(7:44 PM Note re: Today’s Polls. Bear with me a bit. I’ve got some baseball to watch, then a hit to do for Countdown, and then we’ll do some late-night number crunching.)
7:31 PM. Let’s play ball!
7:29 PM. That was very good, although I actually think they could have done without the live bit at the end.
7:28 PM. Live Barack is hard to distinguish from TV Barack!
7:24 PM. Zzzzzzz….. we want live Barack! Live Ba-Rack! Live Ba-Rack! Live Ba-Rack!
7:21 PM. This really is basically the Democratic convention compressed into 30 minutes. I think people forget that Denver was really quite a strong convention, even if it got overshadowed in the media narrative a bit by St. Paul.
7:19 PM. I do think it’s worth considering whether there’s inherently anything about a 30-second spot that makes it the norm in political advertising. Obviously, you’re not going to be able to buy a 30-hour block every day. But folks like Al Franken, for instance, have taken really good advantage of 60-second slots this year, and I’d think that the presidential candidates could too.
7:16 PM. Discuss: all else being equal, the most optimistic candidate wins the election. And that’s definitely the mood that Obama is going for with this thing.
7:14 PM. Anyone catch that? RFK High School? Surely not a coincidence, methinks.
7:12 PM. Is Google now the most trusted brand in America?
7:09 PM. Minor quibble: some of these vignettes could stand to carry out their emotional highs a little longer, as the policy talk seems like a little bit of a let-down in comparison.
7:07 PM. The B & O Railroad? Right next to Marvin Gardens?
7:06 PM. Well, the production values are strong, unlike Hillary’s Hallmark Channel thing. It’s unquestionably an infomercial, but that doesn’t mean it needs to look like one.
7:01 PM. OK, Obama’s definitely a fan of that whole let-me-sit-in-front-of- a-set-that-looks-exactly like-the-White House-even-though-it-isn’t thing.
7:00 PM. Is this actually newsworthy?