COMM 4020 Political Communication blog

With all presidential campaigns comes your major issues, taxes, military spending, economy, ect… With this however purposely hidden behind a veil of hesitation comes what I call ‘second string issues.’ Issues that are out there but perhpas the candidates would rather not talk about them or try to avoid whenever possible. I can’t think of a bigger second string issue than that of marajuana legalization. If one can’t stand listening to the rhetoric of candidates on major issues just listen to how they try and manuever when asked about the legalization of marijuana. This is some comic relief at best. President Obama has sort of floated on both sides of this issue throughout his presidency. Just last week he noted that no major change in federal law will probably take place until he is long out of office. So what about the up and comers? If your a Chris Chrisitie follower you better not be a card carrying member of NORMAL. He stated there is no way under his watch that he would ever consider the legalization of marijuana. On the other hand if your a Rick Perry follower go ahead and pull out those Grateful Dead albums, because you will be singing ‘Casey Jones’ until your hearts content. Perry stated he would decriminalize the use of marujuana if elected. Other candidates like Hilaary Clinton kind of throw out the medical usage safety net. With the medical marijuana usage it gives the candidate a little wiggle room to actually avoid the question all together. With this you will hear things like, ‘Well we need a little more research on the subject’ or ‘perhaps we will wait and see what the states have to say about it.’ Either way it’s fun to watch the candidates squirm when asked about the marijuana issue. Until then America, if you feel like lighting one up, proceed with caution. ‘Nice Dreams’ everybody. http://www.mpp.org/our-work/federal-policy/2016-presidential-candidates.htmln.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/20/opinions/robbins-hillary-clinton/index.html.

As far as attack ads go, this article has to be the most ridiculous piece of sexist bias I have come across so far.Texas CEO Cheryl Rios states, “With the hormones we have there is no way we should be able to start a war. We’re built differently, we have different hormones. In the world that we live in, I understand that there’s equal rights and that’s a wonderful thing and I support all of that. I don’t support a woman being president.” Thank goodness that the author of this article, Mel Robbins replied with,”When George W. Bush waged an unnecessary war in Iraq — was his testosterone to blame?” At first, I thought I had stumbled onto a fake news site by accident and should laugh at the satire. Imagine my disbelief when I realized that this is a legitimate concern of the voting population in America! Are we in 2015 or back in 1915? It seems to me that the opponents to a woman candidate should appear more intelligent by launching arguments that are not flavored with old fashioned myths about gender and power. Gawd, I hate politics.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/17/politics/omalley-attacks-clinton-gay-marriage/index.html

Here is another example of a political article that could be mentioned when talking about several different political topics and definitions.  However, I have chosen to refer to attack ads when talking about this article.  While this is an article rather than a paid for ad it is just a way of using free media to get an attack ad out to the public.  The topic of this article is O’Malley attacking Former secretary Clinton and her views changing to appease to the voters.  During a former press release Clinton voiced her opinion regarding gay marriage along with the topic of giving illegal immigrants drivers license.  Her former position regarding these issues, was that gay marriage was considered unconstitutional and in her opinion it should remain as such.  She previously said that illegal immigrants should not be granted the privilege to obtain a state drivers license.  In a recent statement after announcing her bid for the democratic party election for president, apparently she has suddenly changed her position.  While people are certainly allowed to change their views on certain issues, it may be construed by some that this is more of a political strategy rather than a change of personal beliefs.  O’Malley has certainly taken advantage of Clinton’s change of heart regarding these two issues and attacked her character.  I am of the opinion that he certainly should question her motives.  These two topics are issues at the forefront of U.S voters at the moment and have been a hot topic for some time now. For her to change her stance suddenly and less than one week after her announcing her candidacy would lend itself to voters judging her character and understanding the validity of O’Malley’s attack on her.

Let us talk about Ben Carson. First, who is he and where did he come from? He is a retired neurosurgeon from Detroit, Michigan. He is a conservative Republican who is in the exploratory stages of announcing his candidacy. He has recently been traveling to different areas and being paid to do speeches and other public events but is now also receiving a lot of free media due to the internet and other news medias. I thought had never even heard of him till I saw a bumper sticker on the car in front of me, till I saw the video on the site about his thoughts on gay marriage. This particular article title alone though, is priming you to think that on May 4 he will specifically be making his announcement for his presidential bid in his home town. While it is not written in the article but it is in the interview in the video there is a certain framing being shown setting him up as a man who is very conscious of money and other issues because of the length of just the clips. But what comes to me is that, how can a man who not only worked but dominated at Johns Hopkins Medical Center be worried about money? No where is it mentioned about how while he feels this COUNTRY needs fixed that he wants to help the many struggling people of Detroit. I think that may be a potential agenda setting, showing some of the points that he is so concerned with and also showing his obvious inexperience in the world of politics. Is someone who has such obvious flaws someone you would want? Where does he get his ideas from? Is he really that different from Donald Trump, in the sense that he came from no where politically and now wants to make the ultimate decisions for our freedom?

