Dear Senator Obama,
Congratulations on finally winning the Democratic nomination for president. I don’t know if I’m voting for you yet, but I like what I hear so far and will be happy to provide you and your GOP counterpart with some free advice on occasion. And here is my first tip for you.
You know that Hollywood rally you attended last night? Make that your first – and absolutely last – interaction with celebrities. The sooner you disassociate from them, the better. If any actor, musician or any Paris Hilton-like demi-celebrity offers to appear with you or stump for you anywhere, it’s a trick and you should run away.
Remember you need to buff up your image and support with blue collar workers, white males and Main Street Americans in places like Pennsylvania and Ohio. That’s as far from the Hollywood lifestyle as it gets, and linking yourself with celebrities who have zero in common with people who live paycheck to paycheck will not help your cause or win the election for you, despite the good intentions.
Even people who follow celebrities closely will never call them good role models. Senator, would you want your daughters to emulate the lifestyle of those they watch on TV or hear on the radio? Would it please you if they hung out with these people? It probably would not. Yet, you did just that last night.
As with politicians, there is no IQ test to become a celebrity. The vapidness of notable celebrities is well documented. Others who have at least a passing knowledge of current events too often communicate their political views in a way that alienates far more than it persuades. When celebrities stoop to either insulting an opponent or the views of anyone who thinks differently than they do, it is a huge turnoff to Main Street Americans (most of whom are polite to a fault). It also does nothing to deflate the egotistical, self-absorbed image most people have of Hollywood stars and celebrities. For a politician that often derides “special interests,” it is curious why you would associate with people whose only interests are themselves.
Moral values were cited as an issue in the last election. While I personally did not buy into this – who could say they are against moral values? – many celebrities and Hollywood in general would never be commended for morality. But with Main Street America and a growing number of even evangelical votes up for grabs this year, it would not behoove you to associate with a crowd that is not only completely out of touch with these voters, but also is (perhaps unfairly) cited as the primary reason for lowering standards in this country. One only needs to look at top grossing movies and CDs to see the messages Hollywood is sending to this country. And while most Americans can discern between entertainment and reality, celebrity actions and words prove that may not be the case in Tinseltown. Even if most of these Americans will see Sex in the City and buy 50 Cent, they expect better from their politicians.
Finally, most celebrities rushing to promote their political views or preferred candidates tend to shoot themselves in the foot far too often, and end up alienating former fans with their vitriol and hurting the politicians they support. Four years ago, John Kerry’s celebrity boosters did not help him one iota. Whoopi Goldberg insulted thousands by telling a bad dirty joke at a fundraiser, and also lost a sponsorship as a result. John Mellencamp called Bush a “cheap thug,” in one of the kinder descriptions used by Kerry’s celebrity supporters. The outcome was so bad Kerry’s team had to repeatedly issue releases saying the celebrities’ comments did not reflect the campaign’s views. We won’t even discuss Michael Moore, whose anti-GOP rhetoric is so divisive that he is kryptonite to anyone appealing to the Independents that will ultimately decide the election.
Senator Obama, celebrities are welcome to say whatever they want. But as our parents told us, you are judged by the company you keep. Associating with celebrities – with their prevalent lifestyles and attitudes – will not endear you to struggling, open-minded and undecided voters. Neither will appearing with celebrities who repeatedly call Bush supporters and Republicans idiots or worse (many of them are thinking of voting for you this year).
The sooner you ban celebrities from your commercials, appearances and fundraising events, the better your chances will be.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
They Didn't Give Willie a Chance
You’re not supposed to take being laid off personally, but I cannot sit back and quietly accept the Mets firing Willie Randolph, a childhood hero that finally got a big chance to manage the New York Mets three years ago and was undeservingly kicked to the curb at 3 a.m. this morning.
