A PR Lesson in 24/7 news cycles and boredom. Transl: She's doomed. CBS says Look out, barracuda -- you are going down!

Surprised? They turned on their darling Barrack-hussein Obama just last week over a "piggy" remark.

The Sarah Palin Phenomenon Is Doomed

MarketWatch Columnist Jon Friedman Warns The Media Live To Build You Up, Then Knock You Down

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NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2008

The Sarah Palin Phenomenon is doomed.


But it's not because of her lack of foreign policy experience or her deer-in-the-headlights look during part of her interview last week with ABC's Charles Gibson.The primary reason why the Palin bubble will burst is that the media will decide that they are bored with her. They'll need to move to shine a light on a fresh issue or individual.This is how the world works in the age of 24/7 news cycles. Whether the subject is Britney Spears, Michael Jordan or Sarah Palin, we inevitably raise stars to mythic levels, out of all reasonable proportions. Then we knock them down. (Look out, Michael Phelps. Your time is coming, too.)It isn't a case of quixotic behavior by reporters and editors. Internet sites, blogs and cable news operations all thrive on presenting fresh headlines and updated story angles as often as possible so readers think we're on top of things. The news world moves at warp speed.Palin's story is especially captivating because she emerged as an overnight sensation. The governor of Alaska was virtually unknown on the national scene before Sen. John McCain tapped her to be his running mate. Amid the media crush accompanying her rise, it now seems as if Palin has been around forever.For as long as she has been in the public eye, people have been skeptical about her qualifications, but the allure of her beginner's pluck catapulted Palin to the covers of magazines ranging from Time to People.The interview with Gibson may be remembered as the first brick being pulled out of the wall. The reviews weren't favorable from the media in the segments when Gibson asked Palin questions about foreign policy. For instance, the New York Times called the exchange "strained." The Washington Post-owned Slate went so far as to say that "The ABC News anchor flummoxes the GOP amateur."I'll be interested to see how Palin -- not to mention McCain and the Republican campaign machine -- reacts when the media's disillusionment sets in for real. Their actions may determine the course of the 2008 race. If they handle the media's about-face with aplomb, her chances of looking, well, vice-presidential will be enhanced. But if Palin's handlers blow it out of proportion and show a strain, their behavior will reflect negatively on her.Gibson, as dignified a newsperson as America has now, treated Palin fairly and didn't resort to hectoring her with "gotcha" questions, either. Palin's supporters may be chagrined that their candidate didn't sound more self-assured or expert when she discussed Alaska's relationship to Russia. But Gibson didn't try to trip her up. He pretty much asked the kinds of questions I would have put to Palin as well.Gibson treated her with the respect befitting a vice presidential candidate. ABC, while discussing the interview Friday on "Good Morning America" unleashed political correspondent Jake Tapper to assess the "truthiness" of Palin's remarks on the ABC show. The television networks appear to be treating Palin carefully, trying hard not to seem sexist or liberal or come across as intellectual, big-city bullies. When ABC noted that Tapper had found a few holes in Palin's comments (though nothing earth shattering), the network took pains to add that it, too, would be dissecting the statements of Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee.Specifically, Palin seemed to have little idea about the Bush Doctrine, in which the U.S must spread democracy around the world to halt terrorist acts. When Gibson put it to her and asked if she agreed with the doctrine, she answered, "In what respect, Charlie?"Some analysts have suggested that Gibson knew more about the Bush Doctrine than the vice-presidential candidate."She sidestepped questions on whether she had the national security credentials needed to be commander-in-chef," the Associated Press noted.Since we're all clear on the nuances of the Bush Doctrine, we can move on to the Fickle Media Doctrine.Now that we've built you up, it's about time for us to knock you down.Can Sarah Palin withstand the body blows that are being inflicted by the national media?The media aren't the bad guys in the Palin discussion. It's easy to accuse us of acting like sexists or big-city egomaniacs. Let's be real, though. McCain selected Palin for exactly those reasons - because she is a woman from a little-known state, who can take some of the heat off McCain and behave like an attack dog against Barack Obama. So far, the Republicans' plan has worked to perfection, as Palin has dominated the political discourse over the past few weeks. Now we'll see if she has the right stuff to go the distance.



By Jon FriedmanCopyright © 2007 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved

Is Barack Obama's CELEBRITY (PR) fair to John McCain in ELECTION 2008?

Opinion: whether it is good PR or bad PR, HELL, YES, it works if you work it, babe!

You see, as I was playing armchair quarterback in my broken laid-Z-boy, (Obama's on O-One is soooo much better than mine!) I leaned over and told my husband sprawled out on the $1200 red Italian leather couch that the dog ate, "the more that John McCain flaunts his notoriety, the nore electable he becomes." And so it goes.


From the Politico. This story was written by Carrie Budoff Brown.