Many Republicans are anxiously waiting for Jeb Bush to announce his bid for the presidential race. Even though Jeb Bush has not put his bid in yet, he definitely in the surfacing stage of the his potential presidential campaign. In the article from CNN, Jeb Bush was in New Hampshire at the presidential primary event called “Politics and Eggs”. Mr. Bush has the name recognition like Clinton that many other candidates do not have. As the son and brother of two former presidents, Jeb Bush is a name that about all Americans recognize.The problem that is that Jeb Bush does not want to be recognized as a Bush. He wants to be known as his own person for his heart.

Another thing the article touched based on was the face that Jeb Bush is already doing some campaign strategies. For instants, he is already doing some polling. While in New Hampshire, Bush held a Summit and many of the attendees felt either two ways. One that they something new that because he is a Bush that hurts him. The other side was that Bush impressed the younger crowd. The ones that were not alive when his father was president but was alive when his brother was. I think this article is a true example that name recognition in politics can either hurt you or help you.

Ohio Governor John Kasich is coming closer to a presidential bid for 2016. In the last couple months, there has been a large amount of speculation on whether or not Gov. Kasich will run for the presidency. Some think he has a pretty good shot at potentially winning the nomination. According to a CNN.com article (http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/16/politics/john-kasich-2016/index.html), Kasich’s supporters are going to start raising large amounts of money. Without a doubt, Kasich has been surrounded by political consultants in the past months as he weighs his options on 2016. According to Denton, Jr. and Kuypers, political consultants “coordinate the activities of the media, advertising, public relations, and publicity” (Pg 174). In the next days, Kasich will be travelling to South Carolina and then to New Hampshire. Many political consultants, like those from CNN, argue that South Carolina is an important state for one to visit early. Kasich will be there for a few public events. As many know, New Hampshire is a very important state when it comes to the primaries, and he will be traveling here for a “Republican Leadership Summit.” An attorney by the name of E. Mark Braden has been in charge of the filing of paperwork for a non-profit called “New Day for America.” Mr. Braden could be acting as a consultant to Kasich, as he has extensive knowledge on campaign finance as well as Ohio politics. I am eager to hear Kasich’s decision.

No matter which political tab you click on, under any website you are going to find something about Hillary Clinton. She is a well known Politian /woman /name /candidate with 100% name recognition. Since her announcement to run for president she has been all over the news and the web.  Out of the many news articles I have read and found about her I found this one from the Huffington post, about her age. Reading the title and thinking about what it was wanting me to think about verses the things it could actually be about before clicking on the article I had never considered her age as being an issue (and still do not) whether a supporter or not was the age of any of our candidates (in this round of candidates) in your mind? I know that many people were worried about McCain’s age. Her being 67 years of age, in a country where the average life expectancy for women is 81 years old is this something we need to think about? Or could this be a tactic…for or against her?  She is an experienced, female politician whose values and views should (and usually are) under question much more than her age.

What does age mean? Wisdom? Closer to death? Or something not even mentioned?

In an article on CNN Hillary Clinton has changed her position on same sex marriages. When she ran for office back in 2008 she made it clear that she was against same sex marriage but supported the idea of civil unions instead and that position continued even as Secretary of State. Hillary stated that when she was Secretary of State she was out of domestic politics and it did not allow her to back same-sex marriages. While running in 2008 she mentioned that she felt it was a position that should be left up to the States, however she admired the activist in each state that worked diligently to get their message out. Denton and Kuypers would say this is framing to GOTV as we read about in chapter 6 and chapter 11. Others might say that the change is in light of some attack media she has received recently in regards to the email scandal and the agreement on sending troops to Iraq so she needs an edge to bring her back up in the polls. Further, in the article “Clinton states that she supports marriage equality and hopes that Supreme Court will come down on the side of same-sex couples allowing and guaranteeing that they have a constitutional right to be together and happy.” To make things even better we read later in the article that because of her change the largest LGBT group Equality California has endorsed Clinton and encouraged her to run. We discussed in chapter 10 how important it could be to a campaign if a large PAC backs your campaign because that is where the money is and in the end, money is the bottom line.

This week Hillary Clinton has announced that she will be running for president in 2016. This really should come as no surprise since she has been predominately the democratic favorite for over a year now. Also with this there seems to be little or no competition from any other democratic presidential candidate. With this however there seems to be some dissension in the ranks. Some within the party have expressed a desire for perhaps a new face so to speak. With looming conspiracy theories such as Benghazi and the home computer server scandal, has some democrats distancing themselves from Hillary Clinton. With the attack media out in full force I don’t really know what the Hill is going on. There is no doubt in my mind that Hillary is getting more free press lately than all candidates combined so far. We will have to wait and see in the coming months how this all plays out in the long run. Hillary mixed things up a little this week also by announcing her bid for presidency via social media rather than main stream. With this the attack media has accused her of using this option as a tactic to evade questions that perhaps could harm her campaign. Once again we will have to see how this plays out before any of us will really know what the Hill is going on. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-running-president-2016/story?id=30249640