REPUBLICAN CONVENTION RATINGS FIXED BY NETWORKS TO BEAT OBAMA

REPUBLICAN CONVENTION RATINGS FIXED BY NETWORKS

Check this out by Media Matters...

Summary: On September 2 and September 3, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News each dedicated more on-air time -- significantly more in most cases -- to official Republican convention programming during the most-watched portions of their coverage than each channel dedicated to official convention programming during the same times on comparable nights of the Democratic National Convention.

Findings for Tuesday, September 2, coverage of the Republican National Convention and Monday, August 25, and Tuesday, August 26, coverage of the Democratic National Convention are as follows:

• MSNBC dedicated 1 hour, 19 minutes, 52 seconds to scheduled convention programming during the 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET hours of its September 2 Republican National Convention coverage; by contrast, MSNBC dedicated 56 minutes, 13 seconds to scheduled convention programming during the same hours during its August 25 coverage of the Democratic National Convention, and 59 minutes, 28 seconds during its August 26 coverage.
  

• CNN dedicated 1 hour, 23 minutes, 36 seconds to scheduled convention programming during the 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET hours of its September 2 Republican National Convention coverage; by contrast, CNN dedicated 1 hour, 3 minutes, 58 seconds to scheduled convention programming during the same hours during its August 25 coverage of the Democratic National Convention, and 1 hour, 10 minutes, 45 seconds during its August 26 coverage.
  

• Fox News dedicated 1 hour, 16 minutes, 30 seconds to scheduled convention programming, including convention speeches, during the 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET hours of its September 2 Republican National Convention coverage; by contrast, Fox News dedicated 56 minutes, 25 seconds to scheduled convention programming during the same hours during its August 25 coverage of the Democratic National Convention, and 38 minutes, 51 seconds during its August 26 coverage.
  

It means the convention coverage was fixed to counter the ratings that Obama got the week before.  The networks -- MSNBC, CNN, and FOX -- worked to fix coverage to draw more ratings for the Republicans.

 THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!   IS NOTHING SACRED?  The networks are in the tank for the Republican Party.

Fight them.  Fight the Republican Party, too.  

Post DNC Convention Thoughts - AshPolitics

So I've had a few days to consider my overall impression of the Democratic National Convention. While it was certainly a fantastic experience (excellent networking, exceptional star gazing, fantastic speeches, interesting panels and round tables), I think, for me, it boils down to an almost catastrophic waste of resources.

Let me say at the outset that I recognize the need to rile up the base for the election season. I understand that without an energized, hardcore set of volunteers, the party would be sunk. I'm not sure, however, that the party needs to spend the millions of dollars it did to achieve that effect. I sat in the Pepsi Center on Wednesday night watching the multi video screens scrolling text and flashing stars wondering if we really needed all of that? The party spends four years raising money from major donors just so they can spend a chunk of that money to throw lavish parties for said donors at the Convention. It seems a little nuts.

Yes, it all looks great on TV and that certainly is another goal. Yes, more people watched Barack Obama's acceptance speech than the Olympics. What those people don't see is all the wasted money behind the scenes: the piles of speech copies left at the end of each night (even though they had also been emailed to all press members); the concerts and parties thrown for donors; the lavish (yeah, I'll admit it) party thrown for the media. Certainly, much of the money to fund this was donated by major corporations, but doesn't that introduce another issue with which we should be uncomfortable?

Hats off to the Dems for throwing the "greenest" Convention ever. Heck, the beer cups at the media party, which appeared to be generic plastic and were emblazoned with the Coors logo, were actually made of corn and compostable. But in light of the interview I had with the taxi driver from the Sudan, maybe all that money would be best spent somewhere else.

Zennie Abraham at DNC Convention On CNN iReport After Biden Speech

Roll Call Voting In Process

It's 4:25 pm and we're in the blogger suite watching the roll call vote. We arrived after the vote began, but so far, the Michigan delegation has received the largest ovation. After all of the issues with seating MI delegates, they cast 125 votes to Obama and 27 to Clinton, with 5 not voting. We missed the FL vote. Darn.

Each state chair is giving proud facts about his or her state before they cast their vote. We're hearing about state hockey champs, which Senators were born where, etc. The floor is bustling and the blogger section is getting full. Thus far, there doesn't seem to be any real dissention, no fighting, etc. Votes are being cast for Obama and for Clinton without drama, except the excitement of nominating the next President of the United States. We heard earlier that the Clinton folks were trying to figure out a way to shut down the roll call vote in order to hold her voting in check and avoid any floor fireworks, but they apparently either decided not to or couldn't get the rules worked out.

