it turned out. The ads were in constant circulation last year at this time, and all ads were in play: Advocacy ads, which promote a candidate and his or hers ideals, with no negative info about the opponent; contrast ads, which contrast a candidate and/or his or her policy positions with that of the opponent, and can contain attacks; and of course attack ads. The one that sticks out in my mind the most is the attack ad against Obama by McCain, criticizing him and questioning his ability to lead because he is the “world’s biggest celebrity.” Included in the commercial were quick shots of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, the latter of which wasn’t too happy about it, and she quickly fired back with her own little campaign ad.

It would be hard to argue that President Obama isn’t a huge celebrity, but comparing him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton was a little ridiculous. Like I said earlier, the attack ads used to be extremely more confrontational and accusatory, but McCain’s ad was more appropriate. If McCain came out with an ad last year that had the same underlying techniques as Johnson’s did, there would have been an uproar. You could liken the McCain ad to the 1988 GOP attack ad of Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis. The ad showed Dukakis riding around in a tank and used his own footage against him, because if you watch the video, he doesn’t seem like someone who many would want to lead. In both ads, the GOP took something from the Democratic candidates and used it against them, Obama with the celebrity status he received from the press because he was the first Black candidate who had the highest chance of winning, and Dukakis by taking his footage and looking ridiculous. “If you listen closely to this ad you will hear the sound of grinding gears, suggesting that Dukakis cannot even run the tank smoothly. That sound was added to the footage; tanks do not have gears that grind. The gear sounds were of an 18-wheeler.” (Attack Ad Hall of Fame) Adding the sound to make it seem like Dukakis couldn’t run a tank was an underlying affect to make it seem like if he can’t run a tank, he is far from being able to run a country, and if Obama is as famous as someone as Britney Spears, he is clearly inadequate as well.

With the above mentioned ads, we can see that attack advertisements can be extremely effective. They do have negative consequences at the same time though. In addition, negative advertising can also be used to demobilize voters. Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar, who wrote Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate, found that negative campaign advertising appeals only to partisans. They go on to say that negative advertising alienates independents and demobilizes them as voters, which causes elections to be fought among the partisan extremes. This makes sense since it removes the independents as a voting coalition to be concerned about and allows the candidates to stick to the party line. Another study done at Ohio State University says that ads that had to do with a Supreme Court nominee “turned off so many viewers that many became less supportive of the court as an institution.” Another downfall to it is something called the “boomerang effect”, as explained by Gina Garramone. “First, many viewers disapprove of advertising that attacks a candidate and such viewers may develop negative feelings toward the sponsor of the advertising. Second, viewers may perceive the negative advertising as an infringement upon their right to decide for themselves. Such a perception may result in reactance, a boomerang effect in which the individual reacts in a manner opposite to the persuader's intention.” Another source, Thomas Hollihan, says that while voters claim to not like attack ads, election results suggest that they work. In addition to that, they may appeal more to republicans and independents then democrats.

So, while the results may say they work, are they really necessary? We should be worried about what a candidate can achieve for us, but we should also be worried about what they cannot. Attack ads make the line blurry though, because some of the claims that are made aren’t always true, and they can be extremely misleading (remember little Daisy?). An election could probably go on without them and I would like to see what the candidates would talk about if they weren’t allowed to attack each other. Without attack ads, more could be accomplished and we would be able to see who the true candidate is because they wouldn’t be able to put the negative spotlight on their opponent and make it seem like they are the right person to vote for. However, that is something that is highly unlikely to happen, so until then, let’s keep things fair and have a clean fight, because no one likes a cheater or a liar!

Links:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/284996.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/supreme-court/2009/06/study_attack_ads_may_make_publ.html

Sarah Palin: Progress or a Step Back?

