Saturday, August 23, 2008

Too Little Too Late?

August 22, 2008, 9:00 pm. Earlier this evening I called a friend of mine at a news network to see if she had heard anything about the Vice Presidential choice, and alas she had not. “We’re not going to know until after they tell their supporters on line. They are very big about using new technologies. If you’re registered you will know before I do.” The Obama campaign is very good at crafting political games and this one is to announce the choice for Vice President in a way it has never been done before—by e-mail not through the media.. So now I am prepared to stay up all night so I can be the first person to know who will be second on the ticket.

It’s 1:00am and I am still waiting. I think I fell asleep and heard something about Joe Biden. It must be a dream. I think I’ll log on to the web site and see if they inadvertently forgot to notify everyone on the list. 1:30am. I logged on to the website but all I got was Barack giving a speech and a financial pitch. I better go to some traditional news services and see if I was dreaming.

2:00am It wasn’t a dream Biden is the guy. I’ll try to get back on the website and see what the campaign has to say. See if I can get any insider stuff. I lopve to think of myself as an insider. I’m one of those people who knows so much inside stuff I find it hard to like anyone but...

2:15am I finally figured out how to get past the pitch. Here’s what the offical word is:

“Barack has chosen Joe Biden to be his running mate.

Joe Biden brings extensive foreign policy experience, an impressive record of collaborating across party lines, and a direct approach to getting the job done.

We have our team, but we also have our work cut out for us.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the leaders who will bring the change our country needs. But they can't do it alone.

Show your support for the Obama-Biden ticket by making a donation today.”

See there’s the pitch again. There is nothing they do that doesn’t include an ask for money. That’s why their fundraising is so successful. And by the way, you may think that I spelled official wrong. The misspelling was intentional in honor of Beijing and another big event they sponsored – the Women’s Conference. As the head of communications for the ‘official’ delegation I thought it would be nice to give everyone t-shirts. So I printed t-shirts that were supposed to say, “US Official Delegate” with lot’s of graphics. Well, the State Department went nuts because not everyone who got t-shirts was an ‘official’ delegate – some were mere staff. Talk about dumbing down international policy issues. Anyway, there was an enormous uproar until I noticed that the printer had inadvertently screwed up and instead of it saying official delegate it said offical delegate. None of us were Offical, so that made it OK to distribute the fine wearable to anyone who was there. I could tell you many ‘stupid State’ stories but you get the idea and it’s really TMI.

So what do I think about Biden. It's OK. I would have liked the selection to have been a bit more creative and someone with some management experience -- a woman, a governor, a military person. But that’s a blob for later. For the next few days I will be blobbing from the Democratic Convention in Denver. It is my intention to prioritize the events -- with parties way ahead of information gathering or politics. But isn’t that the way it should be when we all no there will be no surprises—except maybe by the Hillary delegates. They must be livid about the release of information that she was not even in consideration. Ir’s 4am. Too late and maybe too little. We’re just sayin...

10 comments:

Walter Briggs said...

Although I am not a huge fan of Obama..she would have been the best of choices for him. I have no idea who the heck (can i say that) is advising him, but he screwed the pooch in not selecting her.

Yep, unfortunately this may not work out as well as one may have thunk. With that said, I wouldn't be surprized if there's a Hillary surprize at the Convention.

How wrong am I?

Anonymous said...

Hillary would have been the death nail to the heart of Obama. She's like touching the third rail.

But Biden???????????????????????????

Wake me when it's over.

Let's see the fun when McCain announces.

W who is not VP material

Walter Briggs said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Walter Briggs said...

Okay, I 'might' be a tad wrong about Hillary..maybe.. But one cannot deny the Dem convention may turn out to be a bit UNconventional.

I usually ran 'from' office of any sort...

Anonymous said...

Yikes - a whole week of DNC blobbing? OMG, say it isn't so! What's a conservative to do?

Perhaps I'll change channels next week and check out the 8,916 sites on "Big Foot is/isn't/was/were/maybe/perhaps/ a Hoax"
-or-
the 13,623 "Brittney Spears is/isn't/was/now/maybe/ought to be/ back in rehab" sites. This should keep me occupied for the better part of the week
-or-
Maybe I'll just ring up Scottie or Sulu on the old communicator and have one of 'em beam me up for a week! Yea, thats the ticket!
-or-
-or-
-or-

Anonymous said...

Regarding your first 3 paragraphs you could have stayed tuned to CNN for 24 hours as they reminded you every 5 minutes that the announcement of Obama's running mate was imminent and that "the best political team on TV" would bring it to you first (or you could have called me early in the week).

And while I'm at it, the Clinton's piss me off almost as much as CNN. It's Obama's convention not the three stooges (well, maybe Chelsea is alright...the three stooges sounds better than the two stooges). The sleaze team is still in their revenge mode.

dickiedo

Anonymous said...

PS: I WILL sleep better knowing that you're in Denver protecting my back.

Dickiedo

Iris&David said...

Hi,
Belles Dad, here's a good one for you. Im going to be on Neil Cavuto monday at ^mt time. SoI guess that's eight on the east coast. Tune in, I won't embarrass you.

Unknown said...

You're both at the convention! I'm jealous. Have a fabulous time and tell us all you can.

Anonymous said...

I assume ^ means 6:00? I am central = 7:00. Will most definately be watching - and just how did you snare such a gig on, of all things, The Fair and Balanced Channel? Regardless, congrats (I guess) but when your show's over, I'm still gonna do the Star Trek thing with my buddies Kirk, Scotty, Chekov, Sulu - and Elvis...

I hope Cavuto has a call-in segment while your on. If so, I sort of almost kinda promise not to embarrass you either... maybe?