Want to Win Election? You’ll need $1,000,000,000!

Remember the good ole’ days of campaign finance reform that was supposed to end the ballooning cost of winning the White House? I remember a hiccup here and there and something about US Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold championing the end of excessive, costly campaigns in the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. Since then politics has changed drastically with the incorporation of the internet, Facebook, and Twitter, but campaign finance laws have remained steady.

 

US President Barack Obama

President Obama managed to capitalize on these changes and not only completely abided by the 2002 law and get elected to the White House in 2008, but he did it in a landslide victory with fundraising totals in excess of $650 million. What’s an even greater irony is that he used John McCain’s own law against him by rejected what was probably the most crucial section of the law, setting spending caps for the general election in presidential campaigns. He did this by being the first presidential candidate to ever decline public campaign financing assistance so that he could access his massive war chest without limitation.

Now lets look to the future, a future that looks costlier than ever. In case you missed Obama’s announcement among all the news on Japan and Libya, Obama officially announced Monday that he was running for reelection. You are probably sitting there going, “Wait?! I thought the election was in November 2012? We are barely 1/3 of the way into 2011.” You are exactly right! It is in November 2012.

Obama has decided to announce now so that he can get a jump on fundraising over all the squabbling Republican candidates on his goal to a $1,000,000,000 reelection campaign (in case you can’t count all the zeros that means $1 BILLION). It has nothing to do with policy, getting a better grip on what is affecting the average American, or even making sure he has more time to organize his campaign personnel. It is all about money.

In case any of you readers out there are looking at running for President of the United States someday, don’t bother breaking your piggy bank because it won’t get much more than a poster on a college campus in the way of financing a presidential campaign. The price tag is even so high now that the super rich really have to think long and hard about the monetary cost of a campaign. It also makes me think that if a $1 Billion is what it costs in 2011 to win the White House, what will it be in 30 or 40 years?

Facebook Will Have The First Question

Welcome back everyone! So I guess you were wanting me to start posting with pictures from my Spring Break trip ‘eh? Well, you will just have to wait because the post below is just too cool to do later.

Facebook takes a quantum leap into politics today at 3:00PM ET when former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will announce his candidacy for President of the United States not on NBC, ABC, Fox News, or Huffington

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty

Post, but ON FACEBOOK. Never before has the social media site played such an integral role in presidential politics. A role that will likely give a huge initial boost to Pawlenty among more tech savvy voters.

Sure, Barack Obama cultivated social media with his fan page to seem hip and trendy in his first presidential campaign. Sure, Obama has as many friends on Twitter as Lady Gaga, but never before has a candidate taken social media from “the other media” into the mainstream media.

What’s really interesting about this announcement via Facebook is that not only will the announcement be exclusive to people who have Facebook (implying the drive to bring in younger voters since that is Facebook’s largest demographic) but it will also be written in a Facebook message, not on a live a video stream as demanded now by most big announcements. If you want to see the message then you have to first “like” Pawlenty’s page here.

From today forward Mark Zuckerberg and crew can say that they were the first on the scene when it comes to political campaigning. If CNN= Politics then Facebook= Elected.

Libya: The One With Middle Child Syndrome

So smashed directly between two recent political upheavals in the Middle East sits Libya. To the right sits Egypt ,which unless you have camped out in Antarctica for the last 6 or so week, has overthrown a dictator and began the process to democratic reforms. On the left is the much smaller and lesser known Tunisia; it began the turmoil that has gripped nations spread all over the Middle East with a mid-20’s male setting himself on fire after having his only source of income taken from him.

Ever since Moammar Gadhafi assumed power in Libya he directed Libya down the path much the same way a forgotten middle child in a family is often known to do: do whatever is necessary to garner attention from parents and the other siblings. In this case, the parents are world powers such as the United States, the oldest sibling is Egypt with its rich history and culture, and the youngest is Tunisia that is often a small add on to mentioned North African nations.

He has sought to make sure the world knows both him and Libya through different means. The most remembered is the bombing of a PanAm flight 103 in 1988 that killed 190 Americans to get attention from the world media.

Fuselage of PanAm Flight 103 after being bombed in Scotland.

After that the subtle, but not unimportant, decisions have been to partner with the United States in its war on terror and to make sure its oil reserves still influence world markets. These last two action have been mostly positive, but the first was fiercely negative and condemned even by staunch allies.

So here we are today. Again Libya has tried to steal the spotlight from its other “siblings” when it comes to Middle East affairs. Gadhafi has launched what has essentially amounted to a civil war against his own citizen in an effort to maintain power. The question the arises is where to go from here. Should the United Nations get involved? Should the United States use aggression to fight aggression in Libya? These are questions likely to get an answer in the near future.

To stay up to date on the minute by minute changes in Libya I suggest you follow CNN’s blog here.

Friend Request 57 Years In The Making

Facebook is an ever-growing, ever more important company in the world of communication and connectivity, and this proved to be especially true for a son on a quest to find his father recently.

Alvin Miller Jr. had been searching for his father since 1964 without any luck. After his mother left during one of his father’s tours in the navy he never spoke or saw his father again until this past Friday. Luckily, he wasn’t the only one

Alvin Miller Jr. and Alvin Miller Sr. embracing for the first time in 57 years.

looking. Alvin’s half-brothers were also looking for their long-lost sibling and eventually turned to the social networking phenomenon for a little help. After accepting a friend request on Facebook, Alvin Jr. and Alvin Sr. met face-to-face on March 4, 2011 in the small, country town in rural Appalachia of Unicoi, TN.

This story epitomizes what the idea of Facebook is all about, connecting people. It brought two people together that had spent the majority of their lives apart. Despite all the hooplah over “likes” and advertising and 500 million people on Facebook, it really is still all about connections. Also, this story is especially touching for me not just as a blogger and all things connectivity person, but it was special to me because this was my hometown, and I love seeing my small, backwoods place use the new and cool to change lives. Facebook may have 500 million friends, but it just made a connection in a town with just 4,000 this past week.