The Golden Section is a mathematical formula which the Ancients called 'extreme and mean ratio' or 61.8% of 100%. An analysis of Barack Obama's 32 victories reveals a percentage of 60.97% of the total number of votes. This means that Obama's path towards the Presidency reflects a proportional rule of nature, considered by many to be the most aesthetically pleasing and ubiquitous ratio in art, design, physics, and architecture. His percentage is, therefore, less than 1% of the perfect golden section ratio.
Welcome back, America! Welcome to the 21st Century, in which the President can have a black face, an Indonesian childhood and Hussein as his second name. Barack Obama is the American dream. Difficult to imagine that there would not be a happy ending for him.
snip
Obama is the best weapon in the world against those already exciting stereotypes about his country. If someone points out racism in America again, he will say: I won in a 97 percent white state such as Iowa. If someone refers to bigots, he can say: many of those evangelistic Christians and Republicans voted for me. Whoever points out the apathy of US youths, will hear from him: Look at the masses of young students, who arose from their soap operas in the icy coldness of Iowa and came in droves like they would to a pop concert.
An evaluation of the results of the Nevada Caucus with over 90% of the vote counted reveals that Sen. Hillary Clinton's win is attributable to her overwhelming showing in Clark County, home to Las Vegas' famous casino 'strip.'
Out of Nevada's 17 counties, Obama wins 10 Clinton's 7.
(a comment made in July by Obama strategist referrring to President Clinton's July 4th appearances with his wife)
... and today Barack Obama was the sun, radiantly reflected on both sides by two brilliant, charismatic women. What a class act!
My gut feeling? Today Senator Obama had his "OMG, this is really happening! I might actually win this thing!" moment.
The 'moment' was bigger than he is, has become the reality he has championed all these months as he struggled upsteam against the tide, slophing off so many could-a-been shattering disappointments ... the infusion of Bill Clinton into his spot on the march over that bridge in Selma; the July 4th weekend playing cards with his family in their trailer while Hillary & Bill, swathed in media hoopla, strolled arm in arm down mainstreet Iowa; the blind eye MSM turned to the 24,000 swallowed in New York's Washington Sqare Park; the calculated visciousness of the cable news networks and the virtual Clinton community; and the polls, the polls, the polls.
Oprah is the hard earned moment of truth for the Obama campaign. These Iowans aren't showing up to see her. No, they are showing up to be a part of history. To finally be counted because, in the media glare her seque into campaigning has occassioned, the spotlight at long last is exactly where it belongs. On America.
There is no ghost writer behind the sheer authenticity of what Obama has awoken in the American public. There's no need for planted questions, for paid bloggers, for 'seeded' online communities, for chits.
I couldn't help but remember today watching Oprah up there on the stage how my daughter wanted Oprah to run for president in 2004. That was before the convention, before she heard Barack Obama.
"That's the man I want to be president," she said.
How many of us felt the same thing that night, experienced the raw hope, that innate recognition that we were observing the birthing of an American hero.
Yes, America. Believe it. Our moment in the sun is now.
I know a lot about creating a fake online community. About swelling and promoting tabs, presenting a vibrant, interactive and diverse group of users and growing a database of content from scatch. I know this because two years ago I was hired by a web 2.0 startup and, under the working title managing editor, hired 5 writers who created 30 aliases and enough content to posture the company as actually ‘existing.’ One month later, I was directed to layoff my staff because the focus of the company had shifted: what was important now was the gadget, the intricate software. It took some time for me to realize that this was the plan all along: they just needed enough core substance to appear viable, to lay the groundwork. Now, they only needed me to write, which I did for 4 more months, under 7 aliases.
By then, the company was going under fast and so I, too, was shown the door.
After months of tooling through ‘everything virtual Hillary’, Im thinking that’s what’s going on here too.
"Have you ever watched a video with 100,000 views on YouTube and thought to yourself: “How the hell did that video get so many views?” Chances are pretty good that this didn’t happen naturally, but rather that some company worked hard to make it happen – some company like mine."
