Friday, September 14, 2007

A few updates..

First off, in case you haven't seen it, the Herald opinion page has a blog, named after our fallen radio show, Muckrakers. We started live blogging last night, at the Students for Obama kickoff and the arrival of the Venezuelan ambassador. Go check it out.

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As for the kickoff itself, it was a little underwhelming. Certainly nice to hear that Obama is coming to Madison, but I expected that to happen anyway. What I really want to hear is their reasoning for why I should vote for him, something that was lacking a compelling argument. Sure, Eli Judge supports him because of his defense of LGBT issues, but that's not a compelling reason in and of itself.

Apparently they were supposed to show a film? What kind of film, Erik?

What I find quite strange about all of this hoopla over Obama is the amount of messianic talk I find in the rhetoric. On the fliers around campus, one of the most noticeable words is "faith." Without looking at the picture in the flier, I thought they was trying to drive up numbers for PrimeTime or a Christian organization. I mean, even that logo invokes the divine.

If not divine at least bombastic.

I suppose it's inspiring that these students are that enthusiastic about throwing their efforts toward change the country. However, hanging your hopes on a charismatic leader has a mixed results. That's why it's good these events are kicking off now - give us time to investigate. I'll probably do some live blogging from Students for Hillary as well. See if that's any more interesting.

Oh, and as for that spitting match comment on Something Verbose: meh. He's got his job, I've got mine. They conflict sometimes. So it goes.
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I'll leave you with this - care of another Herald employee. I know we're not supposed to criticize, and I promise this will be the last time (unless something major happens) but...well, take a look.

Look at the staff list. Which of these things just doesn't belong?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Copy Editors put something here? How about the Daily Cardinal coverage of Obama yesterday. What bullshit.

Jason Smathers said...

I know, I know. I was going to post on it until I saw Something Verbose go after it.

Anonymous said...

The point of these kickoffs aren't to convince the undecideds, they're to get people who are already onboard to get involved.

Erik Opsal said...

Video was supposed to be somewhat similar to what we showed at the College Dems kickoff only a little longer. That video can be found on the SFO blog.

Ryan Gallentine said...

sorry you have to spell this out for me, but who doesn't belong?