Joe Biden on Fire

Obama Takes Aim at Bush and McCain With a Forceful Call to Change America

From The New York Times

DENVER — Barack Obama accepted the Democratic Party presidential nomination on Thursday, declaring that the “American promise has been threatened” by eight years under President Bush and that John McCain represented a continuation of policies that undermined the nation’s economy and imperiled its standing around the world.

The speech by Senator Obama, in front of an audience of nearly 80,000 people on a warm night in a football stadium refashioned into a vast political stage for television viewers, left little doubt how he intended to press his campaign against Mr. McCain this fall.

In cutting language, and to cheers that echoed across the stadium, he linked Mr. McCain to what he described as the “failed presidency of George W. Bush” and — reflecting what has been a central theme of his campaign since he entered the race — “the broken politics in Washington.”

“America, we are better than these last eight years,” he said. “We are a better country than this.”

But Mr. Obama went beyond attacking Mr. McCain by linking him to Mr. Bush and his policies. In the course of a 42-minute speech that ended with a booming display of fireworks and a shower of confetti, he offered searing and far-reaching attacks on his presumptive Republican opponent, repeatedly portraying him as the face of the old way of politics and failed Republican policies.

He said Mr. McCain was out of touch with the problems of everyday Americans. “It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care,” he said. “It’s because John McCain doesn’t get it.”

And he went so far as to attack the presumed strength of Mr. McCain’s campaign, national security. “You know, John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell, but he won’t even follow him to the cave where he lives,” he said.

The speech loomed as arguably Mr. Obama’s most important of the campaign to date. It was an opportunity to present himself to Americans just now beginning to tune in on this campaign, to make the case against Mr. McCain and to offer what many Democrats say he has failed to offer to date: an idea of what he stands for, beyond a promise of change.

To that end, he emphasized what he described as concrete steps he would take to address the anxieties of working-class Americans, promising tax cuts for the middle class and pledging to wean the country from dependence on Middle East oil within 10 years to address high fuel prices.

With the speech, Mr. Obama closed out his party’s convention here and prepared for a quick shift of public attention to the Republicans as Mr. McCain moved to name his running mate and his party got ready for its convention in St. Paul on Monday.

He delivered it in a most unconventional setting, becoming the third nominee of a major party in the nation’s history to leave the site of his convention to give his acceptance speech at a stadium. In this case, it was Invesco Field, set against the Rockies and about a mile from the arena where he had been nominated the night before. His aides chose the stadium to signal a break from typical politics and to permit thousands of his supporters from across the country to hear him speak.

And it came on a night that offered — by the coincidence of scheduling — a reminder of the historic nature of the Obama candidacy: 45 years to the day after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the Mall in Washington. Mr. Obama is the first African-American to be nominated for the White House by a major party, a fact that, for all its significance, has been barely mentioned over the course of this four-day gathering.

Even in invoking the anniversary of the King speech, Mr. Obama only alluded to race. But he quoted a famous phrase from Dr. King’s address to reinforce a central theme of his own speech. “America, we cannot turn back,” Mr. Obama said. “Not with so much work to be done.”

Mr. McCain marked the occasion of the speech by releasing a television advertisement in which, looking into the camera, he paid tribute to Mr. Obama and his accomplishment. “How perfect that your nomination would come on this historic day,” Mr. McCain said. “Tomorrow, we’ll be back at it. But tonight, Senator, job well done.

The advertisement stood in stark contrast to a summer of slashing attacks on Mr. Obama by Mr. McCain that apparently contributed to the tightening of this race. And the softer tone did not last; Mr. Obama was still on the stage, watching the fireworks, when Mr. McCain’s campaign issued a statement attacking him.

“Tonight, Americans witnessed a misleading speech that was so fundamentally at odds with the meager record of Barack Obama,” said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for Mr. McCain.

In his speech, Mr. Obama scored Mr. McCain for raising questions about his patriotism, and trying, he said, to turn a big election into a fight on small squabbles.

I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain,” Mr. Obama said, an American flag lapel affixed to his left lapel. “The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag.”

“So I’ve got news for you, John McCain: We all put our country first,” he said, prompting the crowd to break into a chant of “U.S.A., U.S.A.”

