UPDATED: Obama's "8 is Enough!" speech ignored by local radio

~~ according to the AP: Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention was seen by more than 38 million people. Nielsen said more people watched Obama than the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, the final American Idol or the Academy Awards.

~~ we were wrong, wrong, wrong: PD Dennis Kelly writes to say KVI and KOMO ran the Obama speech last night, though without commentary or listener call-ins.

~~ Luke Burbank writes after we snarked TBTL good for not devoting time to the historic night. Seems they racked up the first 20 minutes they've spent on the presidential elections before embarking on the Twinkie frying segments. Luke: "TBTL did spend 20 minutes of pre-twinkie time talking to Dave Ross live from The Convention. There was a bit of vamping from 8-8:10 as we established our phone connection with Denver, but once we got him on the line, I think the exact quote from me was: IT "As excited as we are about the deep frying that is afoot, we'd be remiss if didn't take some time to reflect on what just happened, which agree or disagree with Obama, you must admit falls squarely in the "historic" category." What followed was Dave's typical smart, insightful, accessible take on what it was like to be there in the stadium, and what it all meant. We also, of course carried the speech live, as we will with McCain's speech next week." Here's some audio.
~~
Local AM radio didn't give any time at all to the historic acceptance speech by Barack Obama. On the Fox News Headlines on the KVI site: not one word that the Obama speech even happened.

KUOW ran the NPR election call-in special and for that we are grateful.

Dave Ross live-blogged admirably through the speech with some good pictures. We hear he appeared to report on the speech to  the only live & local evening show on Seattle newstalk stations, TBTL (KIRO m-f, 7-10p,"The Show Politics Forgot and Vice Versa"). They may not have noticed -- they were deep-frying Twinkies on this night of nights.

The speech was spectacular -- he more than met the hugely high expectations held for him by everyone, media, friends and foes. The Lil Architect who pays only cursory attention to the minutia of politics looked up during it and said, "How can McCain walk out on a stage with any confidence after this?" 

Good question.

There are lots of people like her who are just now starting to pay attention and if they were first exposed to Obama Thursday night with this speech, they got the cream of this campaign and they'll know he's something different and special and will probably be the next president of the United States. 

(That said, we gagged at all the predictable and clichéd commentating: "he hit it out of the park!" or "a homerun!" or "he hit all the notes," or "played the right chords." Sweet Jesus).

Barack said what he was supposed to say, and remarkably put 84,000 butts in 84,000 seats in a football stadium.

Meanwhile, sad, Olde John will announce his VP pick at 9a (PSDT) Friday but is having difficulties filling 10,000 seats in the appropriately named venue: Nutter Center in Dayton, Ohio. He's busing in comotose and inambulatory seniors from surrounding rest homes to plump up the attendance. There's reportedly a wheelchair shortage in the area for the day.

Attendees will be given samples of Baskin-Robbins' election season flavor "Shriveled Raisin" created to honor Olde John's campaign. The company will also release “Whirl of Change” for Barack Obama.

Friday is also the old gentleman's 72nd birthday.

Even with promises of free ice cream, attendance may be a problem for the Republican Convention. Local Republican politicians, Reps. Doc Hastings, and Dave Reichert, guber-aspirant Dino Rossi have joined endangered Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, California Gov. Schwarzenegger, Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, Susan Collins of Maine, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina (and scores of other congresspeople) in staying away so as not be soiled by McCain and his festivities in Minneapolis.

In order to not soil McCain and his festivities in Minneapolis, Dick Cheney promised McCain he'll not show, as did indicted Ted Stevens of Alaska. President Bush will parachute in to make a speech on Labor Day when the smallest possible audience is expected to be watching the teevee.

(photo: Ruth "will attend.")

Barack didn't need the the extra coverage on the the local stations. His convention's been killing them on teevee. Nielsen estimates that on the broadcast and cable networks, nearly 26 million people watched the Tuesday-night hour with Hillary Clinton's speech -- with PBS, add 2.8 million more. In 2004, a similar hour drew 18.5 million viewers - though not on the convention's second night, when ABC, CBS, and NBC didn't bother with coverage at all.