If Barack Obama gave new meaning to the term “political celebrity,” then John McCain helped define it. He emerged as the most popular Republican in Hollywood following his 2000 presidential primary defeat, winning more screen time than the rest of Congress combined. McCain made cameos in “Wedding Crashers” and “24,” saw his memoir turned into a popular biopic on A&E, and appeared more than 30 times on late night comedy shows. So this week, when McCain cast Obama’s celebrity as a disqualifier, it seemed like a curious turn. Just one day before McCain released an advertisement interspersing pictures of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears with footage of Obama addressing 200,000 people in Berlin, actor Jon Voight told Variety that McCain had “many great, intelligent, talented Academy-winning actors standing by, awaiting a major press conference to show their support.” “[The ad] is a bit ironic given that McCain has been the most pop-culture savvy Republican candidate in quite some time,” said Ted Johnson, managing editor of Variety and editor of the blog Wilshire and Washington, which monitors the intersection of celebrity and politics. The McCain campaign continued to hammer at Obama on Friday with the release of a very sarcastic Web ad that at one point cuts to an image of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea before posing the question: “Barack Obama may be The One, but is he ready to lead?” The Spears-Hilton ad hits a similar note, describing Obama as “the biggest celebrity in the world.” The Republican National Committee piled on, launching a Web site Friday called Who Said It? Celebrity Edition that features a multiple-choice quiz in which people must identify whether Obama or a celebrity made certain, often vacuous, statements. It’s a striking line of attack for McCain, who’s accepted without complaint the “celebrity” epithet from journalists for four decades. “John’s been a celebrity ever since he was shot down,” former McCain strategist John Weaver told The Atlantic earlier this week, “whatever that means.” Yet, like the way fresh starlets push aside aging actors, political hot shots from years past (think former President Bill Clinton, often described as a “rock star” in his day) have been overshadowed by the newest crop of talent in this election year. This sort of churning is typical during presidential campaigns, said Matt Bennett, communications director for Gen. Wesley Clark’s 2004 presidential campaign and co-founder of Third Way, a progressive policy group. “McCain was famous for a politician,” Bennett said. “Obama has almost transcended that, and has become famous as a famous person which is why they are comparing him to Paris Hilton.” Since 2000, Bennett went on, McCain has enjoyed “enough fame and authority and celebrity” to aid candidates and organizations with ads that simply involve him speaking into a camera. McCain started on the public stage with the pedigree of a family whose name graces a naval ship and a Mississippi National Guard training center. With his father serving as a top admiral, John McCain first became a household name when he was captured in Vietnam, and even more of one upon his release five years later. The New York Times featured him on its front page. He wrote an acclaimed 12,000-word, first person account for U.S. News and World Report. President Richard Nixon feted him. Hollywood warmed to him in 2000 as he ran against one of its least favorite people, George W. Bush. He endeared himself with liberals, including Warren Beatty, by taking unconventional stances for a Republican presidential candidate, such as favoring campaign finance reform and challenging the Christian right. His open-door approach with journalists made him the darling of the media elite. “You can definitely makes the case that McCain stands out among Republicans for his associations with Hollywood and his celebrity status,” Johnson said. “The fact that he was in ‘Wedding Crashers,’ it underscores the fact that he does have a lot of friends in the entertainment industry that Bush can’t claim.” In the years that followed, he became a near-regular on the late-night comedy circuit, appearing eight times on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," 12 times on the "Late Show with David Letterman," 10 times on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," and three times on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," according to imdb.com. He hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 2002. "Faith of My Fathers" pulled in 3.7 million viewers on A&E in 2005, making it the network’s most popular program in over a year. He appeared on “24” in 2006. And he made a brief cameo in “Wedding Crashers,” offering congratulations to the father of the bride, a senator played by Christopher Walken. As a then-likely Republican presidential candidate, McCain’s appearance in the film stirred a mini-controversy when the Drudge Report labeled it a “boob raunch fest.” But McCain laughed it off - during a visit on Leno’s show. “In Washington, I work with boobs every day,” McCain joked. McCain has received support this year from boldfaced names such as SNL creator Lorne Michaels and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. But the Republican's circle is far smaller than the one around Obama, and less robust than 2000, when lifelong Democrats including Harrison Ford and Michael Douglas signed checks for McCain. So far, Obama has raised $4.7 million from the movie, television and music industry, while McCain has received $815,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign finance group. A liberal blog noted this week that the McCain campaign had scrubbed its website of an Associated Press story from last year that described him as a “political celebrity.” Dismissing claims circulating in the liberal blogosphere, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said the article was removed as part of routine housecleaning of the website several weeks ago. But Rogers skirted the question Friday of whether he considered his candidate a political celebrity. “John McCain is a widely respected and admired political leader in our country and the world,” Rogers said, adding that Obama is in a “different stratosphere.” “Who else could get 200,000 people in Berlin? Those aren’t voters. Those are fans.” The campaign, he added, was not attempting to make “celebrity” a pejorative term. “It is not a dirty word,” he said of the spot that juxtaposes Obama with Britney and Paris, calls him “the biggest celebrity in the world” and then asks, “but is he ready to lead?” “We are celebrating his fame,” Rogers went on, “and the reality that this guy has entered Tom Cruise-type of fame.” Bennett said the heightened sensitivity around "celebrity" was unlikely to cause a full-scale pull back from the entertainment industry by either candidate. Indeed, on Friday night in Panama City, Fla., McCain basked in the glow of Nashville - not Hollywood - as country singer John Rich of the duo Big and Rich hosted a "Country First" concert for the presumptive nominee and debuted a new song: "Raising McCain." Obama’s star even shines in Nashville, though - last year “Big” Kenny Alphin, the other half of the act, contributed $2300 to the Obama campaign.

By Carrie Budoff Brown - Copyright 2008 POLITICO


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