COMM 4020 Political Communication blog

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has come out to say that he will be making a “big announcement” on April 13. He plans on announcing what he plans to do in terms of whether or not he will be running for President. According to CNN, he will be giving a pitch about restoring the vision of America, which is not a common speech if he’s seeking reelection as Senator. In our textbook, Denton, Jr. and Kuypers explain that the Surfacing Phase is where candidates achieve visibility, establish credibility or fitness, and begin to build a viable organization.” This stage is very important to the political stage because it is when the public turns some candidates into front-runners and others into the “middle-of-the-pack bunch.” In this phase, candidates must have access to funds, they must gain endorsements, and they must gain positive media attention. Rubio already has access to funds from his Senatorial campaign and just like every other candidate, he will be getting media attention before long. As discussed in class, many candidates announce their running in their home state. This is a rhetoric that just about everyone follows. At the end of March, when Ted Cruz announced, he announced it at Liberty University in Virginia. Marco Rubio has reserved the Freedom Tower at Miami Dade College for his announcement. Cruz has a a steeper hill to climb due how he has been portrayed in the media. Due to where he is announcing, some may find Rubio to be more effective than Cruz. Rubio may also have the upper-hand in that he is not as well-known yet.

I guess one would have to live under a rock if you have never heard of Donald Trump. He is considered a successful business man and is popular in the public eye. He is also known more recently for the success of his TV show ‘The Apprentice.’ Perhaps Trumps arrogance is his greatest and worst quality at the same time. He uses this arrogance in the business world as a powerful tool to achieve his goals, however many times leaving a wake of unhappy individuals. With this there is a convenient political side to Trump. This political side of Trump usually shows up around presidential election time to hint that he may make a bid for the presidency. Somehow though like in the past few elections he conveniently pulls out at the last minute. Well once again Trump is playing the same game as he has done before. I call it the ‘Value of perpetual surfacing.’ You see Trump knows the surfacing stage of all political campaigns brings a high level of interest. Interest where a potential candidate can get a lot of free press without spending almost anything. This is clearly Trump using arrogance as a business mogul to bring attention to himself. The political arena is purely his gateway in this scenario. Something we have seen him do time and time again. Will Trump run for president? Probably not. So this begs the question why does he do this? I can sum it up in one word ‘Arrogance.’ I wish america could once and for all tell Trump to take this perpetual surfacing, self serving tactic to move on down the road. Because Donald ‘Your Fired!’ Please read the link below and make a comment.http://swtimes.com/news/politics/donald-trump-forming-presidential-exploratory-committee

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/arkansas-house-approves-bill-religious-freedom-law-similar-indianas-n333181

This bill has come to the forefront of the news since the shake up in Indiana with the religious freedom bill. It certainly would appear as if the bill may have been brought to the publics attention as a way to bring back to light discrimination against the LGBTQ community. While the topic of gay rights is certainly in the news often enough, it is most assuredly a hot topic with a large portion of society. It seems to me that when the media finds something to focus on that the readers are interested in, they tend to bring it to our attention in any way possible. The reasons for agenda setting by the media can take place for any number of reason, however in most cases it is originally done because of the media’s interest in politics. However in some cases it is done to sell advertisement and in this case it appears as if once the subject of religious freedom was touched upon in regards to Indiana the media is immediately looking for other opportunities to bring readers to their pages. The timing is also perfect for politicians to voice their opinions and let the public know where they stand on the issue of not only religious freedom but discrimination, and their views of equality with regards to the LGBTQ community which will undoubtedly be a topic for the politicians agendas and views for the upcoming presidential election.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/03/29/omalley-says-presidency-shouldnt-alternate-between-two-families/

The Washington Post’s coverage of George Stephanopoulos’ interview of Martin O’Malley on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, March 29^th presented the former Maryland Governor as a potential presidential candidate. However, the clip embedded in this article lends a hint at O’Malley’s strategy of entering the surfacing phase of a primary. He is presenting himself as a “potential” candidate but is careful to avoid any criticism of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic choice. In Chapter nine of Denton and Kuypers’ section on Presidential Campaigns, they state: “During the surfacing stage, candidates must achieve visibility, establish credibility or fitness, and begin to build a viable organization” (p204). When George pointed out the “hint” of strategy to take on Hillary Clinton, as evidenced by the five visits to Iowa, New Hampshire and his “triangulation” speech in South Carolina; Stephanopoulos  asked O’Malley two questions for anyone even thinking of running for the Presidency:“Why are you running and why are you the best person for the job?” Governor O’Malley skirted the question and was careful to not announce his intentions to run. He did, however, set the stage for his inevitable intentions as either president or Vice President to Clinton. On page 205 in chapter nine, it says, “Perhaps the most difficult element of building candidate image in the preliminary phase is the need to demonstrate that the candidate is presidential material. It is essential that the candidate be perceived as diplomatic and credible.” O’Malley never criticized Clinton, and successfully diverted the answer to tout his views and accomplishments. He did, however, suggest that the “Presidency is a sacred position that is earned, not merely passed from family to family;” of course, his implied reference was about America’s past choices to keep the Bush and Clinton families in office. Martin O’Malley is attempting to get his views on the issues out as a liberal democrat who can relate to common people; part of his image in this stage has to be one that supports the “average” American. This clip also showed his jamming with his band, and stating his views in a speech on same sex marriage, gun control, and immigration. O’Malley has honed his political rhetoric and is getting his repetitive message out as quickly as possible with his “we need new leadership and new perspectives” to take on the powerful, wealthy special interests to get ahead. George Stephanopoulos stated that he was surprised by O’Malley’s direct statements and asked him when he will announce his candidacy; of course, he dodged that question so that the American people can partake in the unfolding drama in anticipation of the announcement of his candidacy.