As the voting closes and we get a final tally, I'll blog again. This is fun, y'all. Wish you were here.

A view from a cab - DNC Convention

I mentioned earlier that all of the cab drivers I've dealt with here have been fantastic. One of them was so interesting that I had to interview him on the spot. His name is Tawir Tawir and if I hadn't lost my cell phone, I'd have a great picture of him to show you. Tawir is a 40 year old man from the Sudan and he's been in the US for seven years. He's applied for US citizenship, but three years later, he's on his second fingerprint check. His name and the fact that he's a Muslim put him in a position to make immigration much more difficult.

Here's a recap of our conversation:

Ash: How do you feel, overall, about Obama and McCain?

Tawir: I like Obama, not because he's black like me, but because he means change. McCain just wants war, he will go into Iran, and make things worse.

Ash: Since you're a Muslim, how do you feel about Americans fearing that Obama might be a Muslim, when we know he's a Christian? Why do you think that's such an issue?

Tawir: Americans are scared of Muslims because of Osama bin Laden. The Jewish people fought Muslims for a long time and bin Laden gave them a chance to bring their fight into the open in the US. Israeli groups control the media in this country and that perpetuates the anti-Muslim feelings and that led us to Iraq. Or at least that's how I feel.

Ash: You're from the Sudan. Talk to me about the situation there.

Tawir: Darfur is Muslim, but this is not about religion. The government situation in the Sudan is not fair. There needs to be more in the Senate from Darfur. All politicians are from the Northern part of the Sudan. Americans are paying attention to the Sudan, but only to the Southern part and they are ignoring the Eastern and Western parts. The Northern part gets all of the politicans; the Presidents all come from the North.

There is a lot of oil in Darfur right now and that's why Americans are so interested in helping out. The Chinese control the oil in Darfur right now, but the Chinese people aren't interested in helping out the Sudanese people, only serving the government. The people do not get the money and the government does not spend the money on things the people need, like roads and schools, but only build themselves bigger buildings.

That pretty much concluded our interview, with just a short discussion of the party he had attended the night before for the Sudanese President, who is in town during the Convention. Apparenlty, there is a decent size Sudanese community here in Denver.

Tawir says that he will absolutely vote when he gets his citizenship. If he could vote in this election, he would cast that vote for Barack Obama.

Katie Couric Digg's The DNC Convention

Katie Couric's discovered "Digg" for the DNC Convention. See her video-blog here:

DNC Tent in Downtown Denver For DNC Convention

DNC Tent in Downtown Denver., originally uploaded by paulswansen.

This is a photo of a tent made for and ran by The Democratic Party in preparation for the 2008 DNC Convention. Zennie's Zeitgeist will be there and you can join us by tuning into this blog. You can also sponsor us. For more information, click here.

DNCC Logo Launch Denver's Pepsi Center

DNCC Logo Launch, originally uploaded by DemConvention.

Here's a really cool photo of the logo that we will see on Pepsi Center and more often as we move closer to the 2008 DNC Convention, August 25th to August 28th, 2008.

We will be there and if you want to sponsor us -- please do -- click on the link tab "sponsor us" for more information or call 510-387-9809.

Barack Obama Speech and Process To Nomination

This video series by YouTuber JoeJack101 captures the process leading up to his historic speech:

1) CNN Announces that Obama Has Reached the Delegate Milestone



2) The Speech:

An Obama / Clinton Ticket Is What The Democratic Party Needs

Ok, I've written it, and I'll stand by it. I think a Democratic ticket with Senator Obama and Senator Clinton on it as VP will not only heel Democratic Party wounds, but bring the country together and confound Senator Clinton's more reason-challenged supporters.

Obama / Clinton has a nice ring to it for a host of reasons. First, it's a change ticket because for the first time we would have an African American man and a European American woman running together. Morover, it would fuse two campaigns that have done an extraordinary job of raising money. Senator Obama's campaign alone has taken in over one-third of a billion dollar, a level never before seen in American politics. Senator Clinton has a large list of well-known donors, and while may of them would come over Senator Obama anyway, having her on the ticket makes this process a certainty.