A post from Dan Ackerman Greenberg, co-founder of viral video marketing company The Comotion Group and lead TA for the Stanford Facebook Class.
Spend any time over the past months at hillaryclinton.com (and hillhub, etc.)and you notice just how little community interaction occurs there. Compare her main community blog to obama’s, which overflows with comments and profiles and flick’r photos and cross posts. Join and you'll discover that the majority of her groups and discussion topics were begun months ago and have 300-600 views and only 1 topic,maybe 1 or 2 comments. Look into her photo section and you discover its stuffed with personal photos of people, hardly any having anything whatsoever to do with Hillary.
And then there is the Hillary 'attack machine', those bloggers who descend seemingly en masse (and were highly present after Yearly Kos) to accuse pro-Edwards or Obama writers of using republican talking points and generally ginny up the conversation to become highly combative. Then read this:
Every power user on YouTube has a number of different accounts. So do we. A great way to maximize the number of people who watch our videos is to create some sort of controversy in the comments section below the video. We get a few people in our office to log in throughout the day and post heated comments back and forth (you can definitely have a lot of fun with this). Everyone loves a good, heated discussion in the comments section - especially if the comments are related to a brand/startup.
Also, we aren’t afraid to delete comments – if someone is saying our video (or your startup) sucks, we just delete their comment. We can’t let one user’s negativity taint everyone else’s opinions.
We usually get one comment for every thousand views, since most people watching YouTube videos aren’t logged in. But a heated comment thread (done well) will engage viewers and will drive traffic back to our sites.
But wait, there's more... Clinton has spent her fair share on internet related expenses and I haven't yet gone through and located where she has 'earmarked' them all. But one that kept sticking out over the past few months is the Mayfield Strategy Group. MSG has received over $370,000 (many payments are $10,000 range)for web services and the firm's web presence is a single page business card site:
The Mayfield Strategy Group is a leading provider of strategic internet services for political campaigns, non-profit organizations, and corporations. Our unique experience and methodology allow us to provide the highest quality and most professional services in the industry.
Hmm. No idea about who this company is but with all this opaqueness one starts to get so distrustful i start imagining that Josh Ross of MSG is maybe actually the Ross Mayfield, the social networking guru and creator of the first wiki, socialtext, who is on the NOI board of advisors as Josh Mayfield of MSG? I mean, when you read about the sham of online marketing set forth above, well, anything seems possible.
But given all this opaqueness, another aspect of HRC's expenses really bothers me.
Postage?
I did a g-satellite of RWT Production, the Virginia firm that Campaign Clinton has paid over $2.2 million through Q3 for postage and what I discovered yields about as much context as yet another single page business card website promoting the business on the web.
Pete Taylor (further google search discovers he’s on an audlt softball team in Virginia) runs his business (or so it appears from the aerial image) out of a house near Bradford Road off the Capital Beltway, the last building on a dead end street in a tract development.
Further purusing of the opensecret.org expenditures yielded that the DNC also used the service in the 04 election, through came nowhere near to this type of customer loyalty. Pete’s phone number is on his ‘site’ … should I call him Monday and ask exactly what ‘big mailbox’ services he’s providing Hill&Co?
Last night, I sat perhaps fifteen feet away from the man who may be the next President of the United States. I heard him deliver an outstanding speech. It's the new speech, the one he rolled out at the JJ Dinner in Iowa on Saturday night to wide acclaim. He gave that speech yesterday at a San Francisco fundraiser in front of over 6,000 people screaming, stomping and cheering our hearts out.
One current media narrative seems to that Barack Obama has found his voice again - he's giving speeches at the level of the 2004 Convention speech that catapulted him to national fame. And because he's giving great speeches, he just might win the nomination.
I think this account has it exactly backwards. And it misses the real story of the JJ dinner, a story prominently on display at last night's Northern California event. Largely invisible up until now, Obama's field structure is now coming into focus. That's what is energizing the campaign and the candidate. If Obama wins in Iowa, California and elsewhere, organizing - not oratory - will be the reason. You see, Obama isn't going to win because he's giving great speeches. Obama is giving great speeches because he just might win.