Mr. Obama looked completely at ease and unintimidated by his task or the huge crowd that surrounded him. And he chastised Mr. McCain for trying to portray him as a celebrity, an attack aides say has been particularly damaging, offering a list of people who he said had inspired him, from his grandmother to an unemployed factory worker he met on the campaign trail.

“I don’t know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine,” he said. “These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on behalf of them that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as president of the United States.”

Mr. Obama delivered his speech on a day of considerable political churn. Even as Mr. McCain was paying tribute to Mr. Obama on television, his aides disclosed that he made a choice for vice president and would announce it on Friday, timing intended to draw attention away from Mr. Obama on a day in which he and his running mate, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., would be starting a joint campaign swing.

Mr. Obama’s audience began lining up to go through security and enter the stadium eight hours before he was to speak. As seats filled, they watched a series of musical performances, including by Stevie Wonder, who sang, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours.”

But the table for Mr. Obama was also set by speeches from some of the best-known Democratic leaders. They were led by Al Gore, the former vice president who confronted a question that has, fairly or not, hovered over Mr. Obama as he struggles in his contest with Mr. McCain.

“Why is this election so close?” Mr. Gore asked. “Well I know something about close elections, so let me offer you my opinion. I believe this election is close today mainly because the forces of the status quo are desperately afraid of the change Barack Obama represents.”

Mr. Obama used much of his speech to link Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush — a line of attack that his aides view as their strongest going into the fall — and signaled that he saw next week’s Republican convention, when Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush are to appear together, albeit briefly, as a way to press that line of attack.

“Next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third,” he said. “And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look just like the last eight. On Nov. 4, we must stand up and say: ‘Eight is enough.’ ”

Speaking in generally broad terms, Mr. Obama offered a contrast between Republican and Democratic views of the role of government.

“We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500,” he said, “but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job — an economy that honors the dignity of work.”

The outdoor acceptance speech was by any measure a risky gambit by a campaign that has shown a taste for taking chances and breaking with convention, as his aides acknowledged. Bad weather could have soaked the moment. Mr. Obama’s first question to aides when they proposed this was, “Will it rain?” It did not; the day was dry, if hot.

When John F. Kennedy held his outdoor rally at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in June 1960, half the seats were empty, as a dispatch in The New York Times noted in dismissively describing the event as a “fresh air vaudeville.” The stadium here was packed by 5:15 mountain time, three hours before Mr. Obama was to take the stage, after a week in which Democrats and Obama supporters had been hustling for tickets.

McCain grabs top Google ad spot for searches on Joe Biden

August 28, 2008 11:39 AM PDT

From CNET

by Stephanie Condon

DENVER–If you thought that the Republican Party would try to overshadow the Democratic convention this week and the attention paid to Barack Obama’s choice of a running mate, you’d be right. Just do a search on Google.

As The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, the McCain campaign has nabbed the top ad spot on Google for the search terms “Joe Biden” and “Biden.” Presumably it outbid the Democrats for the top spot.

The ad that appeared reads, “What Does Joe Biden Say About Barack Obama? Find Out Today!” and takes searchers to a page on McCain’s site with a 30-second ad showing Biden in a debate saying that Obama is not ready to be president, followed by a clip of the Delaware senator saying he would be honored to run with McCain because “the country would be better off.”

By around 1 p.m. PDT, the ad at the top of the page had disappeared and a McCain ad had been moved to a less-visible position on the right side of the page, below the one from the actual Obama-Biden campaign.

The McCain camp was the highest bidder for ad space tied to the Biden terms and has also bought search ads for terms like “U.S. economy” and “housing crisis.”

This is an offline effort as well. Just a couple of miles away from Invesco Field, where Obama is scheduled to accept the nomination to be the Democratic presidential candidate on Thursday night, a plane circled overhead this week pulling a banner that reads, “Biden was right–Obama not ready.”

An ad from John McCain’s campaign appears above the ad from the Obama campaign on searches for “Joe Biden,” as well as “Biden.”