Managing a major league baseball team is probably the toughest job in sports. The expectations are enormous and I can think of two managers in my life (Tommy Lasorda and Joe Torre) that got to leave on their own terms. Everyone else gets fired. But managers are not miracle workers, and they’re not responsible for the players’ mistakes on the ball field. Is it Willie’s fault that former ace closer Billy Wagner blew three straight saves? Or that Carlos Delgado is batting .242 while making $16 million a year? Or that Pedro Martinez has been on a seemingly permanent DL and has started just four games this year with only 12 strikeouts?
There are a very small number of managers whose very presence can electrify a team – Jim Leyland is one. But ask Casey Stengel if the Mets teams he managed were the same as the Yankee teams. In baseball, it is largely the General Manager who is charged with acquiring and moving the right players to create a championship. And while Willie did take the Mets to within one out of the pennant in 2006, a real sports fan cannot hold him entirely responsible for the collapse at the end of 2007 and certainly not for the dreadful underachievers like Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran this year. And the bullpen is beyond putrid.
The Mets currently have the second highest payroll in baseball at $137.4 million, but as Washington owner Daniel Snyder and the Steinbrenners have yet to learn, money does not automatically buy you a championship. When the season started, the Mets had the players but I didn’t believe they had the right team. But Willie did not assemble this bunch of slackers. GM Omar Minaya did, but Minaya is still employed because he works well with the Met owners. Remind you of anyone else?
Even if you disagree and think Willie Randolph deserved to be fired, the handling of the situation was absolutely disgraceful and unprofessional. The Mets were on the road and had won two in a row, yet the brass flew in to fire Willie and then sent out a press release in the middle of the night, as if they thought nobody would notice. As of today they have yet to offer a press conference or additional reasons for their actions.
I hope Willie perseveres. He certainly made some mistakes, but he remains a hero and a class act. Here’s hoping he manages again one day with the GM he deserves.
Managing a major league baseball team is probably the toughest job in sports. The expectations are enormous and I can think of two managers in my life (Tommy Lasorda and Joe Torre) that got to leave on their own terms. Everyone else gets fired. But managers are not miracle workers, and they’re not responsible for the players’ mistakes on the ball field. Is it Willie’s fault that former ace closer Billy Wagner blew three straight saves? Or that Carlos Delgado is batting .242 while making $16 million a year? Or that Pedro Martinez has been on a seemingly permanent DL and has started just four games this year with only 12 strikeouts?
There are a very small number of managers whose very presence can electrify a team – Jim Leyland is one. But ask Casey Stengel if the Mets teams he managed were the same as the Yankee teams. In baseball, it is largely the General Manager who is charged with acquiring and moving the right players to create a championship. And while Willie did take the Mets to within one out of the pennant in 2006, a real sports fan cannot hold him entirely responsible for the collapse at the end of 2007 and certainly not for the dreadful underachievers like Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran this year. And the bullpen is beyond putrid.
The Mets currently have the second highest payroll in baseball at $137.4 million, but as Washington owner Daniel Snyder and the Steinbrenners have yet to learn, money does not automatically buy you a championship. When the season started, the Mets had the players but I didn’t believe they had the right team. But Willie did not assemble this bunch of slackers. GM Omar Minaya did, but Minaya is still employed because he works well with the Met owners. Remind you of anyone else?
Even if you disagree and think Willie Randolph deserved to be fired, the handling of the situation was absolutely disgraceful and unprofessional. The Mets were on the road and had won two in a row, yet the brass flew in to fire Willie and then sent out a press release in the middle of the night, as if they thought nobody would notice. As of today they have yet to offer a press conference or additional reasons for their actions.
I hope Willie perseveres. He certainly made some mistakes, but he remains a hero and a class act. Here’s hoping he manages again one day with the GM he deserves.
Friday, June 06, 2008
The Newseum is Old News
I went to an event in Washington D.C. last week and had a lunch at the brand new Newseum, right off the Mall at Pennsylvania Avenue and C Street. While I didn’t have time to see the whole thing, the building is certainly spiffy and has some cool exhibits – including one place where they’ll video you as an anchorman, a First Amendment center and a memorial to journalists killed in the line of duty.
