Bird fever is sweeping the nation. During the very first, eagerly awaited presidential debate – and even now, some days after – the economy and healthcare are nowhere near as ubiquitous as Big Bird.

The avian giant was brought into the political crossfire on Wednesday, when Mitt Romney said to Jim Lehrer, “I’m sorry, Jim. I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not going to — I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.”

Responses to this statement have ranged from the very humorous to the visceral. Sometimes both. Bright yellow memes have cropped up and spread faster than any flu. Most of these feature the image of some unemployed version of the eight-foot giant. When a presidential candidate threatens the future of a beloved childhood icon, it’s not impossible to predict where the conversation is going to go.

To date, it has been ongoing. The participants in this conversation have not just been teenagers fooling around on Photoshop: PBS had choice words for Mr. Romney in a statement released shortly after the debate. So did the creators of Sesame Street, as well as different voices in circulations such as the Times. What could only have been a spur-of-the-moment example has set off some type of debate across different media spheres.

Romney’s reasoning seems off the mark when the numbers are considered. According to the Huffington Post, only one fifteenth of the federal budget goes to public broadcasting. And that small part only makes up seven percent of the overall costs for the show. That’s a very small percent. The rest is covered by licensing and sponsorships. The “public” in public broadcasting does not seem all that public in the larger picture.

It was a dent in what was decided to be a surprisingly good performance on the part of Romney. A bad example completely overshadowed what was meant to be an entirely different statement. Our economic debt with China is going to be Goliath for whoever it is that will have to make our future executive decisions. It goes back to the core disagreement between the candidates: How much should government be involved? And to that extent, how much should it invest in its citizens?

Next time though, Sesame Street should be kept out of it.

Image Courtesy of  Gage Skidmore

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Chicago, U.S.A — There are truisms, and then there are “really truisms.” And one of them is the notion that a person doesn’t have the right to complain, if he or she didn’t bother to vote. Democrat, Republican, or fiercely Independent – it is a rally cry that transcends political affiliations. And yet while the number of complainers continues to increase, those who express their feelings in the voting booth continues to decrease.

It is with this in mind that Chicago-based “Attention Agency” Third Street conceived the idea of launching a national, multimedia campaign entitled Real Complainers Vote – a non-partisan effort designed to encourage young registered voters to embrace two American privileges: Voting and Complaining. To achieve this goal, they teamed up with frequent collaborator, Foundation Content as well as acclaimed street artist Ray Noland and comedian TJ Miller.

Real Complainers Vote takes a “seriously humorous” look at how our nation isn’t just comprised of complainers; it was founded and built by them. Through a unique viral video, social media and street-level campaign materials, Real Complainers Vote seeks to motivate young voters to express themselves where it matters most – in the voting booth — on November 6.

Third Street Chief Creative Officer David T. Jones sums up the essence of the campaign: “We know that we don’t need to convince Americans to complain. We only need to convince them that complaining has a cover charge. And that cover charge is voting.”

Foundation Content’s Kyle Shoup, who served as Creative Director for the Real Complainers Vote project, said, “We wanted to take the opportunity to make something fun, but unique. The result was a piece that incorporated stop-motion, handmade, 2D & 3D design and animation. Mixed media is really what this piece became, and it gives the message an unusual and compelling look.”

To view the animated, viral video within this campaign, please see: http://realcomplainersvote.com/ and follow the Griping on twitter at: @complainersvote

Image Courtesy of  Mark Scott Spatny / Shutterstock.com

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The Democratic National Convention is in its last -and most important- day. President Obama will talk today at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte to his delegates and to the entire American nation. The delegates have already shown their trust in Obama by appointing him as the Democratic Candidate for this year’s coming election.

Today, it will be Obama’s turn to show he trust his supporters, by accepting the delegates nomination. Attendees and viewers at home are expecting a speech that will convince supporters as well as undecided voters that he is the man for the job and that America should send him back to the White House for another four years.

His speech will be full of promises, but perhaps not with as many as there were four years ago. Back then, the democrats believed that Obama was the person who could transform the world into a better place. It was an elections with come of the highest participation rates in American history. Democrats were so excited that the organizers even had to change the venue where Obama delivered his nomination speech during the last DNC in Denver in 2008, where 75,000 people attended.

Today, excitement has cooled down a little bit among democrats as many has been disillusioned by the failure to live up to the chants of hope and change. Obama’s only option is to convince the skeptics that a second term in office it is necessary in order to realize the “hopes” and accomplish the “changes.”