Comments

[coiler for Obama]

Not that squeaky clean:
http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/492964.html

Palin, who has previously said her administration didn't exert pressure to get rid of trooper Mike Wooten, also disclosed that members of her staff had made about two dozen contacts with public safety officials about the trooper.

"I do now have to tell Alaskans that such pressure could have been perceived to exist although I have only now become aware of it," Palin said.

[Tony]

"There seems to be a 'fear' presence in the air from the so-called 'regulars'. Haha"

If you smell fear from the "regulars", the rest of you clearly reek of delusion. God help me, I cannot possibly imagine what world most of you have been living in this last week.

Regardless of your personal viewpoint, I don't know how the convention could be measured as anything other than an astounding success, if only in terms of political theater. They rejuvenated the base, inspired many in the middle to take another look at their candidate and left the opposition scrambling to regroup.

How on earth that has put "fear" into any of the so-called regulars is beyond me. Unbelievable.

[sparky]

I think its a fabulous choice.

Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co.” asked Palin about the possibility of becoming McCain ticket mate. Palin replied: “[A]s for that V.P. talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the V.P. does every day?"

She went on to say that it had better be a job that made her feel productive for the people of Alaska.

This, along with her experience as a mayor of a city of 9,000 and 1.5 years as a governor of a state with less than 700K people, zero foreign experience, zero experience with the problems of urban areas, with agriculture, her support of Creationism, her involvement in "Troopergate" ...its like Christmas in August.

Fox is already spinning it that she has the "same" amount of experience as Obama...oh what's a few years here and there???

Can't wait until her debate with Biden.

[sparky]

Tony, don't try to make sense of what Puts and Duffman and Tommy and Steven and Andrew say..its a waste of time. No matter what you say, they will turn it around into something completely different, AND you will be accused of being jealous. Oh, yeah, and afraid. Chucks, on the otherhand, will disagree with you, but keeps a sense of humor about it all.

I thought it was a great convention--if you watched it on C-Span, without all the talking over the speeches.

[vbv]

wow 5 kidz! she's cute, but I'll bet she can stretch it over a stump, and probably does, it is alaska after all. I was going to vote for McCain, anyway, but I hope this doesn't mean he will be pandering to the feminazis. We don't need more feminists in the government.

[Bantu]

The smell of fear? After our mind-boggling convention, the strong showing by our strong candidates, John McCain's sudden flip to anti-choice feminist (there's stretch) by picking this unknown has reinforced the conclusion I've only recently come to- Democrats can win this.

[Duffman]

...but DO pay attention and believe what sparky and other minions say, as they have proven their astute character judgement by their blind devotion to Bernie Ward and John Edwards, etc, et al ...WHAT A JOKE!

[Duffman]

sparky spews:
'Can't wait until her debate with Biden.'

s/be interesting, as long as it's not held at 'The Villages' in Florida.

[Tony]

Blah blah blah… Watergate. Blah blah blah… Mark Foley. Blah blah blah… Iran Contra.

Ah yes, we can ramble off irrelevant embarrassments in lieu of an actual discussion too if you prefer.

[sparky]

Oh I forgot to mention, she also belonged to the PTA and her team won the State Basketball Championship.

I think McBush is showing he would be an efficient President by picking a running mate who is ALREADY a focus of an investigation on ethics, rather than waiting for something to pop up later. That does show a sense of true foresight.

[Duffman]

discounted because of inability to distinguish character

[sparky]

oh oh...this from the Washington Post:

Palin Pick Leaves Bruised Feelings

By Anne E. Kornblut

DENVER -- Though it was high in shock value, the Palin pick left bruised feelings among the short-list contenders who were not picked -- and infuriated some Republican officials who privately said McCain had gone out on a limb, unnecessarily, without laying the groundwork for such an unknown. Two senior Republican officials close to Mitt Romney and Tim
Pawlenty said they had both been rudely strung along and now "feel manipulated."

"They now know that they were used as decoys, well after McCain had decided not to pick them," one Republican involved in the process said.

oops!

[cinco]

Palin has a ways to go before she's up to national campaigning. The two of them on that stage today was really pitiful. Speaking of pathetic, is there any doubt that Duffman is a rightwinger playing independent by supposedly backing Hillary Clinton? How could anyone of substance or integrity back Hillary and then the extreme rightwing politics of McCain/Palin?