It’s official: Obama and Biden

from Radio Netherlands Worldwide

by  Reinout van Wagtendonk

Barack Obama is officially the Democratic Party’s candidate for the US presidency. On the third day of the Democratic convention in Denver his defeated rival, Hillary Clinton, submitted a motion to elect Obama the winner by acclamation, and in his speech her husband Bill Clinton expressed his unconditional support for Obama. Later in the day, Joe Biden was officially elected as Barack Obama’s running mate for the vice-presidency.

A roll call like this, coming forward state by state to vote for the presidential candidate, is largely just a tradition. The result is known in advance. This time too Barack Obama had for months been the unofficial Democratic candidate. But the long and bitter battle with Hillary Clinton for that nomination had left wounds. That’s why the tradition had to take a dramatic turn. Orchestrated drama, of course, since it had been negotiated in advance and arranged precisely so it could be shown live in the half-hour around mealtime when the big three TV networks have their evening news.

Acclamation
Hillary Clinton interrupted the voting ritual with a motion calling for Obama to be elected by acclamation as a united party’s candidate to face the final battle against John McCain:

“I move Senator Barack Obama of Illinois be selected of this Convention by acclamation as the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States.”

With a rapid blow of her gavel, convention chairwoman Nancy Pelosi ensured that whatever opposition remained would not be heard. The convention now belonged to Barack Obama. Most of Hillary’s supporters resigned themselves to the situation.

Ovation for Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton showed no trace of disappointment or resentment whatever. The former president’s speech was received by the Democrats with a lengthy ovation. Until recently Clinton seemed inclined to undermine Obama’s campaign. But on Wednesday evening he said he was convinced that Obama has what it takes to be the leader of the United States:

“My fellow democrats, I say to you, Barack Obama is ready to lead America and to restore American leadership in the world.”Clinton referred to his own presidential campaign in 1992, when the Republicans tried to write him off as an inexperienced lightweight, just as they are doing with Obama today. Clinton didn’t do too badly, as he modestly pointed out. So that should work again in 2008. The speech was the perfect launching pad for vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden and for Barack Obama’s acceptance speech which will round off the convention on Thursday evening.

Obama appears briefly
Obama appeared briefly in the convention hall on Wednesday night, following Joe Biden’s speech. He explained that he would be holding his speech in a huge stadium, before an audience of 80.000 people, because they are the people who will help him to bring about change in America:

“Change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things, and so we want to open up this Convention to make sure that everybody who wants to come can join in the party and join in the effort to take America back.”

Sen. Joe Biden Addresses the DNC

Obama’s 2.9 million texts create online frenzy

from the Christian Science Monitor’s The Vote Blog

By Jimmy Orr

Obama’s now-legendary text message announcing the selection of vice presidential candidate Joe Biden has been discussed ad nauseum — including here.

Why bring it up again? We know now just how many text messages were sent out.

The folks over at Nielsen tell us that 2.9 million texts were sent out. It sounds impressive. And according to Nielsen, it is:

“The V.P. message was sent in the late hours of Friday night and is, by many accounts, the single largest mobile marketing event in the U.S. to date,” a release from Nielsen read. “While much has been said of the timing and the scoop by news outlets, Obama’s V.P. text-message still ranks as one of the most important text messages ever sent and one of the most successful brand engagements using mobile media.”

Online political pundits agree. This was a success. And if you signed up, get ready for more says the Obama campaign. Nick Shapiro, a spokesman at the Obama campaign told ABC News:

“Moving forward, we’re going to continue to keep our supporters engaged with our valuable two-way communication tool,” he said

This valuable two-way communications tool spawned an enormous amount of media coverage, not to mention the viral conversation it started.

The Obama text underground…

The text event generated a life of its own. Enter “Obama text message” into Google and 983,000 results pop up. It’s a lot of reading but, in short, there are forums, web pages, articles, and even videos discussing the issue.

One of the most entertaining is an account of a fictitious lawsuit against the Obama campaign from an unemployed bricklayer named Manley Scott. In the fictitious (repeated for emphasis) account, Scott didn’t receive the text and filed suit. The article comes complete with fictitious quotes from Senator McCain and FOX News anchor Sean Hannity:

“First he says he’ll send Manley a text message, then he changes his mind and doesn’t,” said Sean Hannity of Fox News, “this kind of flip flopping is proof Obama is not ready to be President.”