Finally, it's a good marriage of the Clintons, who are the ultimate insiders and Senator Obama, who's the best outside-insider. Senator Obama's the best example of a corporate heretic America Politics has ever seen. He's arugably better than Bill Clinton, which brings me to my next point.

Obama will have Bill at the ready in a unique role that seems taylor made for him. Look, I could care less about the Vanity Fair article for many reasons, but foremost amoung them is that it's tone was really personal and read like an attack on Clinton as a man, not as a politician. I'll get to that later, but in my view, it's time for us -- including me -- to lay down our arms and bring the Democratic Party together. The war's over; let's not take it to the convention.

Zennie's Zeitgeist Covered By The Oakland Tribune

The Oakland Tribune's Barbara Grady penned this story below about this blogger and blog's being credentialed for the upcoming Democratic National Convention. But to be fair, the blog is more than me, its the other writers on it, like Tom Hayes and Dave Kaye and Ashley Long, all of whom are credentialed to go to the convention. It's readers like you and of course the overall SBS website system.

Also, it must be reported that the YouTube channel zennie62 is "attached" to this blog and also I said to Barbara that the overall SBS website gets 65,000 unique visitors a month, with Zennie's Zeitgeist a part of that, about between 30 percent and 50 percent of that per month. But yes, this blog did command 44,000 page views and 24,000 visitors on the day after the New Hampshire Primary. That was due to one post on reported election machine voter fraud problems in that state.

Also, I did not contribute $17,000 to the campaign, I raised it over time via the Internet and mostly from a fundraiser at the Mark Hopkins I co-sponsored. But I do not have that kind of money and could not do that anyway as the limit is $2,500. It was an error on her part.

Whatever the details, it was great to have our people recognized. Here's the article:

Oakland blogger to cover Democratic National Convention

By Barbara Grady
Oakland Tribune
Article Created: 06/02/2008 09:05:32 PM PDT

OAKLAND — As the Democratic National Convention gets under way in August, Oakland blogger Zennie Abraham will be on the convention floor with a microphone poised to pick up discussions of race, predatory lending, infrastructure improvement and other issues of concern to Oakland.

Abraham and his Zennie's Zeitgeist blog at zennie2005.blogspot.com have won a coveted credential from the Democratic National Committee to cover the convention as a blogger journalist. He was selected late last week as one of 124 bloggers to receive credentials from an applicant pool of more than 400.

Zennie's Zeitgeist is usually about Abraham's take on political issues of the day — often the Democratic presidential contest — with a smattering of posts about pop culture and sports.

The Democratic National Committee said its criteria in choosing which bloggers to let into what no doubt will be a crowded and history-making Denver convention are that they cover state and local politics and have a high daily audience based on statistics from Technorati, a Web site that tracks blogs. Among applicants whose sites met those criteria, the committee looked for blogs that "stand out as an effective online organizing tool and/or agent of change."

Abraham has not been shy to take on controversial issues. He has written about predatory lending, accusing check cashing centers of exploiting the poor, and crime
and criminals.

He already has specific plans for what topics he'll focus on at the convention.
"I'm concerned about (Hillary) Clinton and (Barack) Obama, and the race issue. I really want to see if Democrats are going to rally around Obama unanimously," Abraham said Monday. "I want to know specifically if people who are Clinton supporters, if they are really going to rally behind Obama. If not, I want to know if it is because of race."

And he will report on any discussions of race, whether polite or not.
He also plans to report in detail on the development of a Democratic platform, "with respect to what degree the platform represents domestic issues like predatory lending in credit card rates, our enormous infrastructure problems and what I call keeping jobs at home."

Abraham has been an outspoken supporter of Obama and contributed about $17,000 to his campaign. That partisanship did not seem to phase the DNC, even though many of the other blogs selected are less committed to one candidate.

Many of the blogs represent Democrats from particular states, such as the Blue Jersey, Blue Indiana and Blue Hampshire blogs.

Abraham, 45, is an entrepreneurial businessman, having founded Sports Business Simulations of Oakland five years ago, but he put in his time in politics. He worked for former Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown as an economic adviser and then as the Oakland Alameda Sports Commissioner.

Abraham started his blogging career in 2006 writing about sports. But then he couldn't resist talking about politics.

