Before this Obama election gets too grounded in our national psyche, let's go ahead and banish the hopeful assertion that this marks the beginning of a "Post-racial" society. As has been pointed out by everyone from Tavis Smiley to TAN, we're not post-anything. Race is just as strong of a psychological factor as it ever was. Our socialization has changed, and our expectations have been moderated, but America is far, far away from being a place where people "don't see" race.

As the only black commentator on CNN noted last night, Obama's 2009 inauguration will come exactly 100 years after the founding of the NAACP. The founding of that group came 100 years after Abraham Lincoln's birth. There you have the three easy stages of American racial history: the fight to end slavery, and Reconstruction; the long movement for civil rights; and whatever we're moving into now.

The civil rights movement was concerned with laws, and it won all of the big battles that it set out to win. It's clear that laws don't totally erase inequality or racism. The NAACP is a now shell of its former self, a victim of its own successes. All of those people of my parents' and grandparents' generations who openly wept seeing the first black man elected President last night were surely, on some level, overwhelmed by the enormous distance that blacks in America have come; from slavery to the White House, which Obama's anecdote of his 106-year-old supporter so neatly alluded to.

But Obama is a transcendent figure, and pegging his election as a new, inalienable plateau in race relations is a mistake. When Al Sharpton was a presidential candidate only four years ago, I'll bet that many of the people who voted for Obama yesterday would have guessed that they'd never see a black president in their lifetimes. Obama's mystical ability to appeal to everyone should be celebrated; but what does his election really represent for Black America?

Lots of people are just happy that one of their own has finally made it. There hasn't been a truly strong "leader" of Black America since MLK and Malcolm X were assassinated, and if you want to cast Obama in that role, he'll probably do for now. The symbolism of his success is worth a lot, but it won't change everything. Toure wonders how black men will be able to say 'Fuck the system' when the system is run by a black man. Obama himself is more a product of the hip hop generation than the generation that marched in Selma. And with every year that passes, and every successive generation that's born, our country becomes less white, more diverse, and less like the easy black-and-white dichotomy that seemed so clear to our parents.

It's impossible to view race honestly through anything other than our own personal experiences. I know what this election means to me. Want to know what it means for black people? Ask a black person. Obama got elected because people honestly feel he'll do a better job. And he probably will. John Lewis, and Jesse Jackson, and, yes, even Al Sharpton are all American heroes. But while the issues they fought over haven't been resolved, their time in history's spotlight is gone just as sure as John McCain's is. The more relevant question may not be "What does Obama mean for Black America?" It may be, instead, "What does Black America mean any more?"

And if every non-black person goes out and has a conversation about that question with somebody who might actually know the answer, we'll all have made some good old-fashioned racial progress. That's how Obama helps us be better, even if he doesn't do a damn thing. "It's about you."

[Pic via Flickr]

Rupert Murdoch has always been canny about getting in good with those in power, even if they're from the party he opposes. He made nice with Tony Blair in the UK. And the Post did in fact endorse Obama over Hillary Clinton, once it was clear Obama would win. Besides that, Murdoch's pet paper the Sun in the UK pretty much deified Obama. And even Fox News managed to work out an Obama interview with Bill O'Reilly, when they weren't calling him "Osama" and such.

So why didn't Rupert just get the Post to go ahead and endorse Obama in the general election? Two reason. One of those reasons is named "Sarah Palin." Murdoch flirted with her coyly, and ended up tentatively supporting her convoluted policy proposals in public. It may be that he fell in love with her personality (the same mistake McCain made), or just came to the conclusion that, dumb as she is, at least she wasn't likely to push for any more regulation of his business if she came into office when McCain keeled over.

The second reason is more basic: a Post endorsement of Obama just wasn't practical. It would defeat the paper's very reason for existence, which is to be a rabid conservative voice in the midst of the liberal NYC media. So Rupert Murdoch just allowed them to endorse McCain, then set about sending every possible signal that he's willing to be friendly with Obama after he wins. Not that dumb after all.

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]

And here's one from Virginia Veterans for Obama:

[via Crooks and Liars]

The time: three months ago. The place: some hotel room. The players: Obama, his advisers, Ailes, and Rupert Murdoch.

Obama's angle: You people at Fox News aren't being fair:

"I just wanted to know if I'm going to get a fair shake from Fox News Channel," Ailes recalled him saying...

In a recent interview with Glamour magazine, Obama said Fox News and others went after his wife, Michelle, "in a pretty systematic way. . . . If you start being subjected to rants by Sean Hannity and the like, day in and day out, that'll drive up your negatives."

Fox's angle: We're not unfair, we're just not a part of the biased liberal media bootlickers. Also, who can control Hannity?

"Senator, you're the one who boycotted us," Ailes says he replied. "We're not the ones who boycotted you. Nor did we retaliate for your boycott."...

As Ailes recalls it, he responded to Obama's concern about fairness by saying that "there are opinion shows and there are news shows." Some of the criticism, Ailes told him, has come from conservative commentator and co-host Sean Hannity — whom he likened to MSNBC's more liberal pundits Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.

The resolution: Obama will be on Bill O'Reilly's show tomorrow night. And let's hope it turns into a huge fight, because, why not? Apparently Rupert is trying to take the friendly route with Obama, much as the New York Post suddenly became soft towards Hillary Clinton when it looked like she might win. But Fox News should take note: times are a-changing. After Obama gets elected, Fox News' ratings will slide and they'll see a backlash for their Bush era broadcasting. Bet. Rupert Murdoch is smart enough to know that a good relationship with Obama might be worth more to Fox than just about anything in the next year.

