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Charlotte.com: The Big Picture
News, sports and entertainment from Charlotte.com
- An e-blizzard blasts Iowa
Iowa is in the middle of a raging storm this winter.There's been plenty of snow, but this storm is electronic: a blizzard of e-mails, text messages, instant messages, videos, talking heads, audio clips, social networks, and urgent demands for your money, your help, your attendance and support, all on your phone, in your computer, on your TV screen.Presidential candidates are generating this binary whiteout, determined to use 21st-century technology to gain an edge, particularly with young voters, in the Jan. 3 caucuses.Is it working?Irl, idk. :/ Sry.(Translation for those over 30: In real life, I don't know. Uneasy face. Sorry.)"I think it'll have some effect," said Democratic candidate Sen. Joe Biden, who's listed on his MySpace page as "Male. 65 years old. Wilmington, Delaware.""But," Biden adds, "the answer is, I don't know.""We're in uncharted territory," said Jen Psaki, who helps coordinate alternative media for the Barack Obama campaign. "We won't probably know until this is all said and done."That uncertainty hasn't stopped the Obama campaign, or all the others, from at least trying every new technology available. Web sites, with video, are a given. In addition, campaigns have pages on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook; they send blast e-mails directly to cell phones and other devices; and they use various Web addresses to set up house parties, meet-ups and mash-ups, and most of all, to raise money.The young voters who are the target of all this say thx, but plz, u r working 2 hard."I talk about the campaign with my friends, but it's mostly just when we get together, talking face-to-face," said John Yost, a 21-year-old student at Iowa State University who likes Republican candidate Mike Huckabee. "It's not so much texting or things like that.""I don't get any of that (text messages), other than random e-mails from all these candidates," said ISU student Chris Dencklau, a Biden man.Younger voters emphasize that phenomena such as text and instant messaging are peer-to-peer experiences. They may chat with friends about a candidate or campaign, they say, but they ignore "top down" directives or appeals from candidates."I would say I probably have never received a text message about politics," said 24-year-old John Day of Fort Dodge. "Unless I was at an event, and someone else was at that event and texting me."But campaigns say that getting like-minded students together, through texting or instant messaging, is worth the effort."It has been a way for people to connect, at colleges and universities, by saying, `I like Barack Obama, you like Barack Obama -- when's your next meeting?'" Psaki said.And, campaigns point out, Web sites and text-messaging programs are much cheaper than TV ads, which still dominate local television.Young voters in Iowa see those commercials, but they say -- almost to a person -- that they no longer rely on traditional media such as local television or newspapers as their sole source of political news.Instead, they watch political videos on the Web. They try to catch an occasional cable news show or debate. And all lament the disappearance of new episodes of topical, late-night satire shows."Up until the writers' strike, `The Daily Show' and Stephen Colbert were doing a pretty good job keeping us informed," Day said."They (students) get their information from TV, but not from the networks," said Tim McDaniel, a professor at Buena Vista University near Storm Lake, Iowa.But the networks and other so-called mainstream media haven't gone away. Like campaigns, they're using electronics to communicate: The Des Moines Register's Web site, for example, includes videos, campaign schedules, candidate profiles, breaking news updates and other caucus information.But much of the information generated by mainstream reporters still ends up in mainstream publications, which are still read by many Iowans -- particularly those most likely to caucus.That means people older than 30, lol (laughing out loud)."It's always hard, in a general election, let alone a caucus, to get younger people engaged," Biden said. "Up to now, the average age of the caucus-goer, I'm told, is something like 60, 61. ... We'll see."Ttyl. (Talk to you later.)Media impactThe electronic revolution sweeping campaigns has swept the media, too. Twenty years ago, cell phones were unheard of, and the Iowa caucuses operated on a news cycle of statement and response that played out over a day.Now, producers, writers and reporters trailing candidates are armed with video cameras, BlackBerrys and wireless laptops to distribute quotes almost as soon as a candidate utters one, leading to a sometimes-bizarre hourly running dialogue between candidates who're separated by hundreds of miles. - Troops see tons of generosity
