Are you better off?

Tomorrow I expect to hear Mitt Romney asking the question, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" In anticipation of that question, allow me to prepare the electorate to answer. The answer is an unequivocal "yes."

Doesn't Romney remember the state the American economy was in when President Barack Obama took office? The financial sector was on the verge of a total collapse, the stock market was crashing, Americans were losing 750,000 jobs each month, credit was completely dried up, the auto industry was going bankrupt, our gross domestic product was shrinking at a rate of 9% annually, consumer confidence was at an all-time low, banks were failing right & left, and home values were depreciating at a breakneck pace. Essentially, the American economy was rapidly heading for a full-on depression.

Today, the Dow is close to the heights it was back in 2007 and almost as high as it has ever been. Chrysler & GM repaid the American people and GM is again the world's leading auto manufacture. The private-sector has added American jobs for thirty straight months. Credit is available to businesses again. American GDP has increased every quarter since Obama took office. Americans are consuming again. Even home values have stabilized (and begun ticking up in some areas).

Even though the American economy is admittedly tepid now, compared to when Obama entered the White House, it seems like the economy has been pushed up a very steep hill, not off the edge of a cliff. In other words, the answer to the question "Is the typical American economically better off now than four years ago?" is without a doubt "yes" -- much better off!

It was two terms of George W. Bush's fiscal policies that led to the Great Recession. Now when you look at the Romney/Ryan platform regarding the American economy, it is altogether indistinguishable from Bush's when he was in office. To quote the president who led America to four years of budget surplus and into the strongest economy since WWII, the GOP is saying about Obama, "We left him a total mess. He hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough. So fire him and put us back in."

Romney is not a felon

It’s time for all of Mitt Romney’s supporters to stop criticizing President Barack Obama for calling Romney a felon. Neither Obama nor his campaign team have ever called Romney a felon. In fact, I doubt Obama even privately thinks that Romney is a felon.

The issue stems from Romney filing forms with the SEC on behalf of Bain Capital that state Romney was the CEO, president, and managing director of Bain in 2002. Yet Romney has claimed during his current campaign for president that he was not actively involved in the business matters of Bain Capital after 1999. The two claims seem to be contradictory.

In response, Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter told reporters, “Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and his own signature, was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, which is a felony, or he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments.” Yes, Cutter did use the word “felony” but look at it in context.

This is an either-or statement. It doesn’t say that Romney is a felon. It says he’s either a felon or he misrepresented his position at Bain to the American people -- one of the two but not both. When Obama tweeted that “if you don’t buy Mitt Romney’s excuse that he 'retroactively retired' from his buyout firm, you’re not alone,” he made it clear he believes it’s actually the latter. But misrepresenting yourself to the American people is not a crime.

Obama is making the claim that Bain outsourced American jobs to foreign countries under Romney’s stewardship. But this activity occurred predominantly after 1999, so it’s in Obama’s best interests politically for the 2002 SEC filings to be factual, not fraudulent. He wants to make the case that Romney had executive authority over Bain when it was offshoring jobs, so Obama and his supporters want the electorate to believe the SEC filings’ statement that Romney was the CEO at that time.

National Geographic and the social media

National Geographic (NatGeo) has been active in social media for a few years. In May of 2009, its facebook Page already had slightly fewer than half a million “Fans” (as Likes were referred to at the time), its tweet stream had 7,780 Followers, and its YouTube Channel had over 150,000 subscribers. In the three years that have transpired since then, its numbers have increased exponentially. However, NatGeo’s strategic application of social media does not seem to have grown up with its numbers.

The primary objective for NatGeo’s use of social media is most likely to advance its mission:

The National Geographic Society has been inspiring people to care about the planet since 1888. It is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation.

On Twitter, @NatGeo currently has over 2-million Tweeps following its tweet stream. It also has a facebook Page that almost 11-million users have Liked. The YouTube Channel now has almost 700,000 subscribers and NatGeo’s videos on it have been viewed over 750-million times. Besides its primary web site, these constitute the bulk of NatGeo’s social media presence. In addition, NatGeo leverages its brand in TV by establishing National Geographic Channel’s own unique Twitter @NatGeoChannel and facebook Page.

There’s no denying the growth but NatGeo could do an even more effective job of capitalizing on those strong numbers. For example, when facebook Pages used to have Tabs, NatGeo used them to highlight special offers, contests, reviews, and more content. Granted, the use of their facebook page has been hampered by the new Timeline layout but the only features they’re using now are the Photos and Likes. They have plenty of content to also engage users with Timeline features like Videos, Events, Notes, and the Map. But the biggest insult to its audience is that NatGeo doesn’t allow those who Like their Page to post anything on their Timeline. It screams, “We’re not interested in what you have to say.”

