It is standard practice for a political campaign to provide the press pool with at least 1 riser and access to an XLR audio breakout box of whatever is going on onstage. If you run the event and don’t provide them with an audio breakout box they will otherwise rely 100% on the mics on their cameras, which pick up a lot of background noise (you later mix this in with the audio feed from the campaign so you aren’t hearing JUST the mic on the podium).

Back during the DNC convention (and really every main event covered by all the networks since then) you may have noticed that all the broadcast networks were actually using the same cameras. It is pointless to have 10 organizations (CNN, NBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, PBS, C-SPAN, etc) fighting over the best angle to watch the podium, so they just have their trucks tap into a ‘pool’ feed of general purpose cameras.

This year was a big deal, because it was covered 100% in HD by the networks, which causes a whole host of problems when it comes to staging/lighting/bandwidth/etc. So there needed to be a member network that would coordinate this entire HD production.

And, of all the networks that could have been responsible for the HD feed of the Democratic National Convention, the network group that organized the HD feed for DNCC was Fox News.

We haven’t really had a ‘perfect’ and ‘fair’ election for a president in a long time. Or at least one where one of the candidates won outright (aka 50%+ of the vote). There is a claim that could be made that had Ross Perot not been involved in the 1992 race Bill Clinton wouldn’t have won. And of course the mother of all poor ‘unfair’ elections was Bush v. Gore in 2000. A majority of Americans (50%+) have not decided on a president in an election in 20 years. I really hope that changes this year.

I hope that this general election is fair and played by the rules, just like the primaries were played by ‘the rules’, and that whichever candidate wins they win with over 50% of the vote. I want to be able to tell my children that this election was won fair and square, from the moment Obama declared his candidacy until the moment he stands on the stage on inauguration day, that all the rules were followed as written. I want to win by enough electoral votes that the states where there might be challenges on registration or campaign activities are unnecessary. I want to win in such a way that this election isn’t decided by Ohio or Florida alone. Ultimately, I want a president where the American people overwhelmingly decided that this person was right for the job.

That would be nice.

I get my news from 3 sources: The Huffington Post, Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Check HP during the day, watch Countdown in the evening and then watch TDS and Colbert Report.

Tonight Olbermann had a ‘Special Comment’ about Sarah Palin and her idiotic (and more immature) linking of Obama to ‘terrorists’, and I found it pretty much sums up my feeling on the topic.

Then The Daily Show with Jon Stewart came on. And they sent John Oliver to cover the Vice Presidental Debate. And here is the quote that really made my night:

“Now, earlier Palin made a comment about Biden’s referral to off-shore drilling as raping the ocean.
So, is Sarah Palin going to expect the ocean to pay for their own rape kits?”

I always thought the rape kit thing was probably overblown, that she didn’t have any idea it was happening. You know, small town, etc… but the policy was instituted during her time as mayor based on a decision of a town sheriff that she hand picked. If she cannot keep track of her small town budget, and a controversial provision in it, then she is hardly qualified to be President. And thus she is hardly qualified to be Vice President.

But hey, assuming he doesn’t do something batshit crazy in the next 28 days I think Obama will be our next president. Even if he does and things go back to 50/50, with the MASSIVE early-vote effort that Obama has pulled out he may have this election tied up well before the 4th.

I was led to believe that I knew a bunch of stuff that would totally loose Obama the election in Ohio. They made their entire plan ’secret’ and ‘private’ and on a ‘need to know’ basis

Then they announced most of it to the press.

The one passage that is most noteworthy is this:
“To reach out to rural and suburban areas, the Obama campaign is recruiting “neighborhood team leaders” to build networks of local volunteers to persuade voters on face-to-face, instead of relying on television advertisements alone. There is one leader for each of the designated 1,200 neighborhoods in Ohio, which contains 5 to 10 precincts, according to Pickrell.”

Hell, they are advertising the Ohio Neighborhood Team Leader program on the Barack Obama website

I’m not going to take any chances of saying anything that has not been mentioned to the press, so if I don’t have a URL to link to I won’t say anything. But know this one thing- We are going to win Ohio.

I posted a screencap of MSNBC to ImageShack and then submitted it to Fark and Reddit. Got tens of thousands of views. Pretty cool.

Here’s the source video (where the guys who did the prank have commented):

Here is the imageshack photo:

Here are the originals:

Update: Some DJs put my picture on a TV morning show (probably after seeing it on Fark.) Damn, I should have watermarked that picture. I would have a few thousand new hits