Scattered Brilliance

From my brain to paper (or pixels as the case may be)

Archive for election

Obama “Yes We Can” Lyrics get my blog hopping

February 10, 2008 at 1:49 pm · Filed under blogging and tagged: , , , , , ,

Obama Yes We Can search

The interest in Will.i.am’s remix of Barack Obama’s speech after the New Hampshire primaries has drifted well into the “Scattered Brilliance” domain.  I am currently ranked #4 on google search results for combinations of [Obama yes we can lyrics] pointing to this post from last week.

As you can see in the graph below, traffic to this post has been high and is growing.  All of this traffic is coming from organic searches for the text of Obama’s speech that the song was set to.

Outside of knowing that people would be searching for these lyrics, because that’s one of the first things I did, and knowing that wordpress posts rank disproportionately high in Google’s algorithm, primarily due to page title and meta data from the post title itself, I didn’t do much to SEO this post.

It makes you think how blogs have changed the currency of search results.

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Larry Lessig on Obama

February 5, 2008 at 4:42 pm · Filed under politics and tagged: , , , , ,

Or view the original post on his blog here.

As an independent with republican leaning economic philosophies I have some policy issues with Barack Obama.  But, the smartest people I know all have Obama at the top of their list.  I think Lessig’s point on what type of leader Obama represents and his perception in the world are the two most important reasons to consider Obama despite my policy differences with him.

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“Yes We Can” (w/lyrics): A Song for Barack Obama

February 5, 2008 at 3:18 pm · Filed under internet, politics and tagged: , , , , , , ,

Will-I-Am of the Black Eyed Peas brought together a start studded cast to put Barack Obama’s speech in New Hampshire to music in a powerful show of support for the Obama campaign.

There is no doubt that Obama is the most inspirational and aspirational candidate on either side of the race for office.  Not only does his oration stand up to the stars singing behind it, but his message rings clear.  Change, Hope, Yes We Can.

The video was uploaded to YouTube on 2/2/08 and in three days has over 1,350,000 views.  That’s grass roots inspiration.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can. Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores
and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can. Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized;
women who reached for the ballots;
a President who chose the moon as our new frontier;
and a King who took us to the mountain-top and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
(yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can…)

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can. Si Se Puede
(yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can…)

We know the battle ahead will be long,
but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way,
nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We want change!
(We want change! We want change! We want change…)

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant.
We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check.
We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. We want change!
(We want change! I want change! We want change! I want change…)

The hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA;
we will remember that there is something happening in America;
that we are not as divided as our politics suggests;
that we are one people;
we are one nation;
and together, we will begin the next great chapter in America’s story with three words that will ring from coast to coast;
from sea to shining sea – Yes. We. Can.
(yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can…)

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Did Rudy Giuliani miscalculate campaign strategy?

January 30, 2008 at 10:05 am · Filed under politics and tagged: , , , , , , ,

guiliani dropping out of the race?

Upon hearing the news that it was likely that Rudy Giuliani will withdraw his bid for the 2008 Republican nomination and throw his support to Sen. John McCain before the Super Tuesday push on February 5th, my only thought was “wow, he fucked up his campaign strategy pretty badly.”

Now, I am not a person invested much in “politics”, but campaigns too me are fascinating bits of game theory and strategy. It’s less about who you are and what you can do for the country than the strategy and tactics that create the public opinion of those things. I think this is less true in the general election for president, but very much true in the drawn out race for the nomination.

I may not have all the facts straight, but let me play them back as I see them.

Coming into the run for the nomination, the Republican race seemed like a race between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani with John McCain close at their heels.  The likes of Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson were involved in the race, but not likely to win unless everything fell right for them, and Ron Paul had fanatical support but may have been nothing more than a “Howard Dean-esque” internet phenomenon.

While Romney, Huckabee, and Thompson focused on the opening foray to the nomination in Iowa and McCain there after in New Hampshire, Giuliani steadfastly campaigned in the Super Tuesday states turning his back on the theory that early momentum could bolster a candidate to the nomination.   It would appear that this was a campaign strategy built on misguided logic.  By spending all his time and resources in the Super Tuesday states hoping to hang around on reputation and make his run at the nomination in the 41% of Republican delegates up for grabs that across 24 states, Giuliani not only didn’t create a crescendo of public opinion and momentum coming into those states, but he lost the ability to raise money as the campaign progressed.  No one wants to sink money into a failing candidate.

Even recent statements by Giuliani bring his campaign strategy into question.  According to the Los Angeles Times;

“In a meeting in the back of his chartered plane en route to St. Petersburg, Fla., a short while ago, the onetime, longtime GOP front-runner told a small group of reporters, including The Times’ Louise Roug: “The winner of Florida will win the nomination.”  – LA Times, Top of the Ticket.

If he believed that, then why wouldn’t he have built a campaign to build momentum into Florida and then ride that through the Super Tuesday states to the nomination, much like John McCain has.

I wasn’t a supporter of Giuliani regardless of his campaign strategy and am happy that he’ll throw his support McCain’s way.  But if I were a Giuliani supporter or God forbid his campaign team, I’d be doing alot of Super Tuesday Morning Quarterbacking when looking at the way this campaign for the nomination played out.

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