“Textgate is a classic example of why Obama is not fit to be commander in chief,” said John McCain from one of his many houses. “When we should be bombing Iran, he would be fiddling with one of those new fangled cell phones, trying to order some arugula.”

Joe Biden in Springfield, Illinois – August 23, 2008

Tech & the convention – now Obama’s got Biden emailing

from The Christian Science Moniter

By Jimmy Orr | 08.24.08

Barack Obama’s new running mate has joined the online campaign by sending out his own email today which links to a “personal” video from the Senator thanking supporters and giving them a chance to know who he is.

“Hi, this is Joe Biden,” he says.  “I want to thank you for the way you’ve welcomed me into the campaign.  I’m deeply honored to join Barack and the millions of supporters like you in this movement you’ve put together.”

Biden’s email, the video, and of course, the much-discussed text from Obama are part of an online campaign that is getting a lot of attention.

The “old media”

Never before – at least in the U.S. – has there been a more talked-about text message.  On Friday night, when the vice presidential speculation had hit a frenzy, some bloggers seemed to be laughing at the mainstream media’s struggle to keep up.

Marc Ambinder, a political blogger at The Atlantic posted a message entitled “Triumph of New Media over Old Media” that simply stated, “Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room begging viewers to stay tuned so CNN can bring them coverage of a text message.”

Well,  as it turned out, the mainstream media was able to get the scoop on Obama’s selection before the actual text went out.  But only by a couple hours.  (Obama’s vice presidential selection “cone of silence,” however,  was more impressive than Rick Warren’s).

This was, after all, the first time a presidential campaign choose to deliver the announcement via the “new media” (texting and emails to supporters) rather than going to the mainstream media first – regardless of how it played out.

There have been complaints by some people who say they didn’t receive the text until late yesterday.  Some are saying they haven’t received it at all.  But the Obama campaign is saying the distribution of the text message went very well.

Just how many people signed up anyway?  They aren’t telling.  But the number “three million” is bandied about often.

It ain’t the text, it’s the contact info

If you are focused on the text message itself, say online strategists, you are missing the boat.  Andrew Rasiej, the co-founder of techpresident.com, a web site which tracks how the presidential candidates are using the web, says getting contact information of supporters was of paramount importance.

The text campaign “was very effective in achieving its primary goal which was to build up Obama’s already massive database of supporters and develop yet another way they can be reached and mobilized during the final run up to the election,” Rasiej said.

What will the Obama campaign do with these cell numbers?

“[They] can start to mash all the data they have collected from multiple places, such as their e-mail list, their … contributors, their donors, and now these cell phone numbers, with voter files and … give themselves the potential to identify key activists who might volunteer to make calls, canvas, or help with GOTV (Get out the vote),” Rajeiv said.  “This info will also help them identify people who are still making up their minds or haven’t fully committed, and the campaign can redouble its efforts to make the final sale.”

The 3:00 am call

What about the fact that the text message came in the middle of the night?  Did it lose a personal touch?

Phil Noble, the director of Politics Online, said he doubted there were many people who stayed up staring at their cell phones waiting for the text.

“I don’t think folks expected that Barack himself keyed in the message on his Blackberry and sent it out,” Noble said.  “But signing up for the alert and then getting the word directly to your own mobile is a lot more personal than seeing it in a newspaper some kid threw up on your front porch. Beside, many of the younger text generation don’t read newspapers anyway.”

Noble said the text campaign was part symbolic and part substance.  It signaled – and delivered – a new way of communicating with people that will pay dividends far past the initial text message.

“Obama’s use of the new tools is not like a single silver bullet that has one big impact,” Noble said.  “Instead, what they are doing is using the new media to reach a whole new generation the way they want to communicate, over and over again. Every time the Obama campaign touches these folks in the new media and they respond back, it’s another strand of connectedness that eventually forms a strong web of connectedness and activism, and that is very powerful.”