It's Christmastime at Camp Taji, and Army Staff Sgt. Jared DeAtley looks traumatized, but not by the war outside the camp or holidays away from home. It's only 9 a.m., and the mail warehouse already has called.Those calls have been coming earlier and more emphatically lately. The daily mail pickup by Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery, a National Guard unit from Carlisle, Ky., easily fills the bed of a Chevy Silverado, sometimes twice.With the holidays approaching, the volume of mail headed to service members in Iraq has skyrocketed. In one 24-hour period last week, 788,473 pounds of mail came into Iraq, according to the U.S. military's Postal Operations Division in Kuwait. Compare that with a 24-hour period in July, when soldiers received 294,808 pounds.For the 2-138, the sheer volume -- Xboxes and iPods from family, treats and cards from well-wishers they've never met -- prompts them to deny adamantly that they need anything. Once, after the unit arrived in August, some soldiers mused that they'd like soft toilet paper and a bag of Werther's Original. They received crates of fluffy rolls and 40 bags of hard caramel candy."You have to be careful what you ask for," said Capt. Steve Mattingly, of Bardstown, Ky.The mail warehouses at this base 20 miles north of Baghdad are crammed with mail -- 60,952 pounds arrived one day recently -- from all over the world, funneled through Bahrain.The soldiers hope never to need the quantities of anti-fungal nail cream they've received or the ACE bandages, Band-Aids and bags and bags of lip balm. Mattingly likes to dig for the peppermint kind, the same flavor his 4-year-old daughter likes."Sometimes she'll lay one on me and I can feel it tingle," he says. "I can feel that tingle now."Goodies without recipients' names attached land on a free-for-all table or in the hands of Iraqi children. The soldiers covet only a few items: electrical tape, Girl Scout cookies, the rare unmelted Reese's peanut butter cup -- a treat found only in cooler weather.The soldiers try to write thank-you notes for the crayon-colored cards and homemade cookies. They need only scratch "Free Mail" in the corner for letters to make it to the U.S. The tough part will be shipping all the big stuff back when they leave next year. Post office lines are long, and it won't be cheap.Some, such as Spc. Johnny Elliott, already have a solution: "I'm leaving it all here for the next guy." - DECISION 2008
DECISION 2008COMING THIS WEEKAfter the briefest of Christmas breaks, campaigning resumes in a frenzy, with all major candidates racing around Iowa and some dipping into New Hampshire, which votes Jan. 8. Then there's Rudy Giuliani, who has all but written off those early voting states; the day after Christmas he's going for several days to Florida, the first big state to vote (Jan. 29), which he's counting on to boost him back to the top. (Besides, where would you rather be in late December?)CHRISTMAS RUSH: CANDIDATES SHOP FURIOUSLY FOR VOTES IN IOWA WASHINGTON -- Iowa was crawling with presidential candidates again last week, as hopefuls went into overdrive in the final days before a Christmas break, then one last scramble until the first votes are cast Jan. 3.Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson mounted a marathon 15-day bus tour through the state; he plans to hit 50 locales. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton launched a "likability" tour aimed at convincing Iowa voters that she's really warm and fuzzy once you get to know her.Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former N.C. Sen. John Edwards dueled for the affection of rural Iowans, who hold disproportionate influence under the arcane voting system of Iowa's caucuses.Iowans will get a break on Christmas Day, but only briefly, for the campaigns will hit white heat the day after and stay there the final week.CONTROVERSIAL CROSSOne new TV ad for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee raised some eyebrows because it featured a luminous white image that looked like a cross hovering over the former Baptist preacher's shoulder. It's said to be a bookshelf, but the image is unmistakably a cross. Huckabee's ardent courtship of evangelical voters raises concerns in some quarters about whether he recognizes the distance separating church from state. Another of his ads boldly proclaims him to