As new as it is, the Newseum also epitomizes much of what is wrong with the mainstream media today. News and journalism is a dynamic medium where citizens now have not only a plethora of choices to get their information, but today’s technology can let everyone be at least an armchair journalist. By the time you get the news it's already happened, and if you get it from a newspaper it's really old. Mainstream media outlets and daily papers are in serious financial trouble, but you'd never know that after looking at the Newseum.
It’s also no secret that many people get information from blogs like this one, download free images from Flickr instead of paying for them at Getty Images, and more people get their everyday news from Web sites like CNN.com and Fox News online instead of their broadcast counterparts. Yet the Newseum only has a small section devoted to the Internet, and I didn’t see anything focused on blogs or other forms of citizen journalism.
Much of the Newseum is focused to yesterday’s older, static images – newspapers, magazines, TV and books. It is fitting that the Newseum has these because that is where much of this belongs – in a museum. When the Washington Post Company gets more income from its Kaplan Testing division than its newspapers, you know the tide is irreversible. I think it’s a mistake to have the bulk of the Newseum’s exhibits centered on the way we used to get the news yesterday. It is the old media’s reluctance to change that is dooming the mainstream media, along with its focus on the superficial and sensational.
Outside the Newseum are print front pages from across the country. While this is interesting, especially for visitors to Washington, it’s not enough of a draw to lure people in – especially with so many other museums around the corner. In fact, the Newseum is not part of the Smithsonian and charges $20 for adults and $13 for kids to get in. Will the family of four visiting from Kansas pay $56 to go here, or nothing to go to the Air & Space Museum three blocks away? For me, the Newseum’s charging for access is similar to the question of why anyone would pay for a daily paper when there are so many ways to get the same information for free. It’s a changing world that the media just doesn’t seem to get, even when it’s building a monument to celebrate its achievements.
More Info:
Why Journalists Hate Journalism
One of My Earlier Media Rants, And Another
As new as it is, the Newseum also epitomizes much of what is wrong with the mainstream media today. News and journalism is a dynamic medium where citizens now have not only a plethora of choices to get their information, but today’s technology can let everyone be at least an armchair journalist. By the time you get the news it's already happened, and if you get it from a newspaper it's really old. Mainstream media outlets and daily papers are in serious financial trouble, but you'd never know that after looking at the Newseum.
It’s also no secret that many people get information from blogs like this one, download free images from Flickr instead of paying for them at Getty Images, and more people get their everyday news from Web sites like CNN.com and Fox News online instead of their broadcast counterparts. Yet the Newseum only has a small section devoted to the Internet, and I didn’t see anything focused on blogs or other forms of citizen journalism.
Much of the Newseum is focused to yesterday’s older, static images – newspapers, magazines, TV and books. It is fitting that the Newseum has these because that is where much of this belongs – in a museum. When the Washington Post Company gets more income from its Kaplan Testing division than its newspapers, you know the tide is irreversible. I think it’s a mistake to have the bulk of the Newseum’s exhibits centered on the way we used to get the news yesterday. It is the old media’s reluctance to change that is dooming the mainstream media, along with its focus on the superficial and sensational.
Outside the Newseum are print front pages from across the country. While this is interesting, especially for visitors to Washington, it’s not enough of a draw to lure people in – especially with so many other museums around the corner. In fact, the Newseum is not part of the Smithsonian and charges $20 for adults and $13 for kids to get in. Will the family of four visiting from Kansas pay $56 to go here, or nothing to go to the Air & Space Museum three blocks away? For me, the Newseum’s charging for access is similar to the question of why anyone would pay for a daily paper when there are so many ways to get the same information for free. It’s a changing world that the media just doesn’t seem to get, even when it’s building a monument to celebrate its achievements.
More Info:
Why Journalists Hate Journalism
One of My Earlier Media Rants, And Another
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Don't Count Your Chickens Yet
Ding dong, the witch is dead! But beware, the dead have been known to rise again…
Millions of trees and quadrants of cyberspace will be written over the next few months detailing how Hillary thankfully self-destructed. Many of these will be accurate. There’s no need for me to recount them all here, but here’s the best I’ve seen and here’s the second best. But none of them recount what I believe is the true reason, and one which I stated back in October – Hillary is just not a likable person.