Last week during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL, Romney accused Obama for not making good on his promises. It is to be seen whether Obama will spend his time refuting Romney’s attack or explain what he is going to do during the next four years to make a successful and permanent change in the American society. Otherwise, according to last weeks’ polls, the undecided voters might go to Romney.

Even though Romney did not come up with a clear program, his attacks against this last legislature were not superficial. During the past four years, the world has seen how each of Obama´s promises have fallen into a hole: the American unemployment rate has grown into historical figures (8.2%), immigration problems have not been solved — in fact, the number of deportations keep on growing, oil dependency upon the Middle East is still an issue, there are still troops in Afghanistan, and Iran has become a bigger threat.

During Wednesday’s program at the DNC, former president Bill Clinton went through all these issues and explained that more time is needed.

But will America wait for four more years on results? Will Obama be able to get the support of this undecided voters? Will he be able to once again inspire the chants that made so many people dream of a better tomorrow four years ago? The answers to these questions might be found during tonights speech on Charlotte.

Image Courtesy of    Barack Obama

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Last week President Obama officially launched his re-election campaign. The announcement and speech were covered by all news outlets, but with a tongue in cheek tone to the coverage. This is because it was generally acknowledged that President Obama began his reelection campaign weeks ago and was beefing up the Democratic camp in response to Mitt Romney’s candidacy and the Republican Party. What republicans find even more obvious is the strategy that President Obama plans to use to win re-election.

In many ways, I believe President Obama is lucky. His personal approval ratings are still high because people like him. Even most republicans do not dislike President Obama personally. This is a great boon to his campaign, because his policies have otherwise been deflating since he took office.

Not since the Presidency of Jimmy Carter has a President had so many failures on the domestic front. Unemployment has stayed above 8% in the last four years. The government spent nearly a trillion dollars to jump start the economy, and it had little to no effect. The country has 500,000 fewer jobs than when Obama took the office. He spent his entire first two years pursuing an unpopular health care bill, and is poised to see it shot down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

He has triumphed green energy as the job sector of the future, but now has Solyndra as the symbol of green energy failures. He campaigned on cutting the deficit, but has run over 1 trillion dollar in deficits in each of the years he’s been in office. It took 43 Presidents and over 200 years to rack up a national debt of 10 trillion dollars, but President Obama has managed to add 6 trillion to it in just three years. For many, this amounts to a very weak record to run for re-election on.

Therefore, his campaign looks to be latching on to another strategy. In the last few weeks, President Obama has intensively been out speaking with very different demographics. The strategy seems to be based upon stitching together different groups with under a united democratic agenda, either through promises of the future or warnings of what a republican government would stand for. One of the topics is the “War on Women,” spun out of republican opposition to free birth control to women.

The President has promised to make sure all women have access to the pill, even if it means having taxpayers money cover the expense. Another topic is the youth vote, as Obama spoke at college after college about lowering the interest rates of student loans, promising to fight for loan forgiveness.

He has been continuously reminding his younger voters about how everyone should pay their fair share and fight for “shared prosperity.” This week he rounded out his strategy with a public affirmation of his personal support for gay marriage in a ploy to court the gay vote and gay donors. In a few weeks, we should be seeing him appeal to the all important Latino vote. With a stitch here, and a stitch there, he hopes to sew together all these disparate groups for him and in opposition to the republicans.

I believe it is a decent, if not desperate strategy but also one fraught with danger. Very few Presidents or presidential candidates have won with messages of opposition versus values. The Obama mantra of “Hope and Change” was a message of value, while an attempt at framing republicans as ‘social Darwinists’ is not.

In this area Romney has an advantage: A fresh slate to prove himself the man for a better economy, a better fiscal policy, and for the opportunity of all citizens to become successful. He can, if he chooses, be a conservative version of what Obama was in 2008. He could speak to issues that are of vital importance to all the different groups the president is courting at the moment. Thus far he has not done that, choosing instead to point out the miserable record of the President.

That tactic will not get him far. I believe Romney will have to campaign on what he will work to make America into, not on what people need to be afraid about. That tactic would have worked on Carter, but will not on Obama because of his personal likeability

More than anything the President’s personal approval ratings are boosting his political appeal. As the campaign rolls on, however, I expect he will need to hope for a misstep from Romney or for some surprise good economic news. Going from group to group, and speaking specifically to that group about only the things they want is a transparent tactic.

If he panders too much to separate groups, he will get run over in the all important election ads, and independents will flock to Romney. It may be the best he can do, but he will have to disguise it better as the campaign goes on. One thing he cannot afford is to be seen as just another politician.

Image Courtesy of  Solaria / Shutterstock.com

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