Personal Democracy Plus Our premium content network. LEARN MORE You are not logged in. LOG IN NOW >

Favorite Videos of the Week: Los Candidatos en Puerto Rico

BY Joshua Levy | Friday, May 30 2008

This Sunday is the Puerto Rico Primary, and the Democratic candidates are doing their best to show their inner Puerto Rican-ness by dancing in the streets, drinking the local beer, and speaking accented Spanish. We’ll see how they fare on Sunday. Also, a curious Memorial Day message from John McCain and a glimpse at Hillary Clinton’s early life in elementary school.

6. Podemos Con Obama

Going after the Puerto Rican vote this Sunday and the Latino vote in the general, music producer Andres Levin produced this “Yes We Can”-style video featuring a slate of Latin music stars. The clip of Jessica Alba is taken from Will.i.am’s “We Are The Ones. Is that cheating? Like “Yes We Can,” this video is featured on Will.i.am’s DipDive site, and has been viewed about 15,000 times on YouTube.

5. Hillary Clinton Dancing in Puerto Rico

When in San Juan… Campaigning in Puerto Rico, Hillary grabs a beer (“It’s good. It’s very good”) and shows off some moves. At about 23 seconds in, she closes her eyes and briefly goes into herself, perhaps dreaming of a time after June 3 when she can catch some shut-eye. About 20,000 views on YouTube.

4. Barack Obama in Puerto Rico

Obama shows that two can play the dancing game, showing off his improvised moves on the streets of Puerto Rico. About 3,600 views on YouTube.

3. PR “Mensaje a Puerto Rico” Ad

Also in time for this Sunday’s Puerto Rico primary, Barack does a TV ad entirely in Spanish, and doesn’t mangle things too badly. About 1,700 views YouTube.

2. Web Ad: Memorial Day

John McCain has a different message for Memorial Day: “Let’s — from time to time — remember that [immigrants] are God’s children.” The video was taken from a Republican debate from last year, and anti-immigration crusader Tom Tancredo looms in one shot. Needless to say, McCain’s “soft” stance on immigration is a hard sell to much of the GOP base. About 3,400 views on YouTube.

1. Meet Young Hillary Clinton

Produced by YouTube video makers 60frames, Young Hillary Clinton picks up on the Hillary-was-always-like-this theme first expressed in Slate’s classic parody of Election from earlier this year. Clearly, politics isn’t high school; it’s elementary school. More than 30,000 views on YouTube, though the video is also featured on Funny Or Die.

News Briefs

RSS Feed yesterday >

"Power Politics in the Age of Google"

TechPresident's editorial director, Micah Sifry, will be speaking this afternoon on a panel at Harvard University called "Power Politics in the Age of Google," alongside Susan Crawford, Nicco Mele, Elaine Kamarck and Alexis Ohanian. The panel will be moderated by Harvard Shorenstein Center Director Alex Jones, and will be live-streamed here. GO

House Republicans Get a Jump on the Budget

Via Politico's Mike Allen, the House Republicans are out with a video — this one attributed to Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy — getting the drop on President Barack Obama's next federal budget, expected Monday. GO

Mittbucks.com Lets Voters Compare Their Paychecks With Romney's

What would it take for Mitt Romney to be able to relate to the average American's daily economic life? He'd have to pay $1,208.09 for a gallon of gas, according to Mittbucks.com, a web site recently created by Adam Rosenscruggs and his wife Danielle in Washington, D.C. The eye-popping figure results from an annual income that I plugged in ... GO

What Twitter Won't Tell You About the Election

A new study released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on Tuesday offers the opportunity to get real about what the political conversation on Twitter and Facebook can — or can't — tell you about the progression of the 2012 political campaign. Pew has found that even among users of Twitter and Facebook, a paltry percentage of people use social networks to get news about politics: Only 24 percent of Twitter users in the sample and 25 percent of Facebook users said they "sometimes" got campaign news through that network, while a full 40 percent of Twitter users in the sample and 46 percent of other social media users reported "never" getting campaign news through either Twitter or Facebook. GO

Navigating New York's "Road Map for the Digital City," One Year In

In May 2011, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg revealed a "Road Map for the Digital City," a plan to use technology to make city government more and participatory, and to leverage the city's tech sector for economic and civic gains.

New York City Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne will join our editorial director, Micah Sifry, on a conference call this Friday afternoon to discuss the progress on that road map so far. The call is free and open to anyone to join. You can sign up here.

GO

tuesday >

Pete Hoekstra's Campaign Website's "Offensive" Source Code Changed After Outcry

As if "chop suey fonts" and obvious graphic allusions to the stereotype of the Chinese as the Yellow Peril weren't controversial enough, the group that created an incendiary microsite for former Rep. Pete Hoekstra's campaign has managed to further fan the flames with what it's calling a mistake in its code. GO

Fidel Castro Loves the Internet

“The Internet is a revolutionary instrument that permits the receiving and transmission of ideas, in both directions, that is something we should know how to use,” Fidel Castro told a crowd of supporters on Feb. 4, according to the state-owned Cuban newspaper Granma International. Castro, who made his first public appearance since April 2011, launched his two-volume memoir, “Guerilla of Time,” and took the opportunity to discuss issues of importance to him. Earlier this week, Miranda Neubauer reported that one of these topics was the need for the Internet. Castro has been a proponent of the Internet as a tool for the exchange of ideas since 2003, but the average Cuban citizen faces great difficulty getting online. GO

Claire McCaskill Hires Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner As Digital Director

Missouri's senior Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has hired Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner as its digital director. GO

More