CNN recently
published the Article: http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/26/politics/election-2016-live-streaming-campaigns/)

How Live-Streaming will change campaigning, this article covers some new apps that just hit the market that allow people to live stream wirelessly from their phones/camcorders, it mentions that “just 15 minutes after the words left his mouth, American Bridge’s team had clipped the video edited it and posted a live link on Youtube.” This is improvement for the way Media can be tracked and as the article points out, has the potential to cause media to be released to the public much faster, this will speed up the Gatekeeping process for the 2016 election, and since anyone can use these products there will be more media coverage than ever before on events, whether it will be locations, speeches, or comments behind the scenes; canidates will be under fire much more often and will have a lot more free media coverage at the same time. Time will tell if these new apps will benefit the users or hurt them. I think we will have a lot more funny clips on mishaps and events that occur on the campaign trail causing plenty of drama.

Missouri Governor Nixon has created a recent stir. BookRiot.com posted a article about Governor Nixon’s cuts on Libraries substantially. the article mentions how last year he approved a budget of 3.5 million( plus 3.1 for digital services) but only sent out 724 thousand total. he has now decided that the new budget can be 724,000 dollars for all the libraries in the state! take for example Kansas City Public Library loses 100,000 alone from there budget with these cuts. this article has Priming throughout and is great in representing the lose public libraries have been facing throughout the United States. Politicians argue that they can cut spending there since the internet and its users can find just about everything that they need but that only works for people who have access to those advantages. I didn’t have internet at my house until I was a junior in high school, I relied on the library many times for research and entertainment growing up. Cutting Libraries directly hurts our future as a nation and our nation’s education. The biggest shock within the article was the fact that when students questioned the governor at his office he had them removed and thrown out by the State trooper guarding the office. He refused to meet up and take questions from them as well. This article has brought to light a dark side to the Missouri governor.

Link to article on Missouri book scandal: http://bookriot.com/2015/03/27/missouri-governor-nixon-putting-libraries-peril/

On MSNBC they post a video on radicle girls group called the Radical Brownies, in this group parents of girls of color put their daughters in a group where they can discuss things that effect their lives and do activities to help them be proud of their color. Looking at the ideology of this group many people would think things like “that’s good for them!”, “it’s so good they can express themselves” or as conservatives say “promoting separatism”. Most people may not think to view things like this critically, maybe because they are afraid of how it would make them look, or they think it’s not okay to be critical of a group like this. It is a good thing that girls of color have a place to go where they can express themselves and learn to be proud of their color. Maybe this makes my view similar to conservatives but I view this as a form of racism, not allowing girls with who are not of color to be in this group is excluding them. “You are different than us, and you’re not allowed to join” maybe a way to combat this or help all girls realize no matter what color you are they all go through similar difficulties.

As the primary elections are slowing approaching, many candidates have made it publicized or not made it publicized that they are thinking about running in the primary election. As we all know Ted Cruze has made his announcement of running in the primary for the Republican party. As for the Democratic party the front runner and the candidate people are anxious to see running in the primary election is Hillary Clinton. In Polico.com article called “Hillary’s launch plan: Come down to earth” gives the us some of an idea of Hillary’s plan for her primary and if does proceed her presidential election plan. They go in to detail about where she might have her announcement speech and the places we might see she her at right after she announces her candidacy. They give examples of New Hampshire and Iowa being the most popular places she will give her speech. Another example is New York, where she was senator. I think she should do the speech in New York, like the articles says in Seneca Falls was the first convention for women rights. As the woman candidate and one of the first woman candidates I think this spot would be perfect for the start of her campaign. Another topic they talked about who should be there when gives her announcement speech. Everyone knows who her husband is and who her children are but is it smart to have Bill there? The people at the speech should be people that will not over shadow you and raise questions so it definitely should just be her and no Bill. The most important about an announcement speech is why the candidate is running. Hillary will have to make it very clear right away why she is running for president because we all know she is going too. So why is Hillary Clinton running for president?

By now I imagine most of us have heard about this story, for those of us who have not I can recap it here.  Michelle Wilkins was looking to buy some baby clothes off Craigslist, for her unborn baby; she was 34 weeks pregnant. Wilkins entered the home of Dynel Lane who proceeded to attack her and attempt to cut the baby out of her.  The point of the Article here is to explain why Lane will only be facing attempted murder instead of first degree murder, which the prosecutor wanted.

This story is by far one of the most disturbing events I have heard about recently, however for the sake of examining the article here it is.  For the most part this article is comprised of informative speech.  However when the writer interviews the prosecutor, the prosecutor shows some elements of attempting cognitive adjustments.  Which is to attempt to change the way your readers or listeners think about a subject.  The prosecutor is almost apologizing for not being able to charge Lane with more.  He shows how disappointed he is with the current laws, that since the child did not breathe on its own, the child cannot legally be represented as a person.  I’m sure there are many more elements from this story that could be discussed, this is the path that I have chosen to go down.