A little over a year ago, Republican presidential candidate John McCain was keeping the nation guessing when it came to his running mate for Vice-President. Mitt Romney was a name thrown around frequently, as was Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. Little did we know that the person he was going to pick was about to become one of the biggest butt of countless jokes. When he announced his running mate was going to be the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, no one knew who she was, and many people thought it was a good idea to have a female stand beside him. Even I, as a Democrat, thought John McCain was making a smart move in his campaign. But before the Republican Party knew what hit them, a backlash was almost instantly formed against Palin, slamming her inexperience and her “Alaskanomics”.

As with Barack Obama, people uncovered many controversial issues with Palin, including her pregnant daughter, who was still a senior in high school when the campaign started, as well as finding out how she was charging the cost of her hair and clothing to the campaign itself. An article I found from Time talked about her Alaskanomics, and her claim of how she was a fiscal conservative. “Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 2 1/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.” (Michael Kinsley) In addition to that, the article also talked about how Alaska was the number one state in the nation to receive money from Washington, and was number one in federal spending per resident.

More claims that Sarah Palin has made and have been proven false include her allegation that she was against the “Bridge to Nowhere” (a bridge to connect two Alaskan islands, one with an airport).

In reality, she supported it and promoted it within Alaska, and even though the bridge was never built, Alaska kept $230 million dollars in tax payer funds, and $20 million in funds for the bridge. Also from the Time article: “Palin has continued to repeat the already exposed lie that she said "No, thanks" to the famous "bridge to nowhere" (McCain's favorite example of wasteful federal spending). In fact, she said "Yes, please" until the project became a symbol and political albatross.” (Michael Kinsley) Also, she denied association with the Alaska Independence Party (a political party that was established to challenge the legitimacy of Alaska becoming a part of the United States, and it still exists today with the goal of making Alaska into a separate country, so that the state can charge the US market higher prices for its oil), when in truth she had been associated with them for 14 years and her husband, Todd Palin, was a registered AIP member from 1995-2002. Above is a recorded clip of Palin shown at the AIP 2008 convention. All of the recorded and photographic proofs that go against her original claims to get the public’s support continue to hurt her credibility as a politician that the United States can rely on.

Now I can lead into the Double Bind problem, which we learned in class. The definition of the term is “the cultural norms for being a “good” woman are the opposite of those for being a good leader.” Sarah Palin used the fact that she was a mother of five children (the youngest being mentally impaired) as a way to relate to female voters, going on about how she was still a normal hockey mom even though she ran a state. While that tactic worked, it also brought on a whole new aspect to the campaign. Palin, along with John McCain’s wife Cindy, were frequently referred to as MILF’s and became extremely “pornified” (the mainstreaming of narratives, metaphors, images, and frames pulled from the realm of pornography). In addition to that a “pornified” image needs not to be explicit as actual pornography, rather it connotes interpretations that are hyper-sexual, exploitation, and/or masochistic. (Straight out of the lecture!) Many girls I know dressed as Palin or McCain for Halloween, but none of them wore a pantsuit that’s for sure. I mostly saw suit jackets and extremely skimpy bottoms to go with it. You know it’s not just something guys think when females are willingly going along with the image of pornifiying the women who are supposed to run our country, (in contrast, think of what a Hillary Clinton costume would look like? Yikes!) and be an inspiration to fellow women everywhere. Case in point:

How many other Vice-Presidential nominees do you know that have their own porn? Palin was also a beauty queen contestant, competing for Miss Alaska in 1984. Now, let’s just be honest. Sarah Palin definitely played up the fact that she was a former beauty queen, and an attractive female that was running for office. I’m sure the attention she received for her “sexy librarian glasses” and fancy up-do was the last of her worries.

