My...How Things Have Turned Around

One of my guilty pleasures is reading Slate, a liberal online magazine. Besides written articles they also show video blogs. As your favorite mid-century resident historian, I will show you a video of how candidates used TV as a medium to get the message out to voters along with connecting directly with voters.



In 1952 Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower was the first to do this. His Democrat opponent, Adlai Stevenson, dismissed TV ads and connecting with the voters, thinking it was silly and that TV ads were for "selling soap." Who won that election? Ike also connected with the voters, answering questions from voters, albeit answers taped first then questions asked. Barry Goldwater did the same thing in 1964, questions first answers second. Granted he didn't win, but in his defense Lyndon Johnson basically got the sympathy vote, due to Kennedy's assassination. Some conspiracy theorists believe this is why Johnson was behind Kennedy's assassination.
Back to my point, The Dems are taking advantage of the new tech medium, blogging and YouTube, while Reps cower in fear of the new medium. Either that or they are acting like the elitist snobs they are being stereotyped as. At least Mike Huckabee is not an elitist snob. He connects with the people. He uses this new medium to get his message out. And he's doing a pretty dang good job at that. He plans on partaking in the Republican Debates on YouTube. Romney doesn't want to "take a question from a snowman."
Too many Republicans are snubbing the American people when they have Romney-tude. It looks like technology as a medium 'twixt voters and candidates was a Republican tool that has been taken over by the Dems. While obviously both Mike and Mitt are Republicans, in this it seems that Mike is Ike, while Mitt is Adlai.