[Duffman]

it was partially because of you that I learned to hack IP addresses

[Manfredi]

Some of us gave a lot of money to the campaigns of Romney and Mike Huckabee who worked hard to earn a place on this ticket the hard way - by campaigning hard. I'll not vote for president this time. This is no way to bolster a party who has only been lukewarm to McCain's candidacy.

[sparky]

Oh dear...now Duffman is going to accuse me as posting as cinco.
Oh dear..

[cinco]

and I suppose it's patriotic to knowingly bring a Downs syndrome baby into the world. What a hero, another sop to the evangelical extremists.

[Tomy008]

Palin is what we independents need to defeat Obama- she can pick up votes in the Gods Guns and Gays crowd that are leery of McCain, an also pick up disaffected Catholic women for Hillary, and other women for Hillary. Who cares if she's a kook on gays and the Bible, with the makeup of new Congress she won't be able to pass any wacko bills even if she somehow gets in as President. Ditto with the abortion thing. She won't be able to get any waxkjob judges through the Senate. Stopping Obama and the coming re-education caps for white males is the key thing here.

[Duffman]

...that's sooooo funny, haha

[Bammer]

re-education caps for white males???
Wow, this dude is out there....

And hacking IP addresses??? What the hell is he talking about???

[Gay Gary]

Uh oh --- Google has been getting worked overtime with "PALIN + SPECIAL INTERESTS" search terms from the panicky left!

Anywhoooo, I think criticizing Palin on the comments about what the Vice-President does is a tad bemusing as she was obviously exaggerating for emphasis to express the classical view of the vice-presidency; to quote John Adams (he was one of those lame white dudes Barack and Michele can't stand):

The position of Vice-President of the United States is the most inconsequential office ever invented by the mind of man.

[Tomy008]

sorry re-education camps, not caps.

[Duffman]

Oh it's okay Tomy

[Gay Gary]

Here's my big criticism with Palin.

They played the theme from "The Rocketeer" when she emerged on stage. I have a serious prob with US political campaigns reusing motion picture music. In the '00 general election in the UK, Mike Batt wrote an awesome ditty called "Heartlands" that was the Tory theme song. Labour also custom commissions pieces. They also didn't do a fade on The Rocketeer when she was ready to speak, they just cut it. It was bad stage management.

[Duffman]

Incredibly astute observation GG and one I'm sure will prove to weigh heavily in the final determination of who wins this dog and pony show. ha

[Brian]

Hmm, I heard that "Sarah Palin nude pics" was the top search on Google today...

[Duffman]

'and I suppose it's patriotic to knowingly bring a Downs syndrome baby into the world. What a hero, another sop to the evangelical extremists.

Yeah, I wonder what John and Reille would have done had they similar prior knowledge?

[Gay Gary]

John and Reille

And true.

Another Democratic man who took advantage of a woman.

Alaska has the highest rates of incest and rape in America and Palin has been pushing through tough new legislation to stop familial sexual intimacy and anti-woman sexual violence. It's beginning to make sense why so many Democratic Party men are being positively vitriolic today toward her. Democratic Party men have hyperactive libidos and are sexual aggressors as can be seen by their frequent procreative activity with multiple partners. Palin's work against sexual aggressors offends them at a sub-conscious level. Any male who criticizes Palin is probably a sexual aggressor themselves and a closet rapist.

Democratic Party women should mull carefully the men they support if those men criticize Palin. Do DFL women really want to elect rapists to office?

[cinco]

Palin would make lampshades out of your kind, Gary. You're a gay Republican so you are probably accustomed to cohorting with those who think you deserve to burn for your "choice" of into whom you put your dick in the privacy of your own bedroom. But me? I think putting these types into federal office is dangerous on all kinds of levels... after Bush, I hope we've learned. I believe we have.

[Gay Gary]

You're a gay Republican

Noooo ... I'm a gay libertarian (with a lowercase "L", as Larry Elder likes to note) - observe that I've said 3 times in this thread alone I'm voting for Bob Barr.

[Maggie]

What in god's precious name does John & Reille have to do with anything aside from a page 6 story in the Nat'l Enquirer?

