Archive for Politics
No Handouts
I found this shot quite interesting as it’s out of character for the New York Times‘ typical visual portrayals of John McCain. Given the context of the article, “A Mixed Take by McCain Camp on Obama’s Trip to War Zones” it’s appears even more disjointed. Is that skepticism of Obama we read in McCain’s eyes or utter disregard to the citizenry reaching out for government to step in?
Big John Cornyn
I came across this from the best little progressive blog in Texas.
Like most contemporary Conservative political narratives this is just hilarious until you reflect upon how this reflects the deeply undemocratic and truly regressive ideology of today’s Republican party.
Hillary Clinton as Annie Oakley?
One of the many interesting aspects of American politics are the ways popular cultural narratives are manifested, especially as deliberate campaign constructions.
This post explores the current brouhaha over Barack Obama’s alleged “elitist” remarks through the lens of the cowboy cultural narrative, both as campaign rhetoric and visual media representation.
In The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century, R.W.B. Lewis coined the term “American Adam” in reference to the cowboy and noted, “It is the birth of an archetypal, still finely individualized character, which [D.H.] Lawrence identifies as ‘the essential American soul…an isolate, almost selfless, stoic, enduring man’” (104). Lewis claimed that the archetype – the American Adam – was “birth[ed] on American soil” and in the American imagination the late nineteenth/turn of the century cowboy came to be perceived as a uniquely American creation. Hence, the mythological construction of the cowboy, built on the foundation of the medieval English knight, was a crucial element in the creation of nationalist sentiment in post-Civil War America. (
Obama and America’s Racial Stalemate
Obama and America’s Racial Stalemate: A Counter-wedge to the Southern Strategy
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
Obama has just delivered a speech (which he wrote himself) for the history books. I won’t go into a full analysis but like any memorable speech from the American scene, his included the themes of; American exceptionalism, generational progress, religious freedom and tolerance, and of course, founding myths of American democracy.
The Politics of Gotham
While researching examples for my last post, Postmodern Presidential Branding, I stumbled across some typesetting blogs discussing the Obama campaign’s font, or typeset; Gotham.
So I was naturally interested in the typography as a visual political narrative. What does Obama’s choice of Gotham say about his campaign, about his political philosophy? I imagine that Obama had nothing personally to do with choosing the font but his design team saw Gotham perhaps as a reflection of the candidate. Here’s what Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones, the designers of Gotham have to say;
Postmodern Presidential Branding
Something I’ve been thinking about but just never got around to writing about is the use of visual media in these presidential campaigns. Much has already been written about the explosion of internet based communications this cycle, from blogging to user created video. One of things I had looked at early on were the candidates’ front page web presence, especially their logos. Now the field has narrowed to 3 remaining candidates so I missed my chance at a grand comparative visual analysis of all the campaign websites.
C’est la vie.