Quick posting

Very busy and missed a lot of news. Mitt is back. Hillary wins Nevada. Things getting nasty everywhere. It's election time in the USA.

Chris Cillizza of The Fix at WashingtonPost.com basically did my job for me with the MLK day speeches. He has video of the Hillary Clinton speech in Harlem and the Obama speech in Atlanta, urging his readers to determine who did the best job. Hopefully, I can make a quick podcast from this question while predicting the South Carolina Primary and Super Tuesday. Maybe I can do it between teaching class, American Idol, sleeping, and traveling to Missouri for a speaking engagement.

Here is the link. More later.

Michigan Primary tonight

Sorry, no podcast. It's American Idol night. Besides, I am teaching tonight.

But I'll post the victory speech and other speeches. on the blog tonight. Also, I'll give you the react in a links post.

"Prediction?
Yes, Prediction.
Pain."

What movie?

Sorry, McCain by 2 points. Bye Bye Mitt.

Friday links

Last night's debate - First Read - msnbc.com
MSNBC's postmortem of the Thursday night South Carolina Republican debate

A comeback for competence - The Boston Globe
Analyzing possible new themes as we move to Super Duper Tuesday

Sound Politics: New Hampshire candidate speeches
Thoughts from a Republican (It's pretty obvious) about candidate speeches

A tale of two speeches - Los Angeles Times
A good, albeit old, analysis between two Obama and Romney speeches

A cynical, yet surprising accuracy view of concession speeches

Completely funny take on speeches from the losers, errr, I mean, every candidate who did not win an election. Spelling mistakes are the author of the article, not mine (for once). From Scott Hollifield:

(SPIRITED APPLAUSE. SIGNS WAVE. CLASSIC ROCK THEME SONG PLAYS. CANDIDATE SMILES. CANDIDATE WAVES. CANDIDATE POINTS TO SOMEONE IN THE CROWD HE PRETENDS TO KNOW. CANDIDATE KISSES WIFE NONPASSIONATELY.)

Thank you. Thank you. I don't know about you, but I feel like a winner tonight.

(MORE SPIRITED APPLAUSE.)

Even though we finished fifth in a field of five, the 418 people from the great state of (name of state) who want a change of course in this nation spoke loud and clear. Let me hear you!

(LEAD CROWD IN CHANT OF CAMPAIGN SLOGAN DEVELOPED BY A TEAM OF CONSULTANTS.)

As I traveled all over this great state of (name of state), I met people like (name of someone with a problem the government didn't solve.) And he said to me, it is time take government out of the hands of (name of opposite political party) and give it back to those to whom it truly belongs, the people.

(APPLAUSE.)

I traveled to (insert names of several towns to show you were actually in the state for a while) and in (name of one of those towns) I talked with (someone like crazy ol' Jerry, who rambled on and on about FICA contributions) and he let me know in no uncertain terms he doesn't like the direction we're headed.

As a boy, I worked (at some kind of job the rest of us worked at to show that he's not above us) and it taught me the value of a dollar. Those bureaucrats in Washington, those (members of opposite political party) seem to have forgotten all about that.

We may have finished fifth tonight, but we are not ready to give up. Let me hear you!

(LEAD CROWD IN CHANT OF CAMPAIGN SLOGAN DEVELOPED BY TEAM OF CONSULTANTS. POINT AND WAVE AT CRAZY OL' JERRY)

We are in this for the long run. Now, it's on to the great state of (name of next primary state.)

(BACK ON BUS, INSTRUCT WRITERS TO BEGIN WORK ON SPEECH ANNOUNCING WITHDRAWEL FROM RACE.)

By the way, a slight change in plan. No podcast this weekend or next week. There was a forum (yet another one) on FOXNews from South Carolina. I'll put up some links about the results later maybe.

Clinton Accepts New Hampshire Democratric Presidential Nod

John McCain Accepts N.H. Republican Presidential Nod

A Whole New Ballgame

PSP - Ep. 4 Show Notes

What a night. Predications were accurate: McCain and Clinton wins New Hampshire and the 2008 election has become as unpredictable.

