Ron Cowen at Science News has a fun story about the very first political recordings. A century ago, amidst the 1908 Presidential election campaign, the two candidates — William Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan — took time to record messages on wax cylinders for mass distribution. Previously, recordings had been made of actors reading the text of various speeches, but this was the first time the candidates themselves got into the game.
Best of all, you can listen to the recordings themselves. Hear Bryant speak on “The Security of Bank Deposits”, and Taft talk about the “Rights and Progress of the Negro.”
Happily, those problems have been completely solved by now.
I’m pretty sure your last statement was being ironic/sarcastic.
Excellent post.
Also concerning your presidential elections, it seems the world discreetly points to one candidate in particular (well, at least the internet world).
What’s interesting is how the presentation has changed. The candidates, were talking very specifically, and followed prescribed formulaic constructions. Issue-Efforts-Plan-Benefit.
It reminded me more about some of the prepared statements people give during congressional testimony and not the vague, inconsistent, pointless speeches preferred today.
It would be interesting to know whether the candidates actually discussed issues in the same fashion as that on the recording, or whether its just a peculiarity of these particular recordings.
Sarah Palin is still hotter looking than either of them.
Bank deposits in the US are protected by FDIC (up to 100k per account). The current “bailout” plan is suppose to increase that to 250k or perhaps even more to improve public confidence.
Well, I know who I’m supporting. Vote Taft ’08.
Taft is this uninformed foreighner’s favourite president. And SCOTUS justice.
Hear Bryant speak on “The Security of Bank Deposits”, and Taft talk about the “Rights and Progress of the Negro.”Happily, those problems have been completely solved by now.
Indeed. The first was solved in 1933, the second in 1964.
“I’m pretty sure your last statement was being ironic/sarcastic.”
when woodrow wilson showed up i recall he fired a bunch of black federal workers that TR and taft had hired on. the republicans were not the part of charles sumner or thaddeus stevens at this point, but they were most definitely not the anti-black party in the way that the democrats still were.
Pingback: It’s All Been Down Hill Since… « The Inverse Square Blog
“Daft in ’08” is percipient. Vote for them hotties!
And now we can prepare ourselves for the upcoming sound bites:
When You’re Losing
by BarbinMD
Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 01:43:37 PM PDT
As John McCain watches his last chance to be president slipping through his fingers, he’s decided that it’s time to go South Carolina 2000 on Barack Obama:
Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama’s character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat’s judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.
John McCain is afraid to run on the war, he’s afraid to run on health care, and he’s terrified to run on the economy, so he’s going to go for fear and smear. It’s all John McCain has left. And as McCain campaign manager Rick Davis once said:
“The premise of any smear campaign rests on a central truth of politics: Most of us will vote for a candidate we like and respect, even if we don’t agree with him on every issue. But if you can cripple a voter’s basic trust in a candidate, you can probably turn his vote. The idea is to find some piece of personal information that is tawdry enough to raise doubts, repelling a candidate’s natural supporters. […]
It’s not necessary, however, for a smear to be true to be effective. The most effective smears are based on a kernel of truth and applied in a way that exploits a candidate’s political weakness.”
Davis wrote that in 2000, decrying George Bush’s smear campaign against John McCain during the South Carolina primary, saying that:
Rebutting tawdry attacks focuses public attention on them, and prevents the campaign from talking issues.
And of course today, the last thing John McCain wants to do is to talk about the issues.