Over time, he separated his own political and cultural ramblings into Zennie's Zeitgeist, distinct from his larger SBS Voices sports blog, and wrote increasingly about politics, following the Democratic campaign as it progressed tooth and nail.
The day after the New Hampshire primary, his blog posting received 44,000 hits. Since then, his audience has steadily grown. He was invited by CNN to post a video blog as a sample for its YouTube CNN Democratic Debate last year. Afterward, links to his blog started showing up elsewhere on other political sites. Now Zennie's Zeitgeist receives about 60,000 unique visitors a month on average.

Harriet Christian - Who Is Harriet Christian And What Of Racist Clinton Supporters?

Harriet Christian being escorted out of the DNC Rules Committee by two Black men totally adequate for the task.

Who is Harriet Christian? Records over at the Huffington Post's special project called "Fundrace" on the identification and location of donors to presidential campaigns shows that she does indeed live in New York City, at 20 Waterside Plaza, along the East River with a nice view I might add, and has worked or is working as a Waitress and also worked or is working for Infocus Realty at 419 Lafayette Street 2nd Floor New York, NY.

Indeed, she's currently listed as a sales agent there with the following contact information: 917-716-1757 and email at HChristian@INFNYC.com

Now, let's stop and think about that for a moment. A person who would scream "inadequate Black Male" and rant about her right to say that is the last person you'd think would sell an apartment to someone Black. She's got to be a poster child for racial discrimination in New York real estate. If there's someone out there who's been discriminated against by her, well, here's your online proof of her bias. InFocus Realty should be very concerned about this; I don't yet know if they are.

Harriet's racism reflects on the firm that hired her to work in real estate.

Then this comments posted in the Manhattan Offender:

I actually found myself at a bar sitting next to Harriet Christian shortly after she made that comment. Harriet has the Hillary Clinton tattoo. Harriet says, you want to see my new tattoo? So, she hikes up her dress and sure enough, there’s Hillary on her inner thigh. You know who this is don't you? This here's Hillary Clinton. Bet you can't guess who’s tattooed on my other leg, she says, hiking her dress even further. I look at her other thigh, but the likeness escapes me. I don't recognize the other face, I said. But I'd know that one in the middle anywhere – that there's Sandy Berger: http://theseedsof9-11.com

Posted by: Peggy McGilligan | 01 June 2008 at 03:07 PM

But what's most terrible beyond Harriet's racist rant is the supportive -- that's right, supportive -- comments at the forum called HillaryClintonForum. These people are totally sick.

For example:

My favorite quote, "You can call me white, but I can't call you black! That is not my America."

Or this:

She says it like "it" is.

And this work-of - genius:

Harriet Christian for VP

And this outrage:

A woman after my own heart! You go girl!!

What the hell was that? I could not believe the comments over at that post, but hey, you can't see them in person before you, so you can see just how dark their hearts are.

What you're reading over at Hillary Clinton Forum shows the worst in America, and it is that they are so happy this person who's White is really talking for people who apparently do feel that Blacks don't know their place and are Democrats, an are acting just like Father Michael Pflager said Hillary Clinton herself was acting (and I totally think the Father was offbase).

But I think Father Plager -- who's not a reverend as Anderson Cooper called him, he's Catholic -- should have talked about some Clinton supporters like the ones on the Clinton Forum, as he'd have been totally correct.

I doubt people would have been so upset.

Clinton Wins Puerto Rico; Obama Gains 17 Delegates; 45 From Nomination

As predicted, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won Puerto Rico gaining 68 percent of the vote to Senator Obama's 32 percent of the vote, according to DemConWatch Blog.

Now, Senator Obama's just 45 delegates away from gaining the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. It's anticipated that a combination of the Montana and South Dakota primaries and just the movement of perhaps as many as 20 Superdelegates could put Obama over the top.

Zennie's Zeitgeist Blog Credentialed For 2008 Democratic Convention

I just saw the news in a weird way: checking our blog traffic, which I do regularly. In looking at a link from the blog "Demconwatch" it took me to a story on blogs approved for the historic 2008 Democratic Convention, and to the DNC Page itself. To cut to this chase, this blog is on the list! Yippee!

In other words we're going to be brings you both live and video blog coverage from the floor of the 2008 Democratic Convention. It also means a milestone in the assent of our blogs as a business unit of Sports Business Simulations and is major proof that I made the right bet in 2003 when I determined to establish a writer's group called SBS Personalities and in 2005 when I first started this blog network.

All I can say is thanks to Drew at the DNC, and thanks to the DNC. We -- Ashley, Tom, Dave, and myself -- are excited!