That sounds superficial and it is. But Americans won’t vote for someone they dislike, no matter how much money they have, what their last name is or what their positions on the issues are. There is nothing harder than raising a candidate’s unfavorable ratings, and Hillary did absolutely nothing over the course of the campaign to change them.
But nobody ever dreamed that Bill Clinton would become so unlikable as well. The two of them were always attached at the hip, and by acting in such an unpresidential manner Clinton was able to drag his wife’s reputation down with him. The damage he has done to his own legacy is incalculable, and he helped drive the last nails in her coffin.
When you think of the Clintons now, what words come to mind? For me it’s ego, power-driven, unapologetic and narcissistic. If you’re a die-hard Democrat, you should be glad there is finally a nominee, but don’t count your chickens quite yet. Both of them will need to be appeased at the convention. Both of them will have to be given primetime speeches, which make me very nervous (and I’m not a die-hard Democrat). I am confident there will be a further Clinton attempt to sabotage or undermine Obama, possibly close to the election. And should Obama lose, expect them to say, “We told you so,” shortly afterward. Remind you of any psycho ex-girlfriends you know?
Nothing could be worse than Hillary on the VP ticket. This woman is toxic to the entire party and kryptonite to the Independent voters who will decide the election. Would it make sense if the New York Giants had to ask the New England Patriots for permission or advice on their championship parade and Super Bowl rings? The same logic applies to Obama having to check with Hillary on anything from this point forward.
Now, not all is rosy for Obama as well. If anything he stumbled to the finish line losing important states like Kentucky, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and New Mexico. He needs to shore up support with the beer drinkers who compose most of the base of the party. Unfortunately there is a racial element here that the media will not cover. Many of these Democrats, particularly older ones, will not vote for an African-American candidate. But there’s a long, long way to go.
Millions of trees and quadrants of cyberspace will be written over the next few months detailing how Hillary thankfully self-destructed. Many of these will be accurate. There’s no need for me to recount them all here, but here’s the best I’ve seen and here’s the second best. But none of them recount what I believe is the true reason, and one which I stated back in October – Hillary is just not a likable person.
That sounds superficial and it is. But Americans won’t vote for someone they dislike, no matter how much money they have, what their last name is or what their positions on the issues are. There is nothing harder than raising a candidate’s unfavorable ratings, and Hillary did absolutely nothing over the course of the campaign to change them.
But nobody ever dreamed that Bill Clinton would become so unlikable as well. The two of them were always attached at the hip, and by acting in such an unpresidential manner Clinton was able to drag his wife’s reputation down with him. The damage he has done to his own legacy is incalculable, and he helped drive the last nails in her coffin.
When you think of the Clintons now, what words come to mind? For me it’s ego, power-driven, unapologetic and narcissistic. If you’re a die-hard Democrat, you should be glad there is finally a nominee, but don’t count your chickens quite yet. Both of them will need to be appeased at the convention. Both of them will have to be given primetime speeches, which make me very nervous (and I’m not a die-hard Democrat). I am confident there will be a further Clinton attempt to sabotage or undermine Obama, possibly close to the election. And should Obama lose, expect them to say, “We told you so,” shortly afterward. Remind you of any psycho ex-girlfriends you know?
Nothing could be worse than Hillary on the VP ticket. This woman is toxic to the entire party and kryptonite to the Independent voters who will decide the election. Would it make sense if the New York Giants had to ask the New England Patriots for permission or advice on their championship parade and Super Bowl rings? The same logic applies to Obama having to check with Hillary on anything from this point forward.
Now, not all is rosy for Obama as well. If anything he stumbled to the finish line losing important states like Kentucky, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and New Mexico. He needs to shore up support with the beer drinkers who compose most of the base of the party. Unfortunately there is a racial element here that the media will not cover. Many of these Democrats, particularly older ones, will not vote for an African-American candidate. But there’s a long, long way to go.
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