[cinco]

"Party men have hyperactive libidos and are sexual aggressors as can be seen by their frequent procreative activity with multiple partners."

Just like gay men... or at least that's what Sean Hannity says.

[Gay Gary]

In all honesty, Duff, I don't think John Edwards baby's mamma would have aborted because the baby is his baby's mamma's ticket to $$$$$. John Edwards would have had to pull a Vince Foster on his baby's mamma to get rid of it and I don't think he has the resources or support network to pull that off.

[Duffman]

Oh My!

[Gay Gary]

Just like gay men...

I plead guilty!!!

[cinco]

Got it. Don't vote for Barack Obama because John Edwards had a girl friend who didn't abort her baby but probably thought about it. That makes perfect sense.

[Duffman]

'..or support network to pull that off'

..he certainly doesn't have it now; I read that long-time supporters and 'friends' won't return calls and/or tell him straight to his face not to call them ANY more. Ouch!

[Duffman]

...now sparky, you'd return his calls, wouldn't you?

[Mary Beth]

Here is one former Hillary supporter who could never, ever support John McCain and his new religious rightwing veep! She calls herself a pro-choice feminst. No self-respecting woman with an ounce of independence could buy into that. I will be voting straight ticket Democratic this time.

[Gay Gary]

Don't vote for Barack Obama because John Edwards had a girl friend who didn't abort her baby but probably thought about it.

Oh I think there are plenty of reasons not to vote for the Sultan of the Southside - whether or not his friends baby's mamma is fugly or not or his baby's mamma is the only mamma of his babies or where he's keeping the rest of his babies or who his other baby mammas are is probably just one of a multitude.

But of course there are as many reasons not to vote for John McCain, which is why I'm supporting Bob Barr.

But I won't be criticizing Governor Palin because I don't have rape fantasies like 100% of her male detractors, as previously noted.

[Duffman]

'I will be voting straight ticket Democratic this EVERY time.'

[Tony]

"Any male who criticizes Palin is probably a sexual aggressor themselves and a closet rapist."

Yep. And all homosexual men are pedophiles.

[Manfredi]

McCain's autobiography tells how his Viertnamese prison guards forced him to do oral sex on them. Does sucking one cock make him a cocksucker? I think not.

[Bantu]

I'm with Sparky and Mary Beth. Any woman who would go from Hillary to McCain on the basis of his pandering appointment of Palin as VP is either soft in the head or in the Republican tank already. Of course, Duffman brought up John Edwards's philandering because he, as usual, has nothing of substance to add. He just sprays out non sequiturs or cliches.

[Gay Gary]

all homosexual men are pedophiles

Wow - that didn't take long!

(When I used to be a misguided Democrat my experience usually was that the DFL diversity bandwagon generally ran off the road and bursts into flame when The Leader was criticized. Some things never change!)

[Tony]

Sweeping statements sure are a bitch, aren't they?

[cinco]

Don't take this wrong, Gary, but Tony's remark was tongue in cheek. It is the rightwingers who insist gay men are pedophiles and shouldn't be scout leaders, school teachers or parents. Hard to believe any irony was lost on you. Don't believe you aren't voting for the Republican ticket. you are too smart to flush your vote down the toilet with a third party.

[Gay Gary]

Don't take this wrong, Gary, but Tony's remark was tongue in cheek.

Sure, of course ... they're always tongue in cheek / friendly ribbing when the left makes these comments (and they make them a lot) - "hate speech" when the same comments come from the right, though ...

Don't believe you aren't voting for the Republican ticket. you are too smart to flush your vote down the toilet with a third party.

You should vote your hopes, not your fears. The ability of third parties to act as deal-breakers in elections is vital to moderating the 2 institutional parties. They only have that ability if they're able to punch 2 or 3 percentage points on the clock in vital elections.

[Tony]

Jesus, Gary. It wasn't even friendly ribbing. It was a ridiculous statement to match your ridiculous statement that the anti-Palin crowd is a bunch of incestuous rapists.

[Bammer]

"Does sucking one cock make him a cocksucker?"

McCain seems to attract them...

"McCain Official Busted on Sex Charge"

http://blogs.abcnews.com/
theblotter/2007/07/mccain-officia
l.html