Wednesday, January 30, 2008

A Race to Super Tuesday and Another Two Bite the Dust

Today both Rudy Guilini and John Edwards dropped out of the race. Chalk Guilini's up to possibly the riskiest campaign of a major candidate and Edwards' up to strong competition.

Rudy said from the beginning that all of his chips are in Florida. As an outside candidate for the Republican nominee he went with a risky tactic, which if would of worked out would have been heralded as brilliance. I cannot fault him for betting big. To continue the gambling analogy, it's like playing the roullette. You place big and if you win...you win big. Rudy is a dying breed of liberal-republicans so he figured, what the hell...let's have it ride on 29 (January 29th Florida primary) and take those winnings and put them in play in Super Tuesday.

Edwards on the other hand was always the little brother in the race. He kept on wanting to play with his big sister and big brother, but they just wouldn't let him. His charisma was nothing compared to Obama and his $400 haircuts were nothing to Clinton's crying.

So we are heading into Super Tuesday, less than a week away, with the Kennedys backing Obama and Clinton winning a delegate-free race in Florida.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008

A Final Reaction to Gladwell's "The Tipping Point"

I've made numerous comments about Malcom Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" over the last week in this blog and in class, but now that I've finished reading it I felt that I should wrap up my thoughts into one coherent (hopefully) post. Overall, I did enjoy the book. I am a fan of non-fiction and learned some nice gems of information. But I still most continue my original thoughts that the book his overly simplified.

I agree with his point that small changes can have big results. I'm a firm believer in the theory of Occam's Razor, which Gladwell basically elongates into 300 pages, but am still unconvinced.

I take notice to the by-line in his book "How Little Things Can Make a Difference" because the "Can" certainly needs to be emphasized. Yes, tweaking a program to effect an epidemic of some kind or being creative in a marketing campaign can give results but it takes a greater more robust strategy that cannot be ignored for real political or business success.

A perfect example came to my mind while watching CSPAN yesterday, where they were replaying a speech made by Bill Clinton in South Carolina. Clinton was there to promote his wife's campaign to be the next President of the United States and used his Law of the Few sales-man skills to pitch Hillary's higher education plan. Many of the things Bill Clinton stressed were these "little things" that Gladwell discusses, but it was a combination of these tweaks as part of a broader and more comprehensive strategy. This comprehensive strategy "can make a difference" but their are many potential adoption and success factors that can threaten it. Yes, offering more Pell Grants will help. Yes, offering students the ability to subvert the greedy student loan companies and borrow directly from the Federal Government will help. And yes, offering tuition remission to individuals going into careers in public service will have a profound impact on our system and society.

First, it's hard for me to attribute these ideas as little things. Secondly I cannot stress how strongly I feel the importance of a comprhensive approach is to fixing the problem. The comments made by Clinton -- if implemented -- "can make a difference" but will they? And how? If these changes give agency to any American to afford college, who will tell them about them? What public schools in Washington, DC; Philadelphia, PA; Baltimore, MD; Oakland, CA; or New York City, NY; will adequately prepare the grammar and high school students of today to enter college. Clinton didn't say anything about repealing "No Child Left Behind." He didn't talk about improving teacher compensation. He spoke of college. That is one component of educating our work-force, but for many socio-economic reasons many people can't go to college. Should they continue to be shut out of the 21st century economy? No!!!! Clinton did talk about a program to retrofit all New York City public buildings to become green and how the public works project will create thousands of "green collared" jobs for high school graduates who can be trained to be the laborers of the projects. Is that a little thing or is that a big thing? It's certainly sounds bigger than having a clean needle van heading into Baltimore once a week.

Okay, I'm back off of my soap box (my throat is sore from metaphorically screaming). Reading Gladwell's "Tipping Point" was a good use of my time. I am a little behind in my course readings beause the book store didn't have the books in stock and I didn't get the book until the day the class started (where I read a solid 18 pages before class started), but after four days and a couple sittings I'm glad I spent the time to catch up and finish it. Now before I pass out or fall over I must start my other reading for my class tomorrow. Ahh the life of a part-time graduate student with a full-time job and other responsibilities. To quote the Dali Lama supporting rock-rappers, "Their is no sleep to Brooklyn!"

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Obama Owns South Carolina

This morning I saw the news that Obama won South Carolina by a two-to-one margin. What a Win! Whether this will be indicative of the south (doubt it) or not, this momentum is huge for him going into Super-Duper Tuesday. Hillary is really strong in a lot of the big states, which will be problematic for Bararck but if Obama can pull the South and Midwest vote, he'll def be able to take the primary.

