Obama's Numerous TV Appearances Offer Another Kind Of "Change"

As this years mid-term elections near, party candidates are out in full force campaigning for votes. We see this everywhere from speeches at  local colleges to political ads every other commercial on television. The President is no exception, also vigorously campaigning to keep the Democrats in Congress this year. One of these appearances this past week was on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" on Comedy Central, where the President was interviewed by the satire comedian in front of a live audience.

While there was a lot of hype about his appearance, it was far from his first television show appearance. Arguments made by critics claim that going on popular shows for self promoting and interviews is a use of "irresponsible media.," and that it lowers the dignity and prestige of the Presidency. Karl Rove responded to Obama's five Sunday morning talk show appearances last year by saying that, "Mr. Obama doesn't need more TV time. He needs a new health-care plan...He needs his facts to align with reality." I however think the contrary; that President Obama is reaching different audiences that wouldn't tune into him or current politics otherwise. We see this when looking at the number of viewers tuning in to his TV guest spots.
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The President's August 2010 appearance on The View gave the show its best ratings ever, drawing in 6.6 million viewers. Let's remember that The View is mainly aimed towards the female audience. The male viewers (18-34) tend to watch shows such as The Daily Show. His most recent interview on The Daily Show drew in just under 3 million viewers, which was less than his 2008 appearance where he drew in 3.58 million viewers.

When looking at a complete list of Obama's TV appearances, you see that he has been on almost every time slot in television. He has reached everyone from the early morning news crowd (Today Show), to the mid-day talk show crowd (think Oprah & Ellen), to the late night folks (Jay Leno/Letterman). So while everyone is talking about Obama's failed promises of "change," they themselves are failing to see a whole new kind of change, which is the way in which our President is accessible to us. It is important that we keep our society's political interest and involvement up, especially in rough and changing times such as these. When looking back a hundred years from now, I believe that we will see Obama helped "change" the role of the President as much outside of the White House as he intends to inside the White House.

Removing Minimum Wage...Just The Beginning

On the left-winged blog Daily Kos, I found an interesting blog written by Jed Lewison, aimed at the working class in America, particularly those on the lower end of the payroll. Lewison's blog was written this week about many Republican senate nominees expressing their interests in removing or lowering minimum wages in our country. He bases this off of recent remarks by GOP Senate nominee Joe Raese, from West Virginia, who promised to repeal the Fair Labor Standards Act,  which would remove the set minimum wage. When looking furthur into Mr. Raese's statements, he criticizes FDR's Labor Act, stating that it "didn't solve any problems then and it hasn't solved any problems in 50 years." Lewison claims that in their effort to abolish the minimum wage, they will literally remove any and all protection workers have, including key protections such as overtime. Lewison's evidential support is the quotes of these Republican nominees (including Linda McMahon and Chris Dudley) speaking out against minimum rate laws that are currently set.


I completely agree with Lewison's argument that the Republicans would be setting us back a century by changing these laws. While we are in a recession right now, we were also in one when FDR created the Fair Labor Act, and he is historically known for helping to pull our country out of that Depression. Therefore, Raese's claims that it didn't work or make an impact don't really have a leg to stand on. While Lewison has a valid argument that removing the Act all together would be a GIANT step back for our country, he also failed to expand further on some of the GOP nominee's plans of not completely eliminating it, but to simply modify it. So I think that his logic is sound, if based simply off of Mr. Raese's ideas and statements, but not sound for grouping all the GOP senate nominees together.