While social media in politics reached historic heights this election year, don’t expect speechwriter Jon Favreau to be singing its praises anytime soon. Favreau, 27, was expected to be White House Director of Speechwriting for the Obama administration, but a recent photo posted to his Facebook account, showing him fondling a life-size cutout of Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton, may end the young writer’s dreams of Whilte House fame.

Favreau posted photos from a party he attended while chief speechwriter for Obama’s presidential election campaign; according to a CNN.com report, the photos were up for only a couple of hours before he pulled them from his profile page, but by then the damage had already been done.

The moral of the story - discretion, especially in a digital age, is especially significant when, in just hours, one photo, one quote, or just one article, can cause irreparable damage and harm to reputations and future prospects.

Although this event is obviously significant from a social media standpoint, what has not been recognized yet is that this type of insensitivity happens all the time; people do, say, and behave in stupid ways and in this case, the behavior should not be tolerated for any reason.

In today’s world, all it takes is two hours to ruin a lifetime of work and effort. Most interesting though is that behaviors haven’t changed for the better - just the medium of exposing those who behave in stupid, Read the rest of this entry »

It has become very clear that the mood this election year has transcended the frustrated voter into the angry voter, but many are outraged at what they see as an all new low from a North Carolina parking lot owner. The parking lot owner decided that any cars with Barack Obama stickers are no longer welcome to park in his lot.

Although in an interview the parking lot owner states he was just “trying to make light” of the election year, he also made it very clear that Obama supporters are not welcome, and he has no intention of taking down the sign until after the election in November.

This outrageous behavior is just the tip of the iceberg of what has lately become a very polarized election year. Many are attributing the increase in anger among voters by John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin, who have openly been encouraging ideas that are divisive and Read the rest of this entry »

One of many big political ironies was highlighted during last night’s presidential debates. Although neither candidate would address very specifically how they would cut spending given the recent financial crisis what they did do was throw out a few catch-alls they thought might stick for one or two voters. For John McCain that was “we need to cut ethanol subsidies.”

Now this probably wasn’t that big of a deal for most folks, but here in South Dakota, it is huge! More than 4 million acres of corn are planted in South Dakota in an average year. As a result, ethanol plants are prevalent throughout our state. Former Senate Minority Leader Tom Dascle spent years pushing ethanol production bills through Read the rest of this entry »

CNN polls indicate that among their viewers Barack Obama clearly won the presidential debate this evening. Not only that, the majority also believe that Obama would be better at making decisions regarding Iraq than McCain.

This is clearly going to devastate the McCain campaign. No matter what the happy little faces from the GOP are trying to say, it seems pretty obvious that the McCain campaign is now in serious trouble.John McCain needed to win this debate head over heels in order to make up for sliding numbers, and he just wasn’t able to do that.

But probably the most important lesson from this debate was the character differences between the two candidates. From McCain I saw Regan-era, yesterday’s news concepts over and over again (and clearly steering well away from anything Read the rest of this entry »

NBC’s Mike Viqueira reported today that lawmakers are deliberating a bill that would provide a $25 billion dollar ‘loan’ to the auto industries as a way to help them “re-equip” to build more energy efficient cars.

According to the report, last week House minority leader John Boehner said “”looks like a bailout to me,” in regard to the auto industries request. He had not yet seen all the details, but the summary appeared to be enough to raise concerns.

Comments on the article page indicated that voters are beginning to feel frustrated at a Congress that Read the rest of this entry »

It has been no secret that the McCain campaign has been quite judicious in it’s use of “truth stretching” tactics this election, but what many don’t realize is just how far the Senator has gone to make himself look like the perfect candidate. In fact with the recent economic crisis looming, McCain’s campaign is having a hard time holding on to the false sense of hope they had just a mere few weeks ago just before the RNC.

What is coming back to haunt the campaign repeatedly are several occassions in which the Senator seems to Read the rest of this entry »