1. Facebook doesn't mean shit: This is really the insight that gives us the most delight. All those Facebook groups for Obama and donating your Facebook status do not mean shit. They are a great way to feel as if you're participating in the campaign fight while actually doing nothing to sway any votes. Facebook is the epitome of preaching to the choir. To the extent that it's an easy and effective way to communicate with people, sure, it helps, and it will be adopted by both parties eventually to the extent that it makes their jobs easier, just like email and websites. But the idea that some sort of "Facebook activism" actually helped shift red states to blue states is just wrong. Offline tendencies drive online behavior, not vice versa.

2. TV is still king: With all the internet and the websites and the social networking and the blast emails and the online video and the microtargeting, you know what the most important weapon is for any campaign. TV ads, as always. That's where all that money you give on the internet gets spent (Obama spent $250 million on ads—which sounds like a lot until you compare it to, say, the $300 million Microsoft is spending for its current ad campaign). In terms of being a powerfully influential medium for moving voters, TV crushes the internet now and forevermore until further notice, the end.

3. The candidates matter: Did Barack Obama do better than John Kerry because Obama had a more sophisticated media strategy? OR was it because Obama is more competent, more likable, more telegenic, and was running against a teetering old warmonger who would be a heartbeat away from turning the Oval Office over to a fundamentalist Alaskan psycho woman? You decide.

4. Elections ride the swinging pendulum: When the nation swings as far to one end of the spectrum as we've been for the last eight years, with such disastrous results, you can bet it'll swing back to the other end. Honestly, Christopher Dodd with no Facebook page at all would have had a pretty decent shot at winning this year if he raised the money Obama did. It's the Democrats' time.

5. Campaign tactics are always evaluated in retrospect because the media has no idea what it's talking about, mostly: Here's how media experts evaluate the tactics of a presidential campaign: A campaign does something. The media sees what the reaction is. Then they "explain" why it was a good/ bad idea, based on whether it worked or not. If some tactic starts off slow and is pronounced a failure only to eventually start working, watch the media magically create a reason for this dynamic that does not include "We have no idea what we're talking about." This goes for us too, btw. Neither we or our media colleagues are any more able to predict the dynamics of an election in advance than you, the average idiot! The only prediction worth a shit is one made beforehand, that turns out to be right. And the person making that prediction is still not worth a shit unless they can make similar, accurate predictions repeatedly over an extended period of time. This is why everything that pundits say is good only for entertainment value, and Nate Silver will rule the world.

You have to remember that for a lot of reporters, today is the last gasp of glory. By the end of this week the campaign will be over, and there will be far fewer opportunities to go on TV and be "experts." There may also be far fewer opportunities to be, you know, reporters; some percentage of these people are bound to be laid off in the coming year. We already know that the LA Times will be laying off the bulk of its Washington bureau. And most ofl those plucky young embedded reporters from TV networks are preparing to be fired when this thing wraps up.

Everybody wants to make sure that you know that they were on the inside. Just because you, the consumer, didn't get all the colorful anecdotes in your morning paper doesn't mean that they didn't happen. Reporters have all types of fun memories from the campaign that they would like to share with you now that the campaign is over! Most of these fall into two categories: the "God these candidates are more morally bankrupt than I could ever say outright in the pages of my tepid publication," and the (more popular) "I made friends with important people!" Some key examples of each:

God these candidates are more morally bankrupt than I could ever say outright in the pages of my tepid publication

Michael Scherer from Time went to some Republican retreat in Michigan where politicians "came there to speak to state party activists, serving up stump pomp while waiters in white-tie tuxedos served drunk diners with pecan-coated ice cream balls." Then he finds a regular lady who says everyone in town is not like that. He rejoices.

HuffPo's Sam Stein was set upon by a gang of disgruntled Hillary supporters in a Washington bar. "And soon the denizens were letting me have a piece of their mind. 'HuffPost sucks! HuffPost sucks!' they chanted, as I bit into my now-arrived Reuben. 'Fox News, fair and balanced! Fox News, fair and balanced!'" Although he does not say so, he hates them.

Marc Ambinder from the Atlantic recalls watching Obama's little daughter Sasha talking to her daddy on stage at the Democratic convention; it "was very cute, but it also revealed how staged even Obama’s campaign had become." The thought of a little girl talking to her dad now makes him want to absolutely vomit. Politics has ruined him.

I made friends with important people!

Wacky old Dana Milbank from the Washington Post remembers Mike Huckabee "taking reporters hunting, taking them jogging, taking them to the barber for a face massage and shave." Dana Milbank would not object to being asked to appear on Mike Huckabee's teevee show, if Mike Huckabee so chose.

Ana Marie Cox from Time had fun singing karaoke with McCain campaign hacks Mark Salter and Steve Schmidt. Salter even sung Dylan tunes! Later they went back to figuring out how to oppress black people.

Adam Nagourney from the Times liked nothing better than sharing his Christmas dinner with failed Hillary flack Howard Wolfson: "We were quick to discover that there aren't a lot of restaurants open in Des Moines on Christmas night (or bars, but that's another story). But what was open was sure to warm the heart of two displaced Jews from New York: A Chinese restaurant." Aw! Then they made passionate love.

You see, just about everyone on the campaign trail goes a little crazy. It's classic Stockholm syndrome; trapped on buses and planes for months on end, reporters come to regard their captors as friends. Just to get a fact-free look back at the election season to fill a hole in its Week in Review section yesterday, the NYT had to turn to Frank Bruni, who's spent the entire campaign eating brains at Manhattan's finest restaurant. But they needed an outsider who could say about this godforsaken campaign, presumably with a straight face, "that we have, if anything, undervalued and even lost sight of its significance at times." Had they put Adam Nagourney on that story, the editors would have had to spend hours rewriting his knowing asides about Howard Wolfson's bewitching cologne.

For the media, the campaign means life. It means purpose, and employment, and attention, and a sense of self-importance. It's an unparalleled opportunity to cast oneself as an expert with no qualifications whatsoever, and to profess to speak for millions of "real Americans" without any factual basis. In reality, campaign reporters have a far less objective view of the Presidential race than a fat, laid-off auto worker sitting on his ass playing XBox in the ugly part of Toledo.

It takes a rare breed to remain sane during the ordeal. And we should salute those who do. So Joshua Green of the Atlantic, we salute you; you alone have found a moment that appropriately embodies American democracy:

My most memorable moment on the trail was getting offered weed by a Ron Paul supporter during the Republican primary in Ames, Iowa. He had urgently wanted to discuss the gold standard and I wasn't having any part of that, so I guess the weed was intended as an enticement.

USA.

[Pic: HST]

Pastor John Hagee said on Thursday that his controversial sermon, in which he said Hitler was fulfilling God's will for a state of Israel, had been "intentionally mischaracterized" and constituted a "gross example of bias." In a statement to The Huffington Post, he did not apologize for or distance himself from the sermon, saying simply that he had long grappled with how God "who controls what happens here on earth" could allow the Holocaust...

In his statement, which was provided by Hagee's New York-based PR firm, 5W Public Relations, the pastor cited his career devotion "to ensuring that there will never be a second Holocaust."

Ronn has long worked for Jewish causes and organizations. But maybe it was his flackery on behalf of disgraced evangelist Benny Hinn and FEMA champ Michael "Brownie" Brown that convinced Hagee to turn to him.

Or maybe he likes tough talkers who come with high recommendations.

Good luck, McCain! [UPDATE: And just like that, McCain has repudiated Hagee's endorsement! Hopefully not just because of his poor PR hiring practices.]

[via HuffPo]