Print This Post Print This Post

Jan

25

GOP Senate hopeful Rob Portman’s Google Ads: What do they mean?

Filed Under Barack Obama, Campaigning, Democrats, Elections, Ohio, Politics, Republicans, social media, Tech, Tools, WH2008 | 6 Comments

Anyone else see this – look at the bottom of the image:

bnnportman2

If there were ads like that for Ohio candidates throughout 2007 and 2008, I never noticed them.  But I keep thinking about  what Ohio Democratic Party Chair Chris Redfern told me almost exactly three years ago re: no money will be spent on political ads on the Internet for the foreseeable future.

So – are we past the foreseeable future? Or is this a fluke?

That was a week ago and tonight, I just read this post at e.politics which says that:

The ad links through to the main Portman site, which is currently set up with an emphasis on list-building, as the front page demonstrates:
Rob Portman for Senate Website Screenshot

Look familiar? As in, Obama-esque? (clean design, lots of blue, plenty of gradients and fades, that vaguely ethereal feel…). It’s also significant that the site tries to position Portman as the only choice for the seat, using selected media quotes to build that sense of inevitability.

e.politics also mentions how this method of ads and the website will enhance Portman’s “list building.”

Now, another reminder: From July 2008, a Pew report that came out indicating the amount of money being contributed online was increasing in very real terms.  For example, the Washington Post reported that Barack Obama raised $500 million online. $500 million. Online.

From Pew in that 7/08 link:

In addition, says the memo report, three online activities have become especially prominent as the presidential primary campaigns have progressed:

  • 35% of Americans say they have watched online political videos, triple that in the 2004 race
  • 10% say they have used social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace to gather information or become involved. Two-thirds of internet users under the age of 30 have a social networking profile, and half of these use social networking sites to get or share information about politics or the campaigns
  • 6% of Americans have made political contributions online, compared with 2% who did that during the entire 2004 campaign [emphasis mine]

Smart approach by Portman, and another reason why the Democratic possibilities for challenging the eventual GOP candidate for George Voinovich’s senate seat should be online now – even if it’s just a Google Ad.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:53 pm January 25th, 2009 in Barack Obama, Campaigning, Democrats, Elections, Ohio, Politics, Republicans, social media, Tech, Tools, WH2008 | 6 Comments 

Print This Post Print This Post

Jan

25

Via talk show circuit: Sherrod Brown on Voinovich replacement

Filed Under Campaigning, Congress, Elections, Government, Jennifer Brunner, Marcy Kaptur, Ohio, Politics, Sherrod Brown | Comments Off

Thanks to Lisa Renee at Glass City Jungle for such a thorough review of this week’s Conklin & Company. She does this every week and although I don’t always read it, it really is a wonderful service – yes service – that she is providing us and others who seek information.

Here’s what she wrote about Ohio U.S. Senator Sherrod’ Brown’s comments on the show in regard to who might run for and get elected to replace retiring GOP U.S. Senator, George Voinovich:

Conklin then asked about Voinivich announcing retirement, hearing Kaptur might be considering it? Brown stated he doesn’t know what will happen, it’s a wide open race and it will be interesting, he thinks who ever talks about jobs, talks about middle class, what Bush did didn’t work, we don’t want privatization of Medicare, we want a better economy, better regulation for Wall street, that’s the person who will win is who talks about that and he thinks if Marcy runs she has a good shot. [emphasis mine]

So there you go.

Gonna be listening harder? Agree with his advice?  Sounds fairly solid to me.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:27 pm January 25th, 2009 in Campaigning, Congress, Elections, Government, Jennifer Brunner, Marcy Kaptur, Ohio, Politics, Sherrod Brown | Comments Off 

Print This Post Print This Post

Jan

25

Tim Hagan’s words: Exhibit A of why we need new leadership

Filed Under Cleveland+, democracy, Government, leadership, med mart, Ohio, Pepper Pike, Politics, Voting, Women | 15 Comments

And, still, a new form to our county government.

Cuyahoga County Commissioner, Tim Hagan (D) seems like a nice enough guy who has been a fixture in Cleveland for the twenty years I’ve been here – and I thought he already was a fixture when I arrived in 1988.

So maybe his clearly stated pronouncement of and preference for a patriarchal style of governing – which is absolutely antithetical to the 21st century’s ability for participation and the last decade’s emphasis on voter rights and expression of the civic will – shouldn’t surprise me.

But in this first week after Democrat Barack Obama started his four-year term as U.S. president, Hagan’s words, maybe now more than ever, represent not only a throwback to a time and style that voters just rejected, but it’s an unacceptable paradigm for governing today and in the future, period.  Don’t even get me started on the fact that there hasn’t been a woman on the board of county commissioners since Jane Campbell in 2001 – eight years. And other than Mary O. Boyle, I can’t even find record of other women who have served on the board of county commissioners – is that right? Please tell me I’m wrong.

From WCPN:

“Hagan:  The mall site is 108 million dollars less, estimated cost, than the other site.  Really, three people off the street would have made the same decision.”

Hagan said negotiations with MMPI over the convention center and medical mart project were kept private because there were issues of land acquisition involved and they didn’t want to tip their hand to land-owners.  And he rebuffed the suggestion that the site selection process was overly secretive, saying the commissioners’ were well within their rights to proceed the way they did.

Hagan:  “We are the elected representatives in a democracy.  It’s not a direct democracy, it’s a representative democracy. Everybody makes these arguments… That’s what we’re elected to do.” [emphasis added]

Oh my God.  Am I the only one who sees the analogy to how Captain Janeway was perceived as leading?

Okay – that’s kind of low, but still – go read what it says about her style of leading.  Serious parallels!

If the decision could have been made by three people in the street, how about Fred Nance giving back some money? How about Hagan giving up his seat to one of those people on the street? Or me – I’ll try my luck.  I’m hoping I’m at least as good as a person on the street when it comes to decision-making.

This perversion of defining democracy is shameful, arrogant and frankly, mean-spirited.  There are plenty of other ways to say that you were elected to do a job, you are charged with this responsibility and this is what you chose to do in the best interests of the county and region.

But to throw democracy at us as justification for what you decided and how you decided it, in private?  When Hagan knows that it was the citizens of the county who really showed what it is to use democracy by challenging the 1/4 percent tax increase in the first place – a rate chosen specifically to avoid democratic input from voters because law doesn’t require a vote for an increase of that size?

Funny how Hagan uses democracy to justify what he’s doing but when voters sought to use democracy to challenge what he was trying to do, the law barely allows much room for that mechanism to succeed.

The most recent spate of efforts related to reforming the county government overall have failed, and the changes to the commissioner entity were only making them stronger and less democratic in my opinion (here’s the Plain Dealer‘s post-mortem, blaming Democrats for all the problems far and wide; whatev; talk about over-generalizing).  I tend to side with Roldo Bartimole’s assessments late last fall (read here and here) regarding the bossism enshrined in the proposal – and this means that I actually side with my mayor, Bruce Akers in disapproving (though not as much in why we disapprove).  That’s nice, because I do actually like Mayor Akers. I just disagree on his style at times. Well, okay – that, and some of his ideas.

But I digress.

Anyway – shame on Hagan’s arrogance in that statement.  Thumbing his nose at the very people who keep putting him there is plain ugly and wrong.

Just what does it take to get new faces on the board of the county commissioners? Haven’t I asked this before?

Hattip this tweet from Will Goldstein.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:17 pm January 25th, 2009 in Cleveland+, democracy, Government, leadership, med mart, Ohio, Pepper Pike, Politics, Voting, Women | 15 Comments 

"));