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Friday, January 25, 2008

Kucinich Doesn't Have the Stickiness Factor

So Dennis Kucinich joined Thompson yesterday in Presidential candidates to drop out of the primary in the week preceeding Super-duper Tuesday. As Macolm Caldwell would say in "The Tipping Point," Kucinich lacked the stickiness factor. I look back at his campaign and the one "sticky" (pardon the pun) was the grottiest cuts to his attractive, young, red-headed, tongue ring pierced wife in the debates. If only the Daily Show were not on re-runs for much of his campaign...maybe in four years the stars would align better.

Well to that point, I did want to discuss one criticism I have with Gladwell's book. Beyond the fact that I find it overly simplified, it doesn't consider how "the perfect storm" plays into an epidimic. The Baltimore STD epidimic, that he uses as an example, is clear that it was not simply the diffusion of citizenry to different communities that spread the epidimic, but it was the combination of that coupled with the reduced funding of clinics and various other tangently components.

I agree that a campaign or any product can reach the tipping point through a little act but I feel that Baltimore and Hush Puppies are an exception to the rule; and not the rule. Viral marketing can just happen. The "Obama Girl" video can take off because of the spread of it through appropriate connectors but the motivation to create the video by a PENN and Temple university student had nothing to do with the connector and its stickiness. It wasn't just the attractive actress lip-singing the song, but it was a combination of the sexuality; the cleverness of the lyrics; the timing of the release; the luck to reach the appropriate connectors; the technology of YouTube; the charisma of Obama; the demand by the U.S. popolous for change; and untold other elements that worked together to make its success. To that point, the sequels to the video have not been as successful because they lacked the formula and the "x-factor" that made "Obama Girl" an Internet success.

Kucinich also lacked that. As did Thompson. Kucinich will be an after-thought for '08, but Thompson (like Dean) will be heralded as an important loser. Like Dean, whose momentum ended up bringing his demise, Thompson's rhetoric as the "conservative candidate" couldn't hold up once he joined the big leagues. Maybe if he never ran than he would of won the nomination...do I hear "write in candidate" (::cough cough Michael Bloomberg cough cough::). But what Thompson, Kucinich, Biden, Dodd, Tencredo-ado-ado, and all the other would-of/could-of candidates didn't achieve wasn't Gladwell "little thing" but a combination of things.

Huckabee's recent success isn't because of a little thing. It's because he's charismatic, smart, funny, likeable, or the fact that he played the guitar on Jay Leno on his first night back from the strike. It's not because he wants to ammend the constitution. It is because he is a dynamic candidate. He is well-rounded. He will not win, but he will give McCain and Romney-the-Robot a scare.

To the dynamism point, my man is still Obama. I am part of the 1,000,000 (or 400,000 at this point) behind Obama on Facebook. The man is more than just the rhetoric of a change-agent. He is honest, smart, new, decisive, charismatic, positive, and is not afraid to work with Republicans to get the job done. And if you didn't mention, I didn't characterize him at all in there as an African-American. I have plenty of adjectives to describe him well before I think of him as a minority. Whether I am representative of Joe or Jane Voter, I doubt it, but nobody can tell me that he is not honest, smart, new, decisive, charismatic, or positive. But beyond that, he is a Midwest Senator. And that region is kinda Redish so even though Hillary will win California, New York, and a couple other of the big electorate states...the candidate that energizes me, Obama Girl, and a great part of America has potential and momentum. That is no little thing Mr. Gladwell.

I want to get on my horse (aka rent a zipcar) like Paul Revere and drive down Pennsylvania Ave screaming. I will not be pronouncing the British are coming because frankly I'm going to the UK this summer to study at Oxford, but I want to scream Obama is coming. Whether it is the Law of the Few and I am a connector, maven, or door-to-door sales man, people will listen to that message. They will listen because they already have a predispotion to that message -- like Revere's message -- and because the Secret Service would flag me down in about 3 seconds flat for screaming in front of the White House.

Although I'm only about half-way done with "The Tipping Point," some of Gladwell's points do have a stickiness with me. I appreciate and agree with most of it but I just think things are much deeper than what he makes it out to be. I look at the three types of people he outlines and respect that he said some people fit in more than one candidate but I think its deeper than that too. I want to look at it as venn diagram where mavens, connectors, and sales-man can overlap with each other. Thus instead of just three types of people there are actually seven different types of motivators:

1) mavens
2) connectors
3) sales-man
4) mavens/connectors
5) mavens/sales-men
6) connectors/sales-men
7) mavens/connectors/sales-men (aka Obamas)

