TV

Seven days left in an election I've been writing about for two years now, almost since this blog started. I've got to be honest, these are good descriptions of how I'm feeling:

Or, in the immortal words of Dave Chapelle:

It's not that I'm uninterested, or that there isn't plenty of important GOTV and voter protection work left to do. It's just that I'm exhausted by the horse race. I don't want to see McCain and Palin on TV anymore, or hear about Joe the Plumber, Steve the fireman, Claire the florist or any other over-sentimentalized, probably fictitious, "everyman." What I'm eager to see just how big our majorities are going to be. I want to get working on what we do next. I want to see those final numbers on youth turnout.

There are only two major events that really standout for me between now and election day, and both of them happen tonight.

First, Barack Obama is going to be the first Presidential candidate in 16 years to purchase a half hour of ad time on prime-time network television. The last candidate was Ross Perot in 1992. Perot used that time to bolster a surprisingly successful third party run (which was responsible for splitting Bush Sr.'s vote and electing Clinton), and to speak to the American people frankly about the economy:

I don't know what we'll see from Obama tonight. Maybe a primer on voting rights to combat the dirty tricks? Maybe another frank discussion about the economy? I would love to see a presentation in which he builds a picture of economic recovery that ties together our major concerns, including a new, green energy economy and fixing our broken health care system. Considering how the Republicans are framing this election as a battle between "socialism" and "unfettered market capitalism (whatever that means after the bailout)," the opportunity seems ripe for Obama to lay out his plan and lay the groundwork for claiming a popular mandate on November 5th.

The second item will be Al Gore's live address to the Power Vote coalition via live webcast. I'm going to be looking at PowerVote, It's Getting Hot in Here, and a few other youth/climate groups in the coming months to take the lead in pushing an Obama administration towards a more progressive energy policy. I'll be interested to see what Gore says tonight (for instance, will he exhibit some leadership, or continue to exhort young people to "chain themselves to bulldozers") and how the youth climate movement responds.

I promise, last time I'll post about Britney Spears and/or the MoveOn MTV ad buy. There's no solid data about whether or not humorous and/or pop culture heavy ads are effective, but Peter Levine has some interesting thoughts on the matter and it's worth it for everyone to be on the same page wrt best practices:

I am not aware of research or public data that would allow us to compare the effectiveness of a sarcastic or silly ad versus a serious and information-rich one. Nor have I seen evaluations of games that are designed to promote voting, whether the games are silly and parodic or challenging and educational. (The campaigns may have tested games and various broadcast messages, but they never share the data from such experiments.)

My hunch is that anyone who tries a very light approach is making a mistake. Remember that less than half of the youth population will vote. Heavily represented in that group are young people who are seriously concerned about issues, from their own economic prospects to the future of the planet. Voting is not much fun, but it is rewarding if one feels one can make a real difference by casting a ballot. Potential voters are likely to be people who believe they can make a difference, or at least are open to the argument that the election is important. This is true of all citizens, but young people are especially likely to say that they need more information and explanation before they can vote. Often, in focus groups and polls, they say that the main reason they may not vote is that they feel inadequately informed to make such a serious choice. Thus I suspect that an information-rich, explanatory ad or game could be very effective. But a jokey approach is likely to make young people feel that the election is unimportant (thus lowering turnout), or may offend them by patronizing them.

This doesn't rule out some use of humor and amusement in various media. But one should always take the audience seriously.

And just in case you haven't seen this yet: