if you notice these kinds of things - and I do - it’s been very interesting to see the fairly consistent level of sophisticated design taste that has been used on Obama-inspired campaign material, official and unofficial.
Whether buttons, banners, stickers, t-shirts, posters or unauthorized graffiti, people with high design values and very good style seem to be inspired by or attracted to Obama as their muse of sorts. Smart backdrops colors, modern yet presidential font choices, forward but still tasteful uses of color, it really is amazing to see.
Design sounds like a small thing in politics, but if you have ever driven by a yard sign for a local election and realized that you could not read it until you were two feet from it, that’s a result of poor design. It would not be hyperbole to say that at least by some measure, a number of campaigns may have been lost due to ill conceived visual presentation.
Design communicates all kinds of messages, and in a campaign where you need to show strength, trust, vision and intelligence, these subtleties can be crucial.
Clearly a lot of other people have been thinking about this as well.
Chris Rock pretty much said it the other day: After about 4 minutes into an interview you start to feel sorry for Sarah Palin. She’s so incredibly out of her league.
Since we’ve been on the subject of music for the last few posts, it occurs to me that Sarah Palin reminds me of musicians who only play by ear but are suddenly asked to audition with a band that reads music.
People who play by ear can often be incredible musicians. Michael Jackson does not read music. Darryl Jones from the Sting Blue Turtles Band and Rolling Stones - does not read music. And that ’s a good thing. Their natural instincts as musicians serve them well. What they don’t know, they create - and it comes off as innovation as opposed to the kind of rote imitation and blind faithfulness to the established order that you might get from, say, a classical orchestra player who can play Beethoven but couldn’t improvise a jazz tune if you paid them.
That’s Sarah Palin. Unprepared or not, she was great when she was playing politics by ear, making it up as she went along. Her improvisation was good simply because it was improvisation. She did not know enough to try to stick to a particular way of doing things and it worked for her.
But now that they’ve tried to wash all that political know-how into her brain, she’s useless. She’s lost all her powers of improvisation and she’s looking down at her instrument trying to find the notes. She’s been educated out of her best gifts. It’s a shame, and yes, I do feel sorry for her.
There’s something I’ve always liked about Ron Reagan, probably that healthy skepticism he always seem to have about the public image of his Mom and Dad as well as their politics. Even when I’ve disagreed with him, the guy’s always carried a sense of decency and fairness.
In the pretty amazing video where he comments on McCain’s VP choice, his Mom’s opinion about Obama and his general feelings about Republican shenanigans, he proves my theory correct.
More stupid FBI tricks from the peopel who brought you an attempt to overthrow Castro by putting beard remover in his soup. According to boingboing.net, The FBI, in an apparent attempt to catch terrorists, started tracking falafel sales in San Francisco. The idea being that a rise in falafel sales might signify an increase in sneaky illegals from the Middle East entering the country and buying fast food.
What’s the logic here? I mean, does the increase in taco and Dorito sales at 2 a.m mean there are more people smoking weed, for instance?
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