[WP]

Ratings for cable shows like Hardball and Countdown have "risen sharply" during the campaign. The Politico's website is blowing up, with more readers than "more than all but 13 American newspapers." Political ads are more popular on YouTube than political news broadcasts. Us Weekly saw a bigger bump with its Obama cover than actual political magazines did. And the nightly news broadcasts just keep sadly puttering along:

More noticeably, the broadcast networks’ evening newscasts — the traditional standard-bearers of television news — have been unable to stop their long-term ratings declines, even during the hotly contested primaries. The newscasts on NBC, ABC and CBS had an average combined audience of 23.7 million viewers from January to June, down 2 percent from the same time period in 2007.

[NYT]

[via my sister, an actual member of Democrats Abroad! In order to go viral, this video may require the addition of some destruction.]

The number of times Senator John McCain’s new advertisement attacking Senator Barack Obama for canceling a visit with wounded troops in Germany last week has been shown fully or partly on local, national and cable newscasts: well into the hundreds.
The number of times that spot actually, truly ran as a paid commercial: roughly a dozen.

Awesome work. The added bonus is that the ad says Obama refused to visit wounded troops because they wouldn't give him enough publicity for it, and he'd rather play basketball with fellow Muslims anyhow. Neither aspect of which seems to be factually true. Decide for yourself: watch the ad below! We'll send the McCain campaign an invoice for this post.

[NYT]

You see, Barack Obama didn't just stumble onto the cover of People magazine by chance. Oh no. It's all part of a big PR strategy! That's how things work in the high-level circles to which Bonnie Fuller is privy:

Like every in-demand A-list couple who concedes to allowing a peek behind the curtain, the Obamas insist this will be the "first and last" up-close and personal look at them as a family. What they don't admit to is that this was a carefully orchestrated, well-thought out brand presentation. And it isn't actually the first highly personal look at the photogenic family. No, it's the culmination of a publicity campaign designed to take advantage of the couple's charisma and Hollywood-worthy good look

Try to wrap your mind around this for a moment: the Obamas are actually using the celebrity press to get press for themselves as celebrities.

"And Michelle Obama has been demonized as a 'radical black bitch,'" points out Joe Dolce, partner in the media strategy of DolceGoldin, and the former editor in chief of Star magazine [and asshat and close friend of Bonnie Fuller].

We just thought that needed to be included. What do you think, Bonnie?

In the face of these challenges, I'm convinced that the marketing and PR experts surrounding the Obamas clued in to the enormous influence that "celebrities" have had on the American public, particularly women, over the past seven years since the emergence of Us Weekly, Star and other celebrity newsweeklies and the subsequent explosion of celebrity news.

These quote-unquote "celebrities" that Bonnie speaks of are the ones you see in newsweeklies like Star, formerly headed by Bonnie Fuller. Who can understand the intricate web of competing politcosocioeconomicultural interests here better?

A recent Associated Press-Yahoo News poll of more than 1,700 adults reported that 52% of Americans would like to invite Barack Obama to their summer barbecue vs. the 45% who would extend the invite to John McCain. So you can argue that the PR/marketing strategy is beginning to work.

You certainly could argue that, yes.

Is it also coincidental that Michelle confides to People that one of the sundresses she's wearing in their photos just happened to have been purchased at budget-conscious fashion mecca H&M. The message for these harsh economic times is that she's not shopping at Oscar de la Renta, like Cindy McCain. "You won't see Michelle in an evening gown. She's never going to be dressed up like the Queen of England," predicts PR king Howard Rubenstein, president of Rubenstein Associates. "That wouldn't be relatable."

That would indeed be strange, very strange. Final thoughts to sum up this post, which is now far too long?

Seven-year-old Sasha sports a peace sign T-shirt (how's that for a subliminal message?), Barack's in jeans and an open-neck shirt. They couldn't look more "normal" (vs. "not normal," as Star would say).

Seven-year-old Sasha Obama: She's just like us!

[Ad Age]

[via Wonkette yo]

The back of the same press pass:

This just goes to show what a solid guy McCain really is, in Howard Fineman's mind.

[CBS]

"No disrespect to my man Barack, but I [bleeped] with John McCain. He greeted me like a god," Jeezy, who has endorsed Barack Obama, tells Vibe magazine. "The fact that he acknowledged me was crazy. I said, 'I'm Young Jeezy, and it's rough out here.' He blew me off at first. I was like, 'Nah, for real. It's rough out here, so what you gonna do to change it?' . . . And he gave me a look back, like, 'I know.' "

Now that McCain has the support of the drug trafficking industry, we may just have to vote for him!

If only Obama was better at race-baiting.

[P6]

"Given where we are in the election cycle, and how the youth vote has increasingly engaged and played a crucial role in past presidential elections, we re-evaluated the MTV policy and decided that campaign-approved ads would be a good fit for our audience, and would compliment our 'Choose or Lose' campaign efforts," [a spokesperson] said. "It's a good thing when candidates want to reach out to young people and the best way to do that is through MTV."

MTV's announcement of the switch follows a report in the New York Times on June 22 that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's campaign wanted to do an MTV buy. It's also probably not a coincidence that Mr. Obama, who is opting out of public funding, will likely have plenty of money to spend on youth-directed ads.

One would think that no MTV-watching kids would vote for McCain, anyhow. So this is pretty much a wash.

[Ad Age]