As we all know (at least I hope so), the election came and went, McCain and Palin were defeated by Obama and Biden. While many of us hoped that Sarah Palin’s time in the spotlight was over, she was determined to not let that happen. A few months went by after President Obama’s inauguration, with the whole nation watching and judging him, quickly forgetting about his competitors. But then, WABAM! She was back in July, with her announcement that she was resigning as the Governor of Alaska. Once again, she was back in the news with rumors swirling that her marriage was on the rocks and that was the cause of her stepping down. Many speculated she wanted to ready herself for the 2012 election. It didn’t help that the father of her 17 year old daughter’s child came out swinging by throwing himself into pop culture with interviews about the Palin household. He never really had many nice things to say about her. Take for example his interview with Vanity Fair: "Sarah walked around the house pouting ... one or two weeks after she got back, she started talking about how nice it would be to quit, write a book or do a show and make triple the money.” Well funny enough, Sarah Palin did write a book (actually, someone ghost wrote for her) and the release for Going Rogue: An American Life will be available for all Sarah Palin enthusiasts starting November 17^th. She has also started/attempted to lecture to crowds. She signed with the Washington Speakers Bureau, who also represents Condaleeza Rice, George W. Bush, and magician David Blaine, among others. She is rumored to be asking for $100,000 per speech, but unfortunately, no one has been jumping at the chance to book her. According to Page Six, ““The big lecture buyers in the US are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because they think she is a blithering idiot."Many big lecture venues are subscription series, "and they don't want to tick people off," said our source. "Palin is polarizing, and some subscribers might cancel if she's on the lineup." Other lecture buyers are universities, which have a leftist slant, and corporations, which dislike controversy.”” Well that doesn’t sound like good news.

While Sarah Palin did accomplish quite a few things none of us would have ever expected (like surprising all of us at the VP debates), it is hard for many people to fully accept her as a prominent political figure. While I’m sure she will always have a reputation as a lipstick wearing pit-bull, I personally hope a pit-bull won’t ever be running our country.

Resources

http://m.nypost.com/ms/p/nyp/nyp/sBJi7rHApNUPe3RtcOrYA_w/view.m?id=23202&storyid=4.0.817918059

http://www.palintruth.org/

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1839724-1,00.html

http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2009/09/levi-johnston-sarah-palin-wanted-bristol-palin-pregnancy-secret/

http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2009/09/sarah-palin-memoir-to-be-released-on-november-17/

We're Not Afraid to get Mavericky!

Saturday Night Live is a show that everyone can love and watch. It started in 1975, 15 years before I was born. It is one of my favorite shows on TV right now, and I will admit that I have skipped a few parties once in a while to stay in and watch it. Whether it’s Chris Farley’s infamous “I live in a van DOWN BY THE RIVER!” skit or Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake singing about an inappropriate Christmas gift, SNL has always been a show that delivers and keeps people laughing.

Now, while I am far too young to understand the impact of Chevy Chase’s impersonation of Gerald Ford I do know that he did mark the series first “landmark” impression of a president. He portrays him as an airheaded (for lack of a better term) clumsy man. His impression was one of the first ones that really made an impact on people, since due mainly to his impersonations, the public viewed Ford generally as a klutz. Ironically, Ford was the first non-cast member and first commander-in-chief to deliver the famous “Live from New York- it’s Saturday night!” Chevy Chase was also the original anchor of Weekend Update, which is a show that many people from my generation do watch and I frequently hear my friends crack jokes that come straight from an Update segment.

Another famous impersonation was Dana Carvey as George H.W. Bush.
Dana Carvey As Bush George H.W. Bush appeared on the show in 1994, the year after he finished in office and Dana Carvey left on SNL. However, the episode he made a cameo in was an episode that Dana Carvey hosted, and even though he was no longer president, the “candidate appeal” can also come into play with that, as if to say even though he was no longer president, he could still laugh along with everyone else.

