The Politics of Cool

Earlier this week, Rolling Stone Magazine announced that they would put Barack Obama on next month's issue. This is the first time that Rolling Stone has ever made a cover story out of a nominee for the leader of a party. In the past, they have made cover stories out of Democratic Presidential candidates. But 'the curse of the rolling stone' proved fatal for both Al Gore and John Kerry. Obama will get his issue now, and it would not be surprising to see him get another cover story, during the weeks leading up to the presidential election this Novemberish. Obama has a knack for capitalizing on crowds that are unable to think for themselves. Earlier in January, he got the free-spirited Oprah Winfrey to tour on his campaign trail, and also appeared on Oprah's show, where she fully endorsed him.

Even the elderly Hillary Clinton is trying to find a way to reach out to crowds that are outside her demographic . Last Saturday she made a small cameo on SNL. Lorne Michaels (el presidente of the show) thought it only fair, because he had Barack Obama on the show back in November.

Get with the times Hillary. SNL is so last november. People of today read rolling stone magazine.

Even with Barack's appeal to all these forms of 'cool' media, the race does not seem to be over. Anybody that has followed the Democratic election (meaning anybody bored out of their mind, who has a full selection of cable channels, yet out of complete disrespect for their own intellectual well-being, decides to watch CNN), has been told several times that election is nearly over. All of January, we were told that Super Tuesday (in early February), would determine the Democratic nominee. When that didn't pan out, CNN told us it would be the next state election. And when that didn't pan out, they said it would be the next one; and this pattern continued for quite a while. Well, there have been numerous state elections, and CNN has been wrong numerous times. But for some reason, i keep tuning in.

This is very reminiscent to the 'kiefer Sutherland effect'. Anybody that has watched the tv show 24, knows that at the end of every episode, there is a delightful cliffhanger and then footage from next weeks show. If you own the dvd's, you have no choice but to watch the next show immediately. If it's on cable television, you book off your next tuesday at 9pm. I fell under the spell of the 'Kiefer Sutherland effect' during my final exams at the end of my second year at Uvic. I awoke in a daze, back in calgary, having done very poorly on many of my exams.

After having been decieved by CNN for so long, it has become clear that the democratic nominee will not be decided in any of these state elections. Rather it will not be determined until the convention in August. This will prolong the Democratic race for quite a while longer, while the Republican race seems to be finalized with McCain. Will the longer battle between Hillary and OBama help the Democrats by providing them with more media? Or will it give McCain the chance to build his Republican profile, while the Democrats are still fighting amonst each other? It's too early to tell. But the moral of the story is, don't let CNN tell you anything, because it's beginning to come clear that CNN is even less reliable then Fox. And at least Fox takes a break from it's political news, to bring you quality television like the Simpsons.




Let me get all the politics out of me. Alberta Media tells Albertans that Stelmach is going to lose. They trash his name and drag it through the dirt. They do this all the way up to the day of the election. Yet in the end, Stelmech comes out with an even bigger majority than Klein got last election. How could the media be so wrong? Isn't the media like science in that it's always right? Was Graham Krenz conducting the polls?

Look at Michael Moore's movie Farenheit 911, which came out the summer before the presidential election in 04. Before the movie came out, the polls showed the democrats were ahead of the republicans in the presidential race. Some claim that the movie Fahrenheit 911, got all the right-wing voters worried, so they turned out in bigger numbers to support Bush. I don't buy that, but i do find it fascinating that Bush somehow won that election, amidst the propaganda film that Moore shoved out at the same time.