What’s next?  The word is Senator Biden will be challenging John McCain’s yet-unannounced running mate to a duel in World of Warcraft instead of a vice presidential debate.  But that’s just an email that’s going around…

Meet Joe Biden

Wired: Media beat Obama to the punch

Best-laid plans: Media beat Obama to the punch

By JOHN DUNBAR
Associated Press Writer

from Wired News

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Barack Obama’s pledge to supporters that they would be the “first to know” his running mate turned out to be a savvy but unworkable communications strategy.

The Democratic presidential candidate got scooped by the media on his own announcement, done in by dogged reporting, loose-lipped party insiders and the limits of technology.

But all was not lost. He amassed a huge database of cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses for the fall campaign.

Obama’s plan to use text messaging to announce his choice was a first in politics. He had promised supporters that by providing cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses they would be “part of this important moment” – the revelation of his choice for vice president.

The text message announcing Biden as Obama’s pick began filtering across the U.S. at 3:02 a.m. EDT Saturday, when most people were asleep. By then, it was old news, by today’s standards. The media had reported the pick more than two hours earlier.

Michael Silberman, a partner at online communications firm EchoDitto, said the campaign gambled when they made such a high-stakes promise and find themselves in a precarious situation where they could risk a great deal of trust with supporters.

“For Obama supporters, this is like finding out from your neighbor instead of your sister that she’s engaged – not how you want or expect the news to be delivered,” Silberman said.

The campaign won’t say how many people signed up to receive the text message, nor will the small Washington, D.C., company that handled the imposing chore.

“It’s a big number,” said Kevin Bertram, the 37-year-old founder and CEO of Distributive Networks.

The 16-employee firm, which built the text messaging system, has higher-paying clients. According to Federal Election Commission records, it has received about $130,000 from the Obama campaign, not including August.

But no account has a higher profile, Bertram said.

“We have seen some text campaigns in the many hundreds of thousands of opt-in mobile users over the past couple years, all in the consumer products-services realm,” said Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. “This is the first massive effort in the political world.”

He said the scale appeared similar to Olympics updates, which occur several times a day.

CTIA, the wireless industry’s lobbying organization, says in the month of December alone, there were more than 48 billion text messages sent in the U.S.

The real test for Distributive Networks was speed.

“It’s a pretty big challenge, because we’re under a strict time constraint to get all those messages out,” Bertram said.

Simultaneous delivery of millions of text messages is impossible. The messages must be routed to the carriers, which themselves may have bottlenecks.

Bertram said it took about 15 minutes for the bulk of the messages to get through the system. Meanwhile, the campaign posted the veep choice on its Web site.

The Obama campaign has worked closely with Bertram’s company, asking for added features in the text messaging campaign – like the ability to text supporters based on their ZIP code, a capability that allows for targeted voter-turnout campaigns.

Once the Obama campaign composed and sent the message, it was largely an automated process. The instant the campaign pushed the button, the message text flashed on Bertram’s laptop.

The CEO said he was “nervous, confident, relieved and sleepy all at once” as he watched the text message move through the system.

“Mobile marketing” is a relatively new phenomenon in politics, but one the Obama campaign has capitalized on it like no other.

People can sign up for text and e-mail updates on specific issues. They can get news on campaign appearances, receive discounts for campaign merchandise and even download Obama speech sound bites as ring tones.

It’s also an effective fundraising tool. Anyone who signed up for the notification on the campaign Web site was taken to a page where they could make a contribution.

Overall traffic on Obama’s Web site hit an all-time high Saturday. The Obama campaign said more than 48,000 people watched the live stream of Obama and Biden’s first joint appearance from their Web site. By about mid-afternoon, more than $1.8 million had been contributed online.

Messages can also act as a call to action, encouraging people to call their friends and encourage them to vote or donate to the campaign. The list of cell numbers is similar to campaign snail-mailing lists, but more personal and more valuable.

Of course there is a potential for burnout. Recipients, who pay to receive texts, will not tolerate spam.

“We don’t send a message to anyone who hasn’t initiated contact with the campaign and opted in,” Bertram said. “You have to have a very light touch. If you send someone 10 messages a day, they are just going to say, ‘Stop.'”

—-

Associated Press Writer Nedra Pickler in Denver contributed to this report.