With Nevada and South Carolina coming up. It's pretty much turning into a five-person race. Clinton and Obama are now tied in the national polls for the Dems. McCain, Romney, and Huckabee with the GOP.

Of course, the big winner was John McCain. If he lost, he was done. Hillary Clinton is a winner, but now is probably an even-money pick to win the nomination.

The big loser: John Edwards. A distant third. Two viable campaigns and he's out of money. He wants to stay in, but it's time to face facts. He became toast. Also, Mitt Romney. Michigan has become his Waterloo. He has to win it to remain viable. Obama also to a lesser extent by losing by about 8,000 votes in New Hampshire. But Hillary Clinton wasn't going to pull out if she lost in New Hampshire. But Obama could have made it so that Clinton would have to take the nomination from in in a long process.

So in this podcast we have clips and discussion about the victory speeches for John McCain and Hillary Clinton.

Look for the next podcast this weekend (maybe) before a hiatus next week.

Show Notes - Ep. 3 - The New Hampshire Debates

We have three major things in this podcast. I have my disclaimer about presidential forums in primaries (I don't like them). We also have a review of the weekend debates in New Hampshire on ABC and FOXnews. Finally I predict what will happen on Tuesday in the primary.

We will be back late Tuesday/early Wednesday with a review of Tuesday speeches and a preview of South Carolina and Nevada.

Iowa Victory Speech - Ep. 2 Show Notes

PSP - Ep. 2

In this podcast, I look at the victory speeches for Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee. I also play clips from the victory speeches and look at what each speaker wanted to do with their speech.

Both use very similar language: change, hope, lifting people instead of the left and the right. But their respective speaking styles could not be more different.

Both candidates want to stress that they embody the change that voters want. Last night, people really started to pay attention to the 2008 Presidential race and these two candidates spoke to very large audiences at home. Their goal was to deliver that message of change and direction of their party, Democratic and Republican. Both effective styles, but different styles.

I also previewed the series of "debates" over the weekend in New Hampshire.

Not really debates but we'll call them that. For the Republicans, Huckabee has an easier road because no one expects him to win New Hampshire. But a slip up like what we've seen in press conferences, etc. could possibly hurt in South Carolina. But he's been pretty good at the debates with his speaking style.

Person with the most to gain: McCain. A good performances can win him New Hampshire and make him the alternative to Huckabee.

Person with the most to lose: Romney. Tied with McCain in the last New Hampshire poll, a bad performance could mean a loss, but signal the end of his campaign.

Democrats: Person with the most to lose: Obama, not even close. He could stall all of his momentum with a subpar debate performance. Remember, he really doesn't like these types of debates and it shows. It's the one area of the campaign where he just doesn't look comfortable. He better get comfortable because it is what probably cost Gore the White House in 2000. Bad debate performances now could reinforce the “not ready for primetime" that the Clintons are going to be pushing to try and save her candidacy. A decent performance will probably give him New Hampshire and cripple the Clinton campaign.

Person with the most to gain: Clinton. She has a small lead in New Hampshire, at least before Iowa. She has had one minor slip in the debates, but mostly she has been very, very good in the debates. We'll talk about Clinton in later podcasts (as far as speaking style), but her debates have been solid. A good performance can level the playing field and turn South Carolina into a real battleground in two weeks.

We'll be back on Monday with a review of the debates and Wednesday with a review of victory speeches in New Hampshire.

Mike Huckabee's Iowa Caucus Victory Speech - 1/3/2008

Obama's Victory Speech

Evaluating Political Speeches - Ep. 1 Show Notes

PSP Ep. 1

Four questions for listening to political speeches:

1. What is the purpose of the speech? What is the goal? Some types multiple goals and sometimes one goal.

2. Before watching, predict what topics will be talked about. There are some issues they want to talk about and some issues they don't

3. Rhetoric: How would you describe the speaker's style?

4. What did you think? How did they do? Don't let news networks determine that for you.


Music from the Podsafe Music Network. The bumper music you will hear is “You Dont Need An iPod,” by Uncle Seth