Its tweets also lack a sense of connecting with @NatGeo’s Followers. The only retweets in its tweet stream are of other NatGeo @s. While Tweeps regularly retweet and mention NatGeo, there’s no reciprocation. There is not a single @mention of any of its Followers. Even though hashtags could significantly increase @NatGeo’s visibility in Twitter searches with all of the unique topics its content covers, @NatGeo uses very few of them. #lostOpportunity

The posts on both the facebook Page and tweet stream are predominantly hyperlinks to content on NatGeo’s primary web site but the content they post differs substantially one from the other. NatGeo publishes both short clips and full-length shows on its YouTube Channel but the use of the “real estate” on the front page indicates that its primary objective for the Channel is to drive its audience to new content on their primary web site that is not yet available on YouTube.

In all fairness, NatGeo’s primary web site is itself a social medium. Visitors to the site are permitted to post their own Comments on News articles and Photo of the Day. NatGeo publishes Community Rules for visitors to follow and there’s a healthy amount of Web 2.0 activity on its web site. Nonetheless, NatGeo would be better served to extend its social presence rather than trying to centralize it on their primary web site.

In its latest social media promotion, NatGeo is generating interest in its Chasing UFOs series. All tweets composed between 8:00 p.m. last night and 3:00 a.m. EDT this morning containing the hashtag #ChasingUFOs will be rolled into a single message. Then on August 15, exactly 35 years after the Wow! signal was detected, NatGeo’s crowdsourced message will be transmitted back into space towards the origin of the mysterious signal. If an extraterrestrial alien responds, I'll rescind my criticism of NatGeo’s social media efforts.

Posted by David Ward for the first assignment in Developing a Social Media Strategy

The haircut

"Progressive" is not synonymous with "Liberal"

Visitors to The Zone often think I'm a Liberal but I have to correct them. A Progressive does not lean to the Left. But he doesn't lean to the Right either. A Progressive leans forward.

Noise stage right

I've been hearing a lot of rhetoric that is incendiary and over-the-top in this election season, especially from political figures -- people who make a case for why we should elect them to represent us and run our governments. The more I hear, the louder it seems to be from the GOP. I'm not saying that Democrats never use incendiary rhetoric that's over-the-top. I'm just saying that it seems to be much more ubiquitous coming from The Right.

I heard Republican governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, say "I'm worried about the war of this administration on the American tax payer" today. And it just sounded so absurd to me. I had this picture of President Obama ordering his generals to roll tanks down the streets, firing shells at tax payers as they go. It was just so incendiary and over-the-top. I don't even know what he meant by "war on the tax payer." Why couldn't the governor have just clearly stated what part of Obama's tax policy he disagrees with instead of equating it to a "war"?

Then when Democrat governor Martin O'Malley from Maryland responded, he said "I think these cultural -- don't like to use the term 'wars' -- these cultural, divisive, wedge issues; the roll back of women's rights; the rollback of women's access to contraception and health care; roll-back of voting rights; roll-back of workers' rights; all these things that take us back, are not strengthening the economy and creating jobs." He was just all-around more conciliatory and rational in his argument. And it struck me as to how representative this discussion was of the discussion I hear in the body politic at large.

Probably the most incendiary name-calling I hear is Republican politicians calling President Obama a socialist. The term is deliberately chosen to be derisive, yet I hear it all the time from The Right, in spite of the fact that it simply is not the truth. The money the government loaned to auto makers has been repaid and the companies are being run by the corporations, not by Obama. And the government didn't take over health care with the "reform" law, it turned health care over to private insurance companies by mandating that every American buy health insurance from them. Even Socialists themselves say that Obama is not socialistic.

I don't have any hard statistics or other empirical evidence about what direction the noise is coming from. All I have is what I read, see, and hear, which is clearly more incendiary rhetoric from The Right than from progressives. When a Democrat responds, the naturally tendency is to make a reasoned argument in support of a progressive position (Nancy Pelosi excepted). Perhaps it's because, all other things equal, there is a presumption to maintain the status quo. The burden rests on the proponent of change to demonstrate why a progressive position should be supported, and hyperbole does not make a convincing argument.

Am I the only one who sees the preponderance of over-the-top rhetoric coming from Republican politicians? If so, where would I find all these cases of Democrats using incendiary rhetoric?

Santorum's church

On This Week yesterday, Rick Santorum said "I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." With complete conviction, he went on to say "the idea that the church can have no influence, no involvement, in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our" nation. I challenge Santorum to show America where these objectives and vision are documented -- he, of course, could not.

But even were I to concede that the vision of our nation is that the church have influence and involvement in the operation of the state, I'm sure it would be easy to convince him to oppose that vision. All that would have to happen is to make the church with the influence and involvement the Church of Latter-day Saints. Suddenly Santorum would believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. And I'm not saying that Santorum opposes Mormons in particular -- he would oppose the influence and involvement of Islam or Judaism in the operation of the state just as much.

Santorum's position that church and state should not be separate is based on the presumption that the church with the influence and involvement is Christianity. If he were to win the GOP nomination, Santorum would have a hard time getting the vote of Americans of other faiths -- or of no faith at all.