Last season, the best skits put on by the show were definitely the debates and the ones with the cast members playing the candidates, but it didn’t just start there. As I mentioned above, Dana Carvey was extremely popular as George H.W. Bush, and one of the earlier debates I found was with Carvey as Bush and Jon Lovitz as Michael Dukakis. Strangely enough, one of Jon’s lines is “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy.” Well, it’s pretty obvious that he, in fact, did lose to Bush in 1988, another reflection to how SNL does a pretty damn good job at predicting and reflecting the public’s opinion of candidates. Another favorite of mine is Will Ferrell as George W. Bush and Darrell Hammond as Al Gore. The portrayals of the two are spot on, especially Ferrell. Unlike his father, the 2^nd president Bush never personally appeared on the show, which doesn’t really surprise me. I don’t view him as someone that would be able to laugh off the fact that they portray him as just a straight up idiot. Al Gore did come on though, and did poke fun at himself as many others have before him. If you watch the video above you’ll notice how often Hammond refers to a “lockbox” and how it refers to just about everything. Since 2000, Al Gore has actually hosted the show and took a seat on the fake SNL oval office and talked as if he was the president in a “parallel universe”, and yes, the lockbox did come into play in his opening monologue.

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Moving onto the present time. The movement to get my demographic to register to vote and actually vote has been huge over the past 20 years, starting primarily with Bill Clinton. When the elections were going on there were constant PSA’s featuring celebrities, MTV’s Rock the Vote, and even a music video with various different artists supporting Barack Obama directed towards 18-25 year olds with their message being that our generation is important, get out there and vote, we can make a difference, etc. Obviously Saturday Night Live wasn’t going to be left behind in the movement, especially with the striking facial similarities with former SNL cast member Tina Fey and Republican Vice President nominee Sarah Palin. Tina Fey’s portrayal of Palin helped the series improve its ratings significantly from the season before and it also led to a media firestorm with people constantly talking about her performances and comparing them to Palin since they were eerily similar. As we watched in class, Sarah Palin came on SNL and threw a reference to Tina Fey with doing her signature sign-off after Weekend Update and there was another segment that we didn’t watch in class. In the segment where Palin is watching Fey portray Palin, Fey is obviously mocking her and poking fun, and when they show Palin, she appears laidback and like the jabs is just rolling off her shoulders. Also appearing is Mark Wahlberg who goes after Andy Samberg who made fun of him on a show, and then Alec Baldwin comes up and insults Sarah Palin to her face, thinking she is Tina Fey. Sarah however, just stands there smiling and then throws an insult back at Baldwin, stating that Stephen is her favorite Baldwin. In reality, she was showing us that she is tough and she can handle the criticism that she was receiving in the press and she can dish it just as much as she can take it.

In addition to Sarah Palin appearing on the show last season, Mike Huckabee appeared mocking himself (we watched that one in class), as well as John McCain. McCain actually did a skit with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. The skit was a commercial for QVC home shopping network, and they were hawking items such as blank dinner plates (referring to the town hall debates Obama wouldn’t do), “Joe Action Figures” (Joe the plumber, Joe Biden) among others (Cindy McCain also shows up in the skit, where she is showing off items, referring to the whole “MILF” and trophy wife labels she got throughout the campaign). President Obama was also supposed to be a guest and he was in fact booked, but right before the show his grandmother died and was unable to attend.

All of these examples go along with the candidate appeal and homophily aspects we covered in class. Homophily, by the way, is how we like to vote for candidates who are similar to ourselves. Personally, I like to be around people who don’t take themselves too seriously and can laugh at themselves, and I am pretty sure about 90% of the population would agree with me. As we all know, politicians do tend to be pretty smart or their advisors are, and it’s obvious that appearing on SNL would be good for a candidates appeal since it would show viewers that they can laugh at themselves and not take everything so seriously. They can think outside of the debates and campaigning constantly (even though that is actually what they are doing) and relax. They can kick back and take criticism and even laugh along, because we all want a leader who is able to laugh once in a while. While it was extremely cool to see these public figures on SNL, it did seem a bit overplayed, like if you weren’t on the show then you just had a stick up your ass and couldn’t take the criticism.