And God forbid that their would be different levels of each person. What about instead of a maven/connector its a connector with hints of mavenism (is that a word???). Since this post is about politics, I should admit that I am a Democrat, but I don't just bleed blue. I am a moderate democrat, with liberal, progressive, and libertarian views. I support Huckabee's consumption tax plan because it's unfair for the most educated/richest to "game the system" when those that need the most social services and support are ignorant to how to get them. I also think the government is too big and the world is hyperglobalized so we should listen to Ron Paul. But, I have no problem paying federal taxes if I support what its going to...gladly take more money out of my pay-check if it's going to improving public school education but don't dare give it to the DoD. I support our troops and I admit that I did support the War in Iraq at its onset, but not for the reasons the President and the media gave me. I didn't believe Sadame had WMDs, but I knew he had rape rooms in his 21 palaces and had commited acts of genocide. For humantarian reasons, I wanted to over-throw the dictator to spread democracy and improve the plite of the Iraqi people. I congradulate George W. Bush for doing that. But how did the Army allow a man with a cell-phone to video tape the hanging...it's the freaking Internet, it's every where. That is not a little thing. The war is not a little thing. The failures in Iraq are not little things. They are machines that take socio-economic, political, and cultural complexities and cannot be simplied down to a couple "hip" kids in the NYC club scene wearing hush puppies. Well this paragraph has become too long and I feel like I am venting (may have been the second glass of wine I drank after the symphony tonight) but this is blog and I don't think anyone is going to read it so might as well say it all.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The Tipping Point is the Colbert Nation

It is a quarter to twelve. What else is a Gen Y-er to do than watch the spokesman for our generation, one Stephen Colbert, and as fate would have it...the former rogue-Presidential candidate (only in South Carolina) had Malcom Gladwell on as a guest. Since I am supposed to be reading Gladwell's "Tipping Point" right now, but the Half.com gods have yet to deliver the book to my door, Viacom and the Internet brought me the two next best things:

1) the direct source of watching him on Colbert; and
2) the most trustest source of knowledge in the world...Wikipedia.

Irony or coincidence be told...whether it was Gladwell's theory, Colbert's explicit backing for Mike Huckabee, Colbert's leveraging of his traditional media audience to edit Wikipedia, or just Fred Thompson's own laziness (who knows) but today was the day that Mr. Law and Order dropped out of the race. I personally feel that the Huckabee & Colbert '08 ticket was too strong in South Carolina for Thompson to handle.

More to come as I actually begin reading "Tipping Point," but just by watching tonight's interview -- I have a deep sign of respect for the author's haircut.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Taking Action

This past week I joined the Facebook group "1,000,000 Strong for Obama" and created an account on Change.org. On Change, I joined three groups to support causes that I feel strongly in: preserving network neutrality, improving the U.S. public school system, and researching alternative energy technologies.

Please find below the text from a network neutrality campaign that I took action on. Additionally, I'd like to recommend a concise report that AeA published last year on net neutrality.

But, here is my letter to Del. Holmes and E-commerce Committee Senate & House Leadership:

As a graduate student from Georgetown University's Communication, Culture & Technology program I must strongly recommend that Congress protect freedom and openness on the Internet by passing legislation to protect network neutrality.

The Internet is our most democratic medium. It has grown exponentially, fueled innovation and altered how we communicate. Network neutrality is the guiding principle that has allowed for these advancements. If network neutrality is not mandated, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may block aka disenfranchise Americans from being heard by their elected officials. It may create a tiered Internet where large corporations -- who can afford to pay the surcharges -- will have an unfair competitive advantage over small innovative Internet businesses. These companies have been a driver for the economy and must be able to continue to do so; especially during these turbulant economic times.

I strongly urge you and your colleagues in Congress to support robust netneutrality legislation that prohibits network operators from blocking,impeding or interfering with any lawful Internet traffic orprioritizing any content or services. I believe recent proposals by Snowe, Dorgan, and Markey are excellent examples of this and hope you give them your consideration.

Jason Langsner
Washington, DC

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Thursday, January 17, 2008

My Last-First Class at Georgetown

This week culminated as my last-first week at Georgetown. My two courses for the semester are about policy and they will be my last two Georgetown CCT courses before I head to Oxford University this summer for an International Business Management program.

I'm tired after working a marathon twelve hour day where the association I work for hosted a conference on telework and identity management, but I wanted to kick this blog off. My primary intentions are to follow the Presidential Primaries and my simultaneous campaign to apply for a U.S. government fellowship to go and conduct work-study in Israel next year as a supplement to my Georgtown Masters degree. In this blog, I'll also be discussing my interests in new media, public policy, and anything else that motivates me to log-on. This will be written in a stream-of-consciousness and your comments are welcomed.

I will also use the blog to submit weekly book and article reviews on various topics.

In the class we discussed Capwiz and several other advocacy tools. Although we don't leverage all of the value of this tool, the association that I work for contracts that solution.

We are currently running a campaign to influence the Congress to reform the High-Skilled Visa Programs of the United States so our companies can recruit the best and brightest from around the world. In a hyperglobalized economy, if these talents cannot work for American companies they will directly compete with them. Therefore, I'd like to welcome other students to view our campaign and surf AeA's Capwiz site at http://capwiz.com/aea

Stay tuned as more to come...

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