COMMENT:
ARE THERE ANY PLANS FOR BARACK TO DO A GLOBAL (FUNDRAISING) TOUR?
I THINK THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY FOR MULTIPLE REASONS. AS THE ICON OF THE NEW AMERICA, BARACK HAS ENORMOUS (TO A CERTAIN EXTENT LATENT) SUPPORT ABROAD. HE IS AN AMERICAN WITH GLOBAL ROOTS, LIKE MILLIONS OF OTHER AMERICANS TODAY.
THIS WOULD BE AN UNPRECEDENTED MEDIA EVENT: An American presidential CANDIDATE doing a global "goodwill tour"...BARACK IN FRANKFURT, SIDNEY, TOKYO, JAKARTA...
Mainstream media is not sure how to treat Barack other than "superstar"...he is both "ethnic" and smart/powerful, which makes him impossible to put in a simple "box"... This move would mesh perfectly with how they know how to write about Obama, at the same time that it would re-energize the movement about how Obama is thinking globally (clearly, this must be weighted against people who may say he too celebrity-obsessed, why isn't he in iowa, etc.)
HOWEVER, even a whirlwind "goodwill" tour would bring major headlines, "buzz" and possibly millions of expat dollars. Has anyone in the campaign run an analysis?
As another young harvard grad with a black African father and white American mother, born in America, I identify with Barack in a very personal way. If there are any interesting ways to get involved in Boston please let me know...
I have to say, I am a die-hard Obama supporter; however, I went to the Boston rally and was HUGELY underimpressed. That crowd was ALL overeducated students and their older compatriots, largely from across the river in Cambridge. I have lived, worked and studied in Boston for 8 years (was at Harvard College before the Grad School of Design).
What was sickening: there was no evidence at that rally that all of Boston's typically UNDERREPRESENTED COMMUNITIES even exist: where were the Vietnamese, the Cape Verdeans, the Haitians, the Chinese-Americans, the Brazilians, the Jamaicans, the Dominicans, etc?
Instead what we got was an old white man and a young white woman talk about the Cape and the importance of New Hampshire.
No offense to whoever is behind the New England machine but that was SAD. That is NOT a new kind of politics. If there are political troops going into Boston, to talk to THESE communities about Obama, let me know. I will mobilize Harvard grad students.
best, Dk
3 comments:
I think this makes a lot of sense. It could be just what Obama needs. Was discussing coverage of his campaign with an (American) friend visiting last week from London. She was originally an Obama supporter, but had become disillusioned- given the coverage in the UK. Something like this would allow the foreign media to get a closer-sense of who he actually is.
heylo,
he just did a worldwide tour. and met with international leaders and their peoples. the media was all over it. and mccain was getting all fussy about it saying it looked like a pre-emptive victory lap. but obama shot back that mccain met with the same leaders after his nomination, but obama just happened to pull it off better because he got A LOT of media attention...but i know you're an obsessive obama lover, so you must be talking about something different...???
personally i think obama did enough international outreach. his tour seemed like a great success. there were 100's of 1000's of foreigners in europe and elsewhere waving american flags. obama said he was a global citizen. i think obama now needs to give some tlc to domestic issues that hit americans closest to home, no pun intended (or maybe it was ;) )
my post was 9 months before his tour, and about a fundraising tour specifically. however, now i realize that the US (media) cannot yet conceive of a US american electorate that self-identifies or is located as global citizens.
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