On the “new media” front, Ari Melber’s Obama’s Star-Studded YouTube video makes the point that

While the Obama campaign had no role in this video, it has run a sophisticated and effective YouTube strategy. It was the only campaign to record a YouTube address for this week’s State of the Union, which has already drawn over 850,000 views and is one of the most popular clips in the world this week. The campaign also promotes a battery of ring tones, which splice one-liners from Obama with riffs of music. Young voters can get the items for free by providing the campaign with their cell phone number — a life-line for organizing a demographic that is rarely listed in party databases.

There is also a very solid infrastructure for activism on Facebook, although I’m running into some of the same challenges Derek Blackadder did …

However, I think also that there is a way in which most people, lovers, haters, men, women, democrats, repubs, don’t realize they are being dismissive when they continue to call her “Hillary”, and I think their capacity to identify a serious presidential candidate by her first name without realizing how that is dismissive, is the result of sexism.

And, I feel, as I said before, that even though I don’t prefer her in the presidential race, that I owe it to her to try to call her “Clinton” or at least “Hillary Clinton”.

Because you brought up how we identify male vs. female celebrities, etc… I started thinking about that more generally. My observation is that in the public discourse, only Presidents and a few other political leaders of utmost national prominence get identified solely by their last names.

Almost everybody else, whether in politics, sports, the arts, film, music, etc. get called by their first and last name. Some people get called ONLY by their first name, but that is usually when they are being recognized more for their personality/celebrity status and less for their accomplishment at WHAT THEY DO.

[If any academics are reading this, it will also be a fascinating study -- please forward me early drafts of the papers ]

And while Oprah certainly seems like old media, she’s also done a lot more experimentation than most — I’m thinking of her foray into Yahoo! Answers, for example.

I don’t know if this is similar to the Kennedy movement as I wasn’t alive then, however I feel motivated to better my own life whenever I hear Barack speak. I believe if he becomes President he will energise the USA and to a great extent citizens around the world, like Prime Minister Trudeau energised Canadians during 1968 when Trudeaumania swept across the nation.

:Mentally trying to imagine danah pretending to have a thick Austian accent and a low voice:
:Mind blocked on that:

> I still call our former president Clinton

Thank you!
For what? “our”, instead of “the”; it sounds better to foreigners, promise.

The first name for female candidates was also an issue in our presidential campaign (in France): the habit, “Royal” doesn’t sound too democratic, but the short version of her first name (Ségo) and his last name (Sarko) both rhymed with -o, which sounds better. It’s actually a very old habit, with many justification: women needed to me told apart from their husband, often into politics too; changed their last name; used their gender. From the cases that I can think of, it seems having a husband involved in politics turns out to be a burden when running: is it because it is easier to imagine a household then?
All females candidates here (including one who tried the Presidential race seven times, starting in 1974) were always designated by their first name.

I’ve always said that the situation will be balanced not when the first women will take office, but when one looses a race and people don’t think of it as a shame that “a woman” lost, but consider that she simply wasn’t as good. Not there yet.

I think that I tend to go with whatever name is less common or mod the name to be uniquely identifiable. With our president, I usually just say Bush and then make a face which separates him from his father who gets called The First Bush. Condi because that’s distinguishable. Same with Barack. Better than Obama where people tend to think Osama. I call my governor the Governator or Ahhh-nold. I still call our former president Clinton. All of the current Republican candidates get their last names since that’s what’s rare except for Ron Paul who gets his full name.

But this makes me think.. maybe it’s partially that women’s names are so rare in politics that first names are distinguishable while, especially in Hillary’s case, last names aren’t. Of course, thinking about what I call celebrities, it comes down to distinguishable names. Angelina, Britney, Paris, … all female first names. With men, I have a weird tendency to use full names: Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman… Hmm.. I wonder.

Or maybe men just need to start having more original names. Tehehe.