I think that would make a great campaign slogan for Colbert. "Colbert '08. Realer than Brownback". Read more about Colbert's presidential campaign here.
I TiVo Daily Show and Colbert Report regularly to watch, so I saw his announcement to run (and the pieces after that). I'm a bit torn. On one hand, our political process has grwon so ridiculous that I love what's he doing to puncture it. On the other hand, there's a lot of crazies out there who are way too attached to Colbert. Witness the voting to name the Hungarian bridge, repeated Wikipedia edits, and the $100K he raised for the Yellow Ribbon Fund through the sale of WristStrong bracelets and the auction of his wrist cast. I'm wary of the effect his campaign will have on the South Carolina primaries, since Colbert already notes that he hadn't been able to predict the success and audience interactions he's had with the show.
If you want to read something really interesting, check out the recent Vanity Fair interview. It's a rare out-of-character piece, and it convinces me even more that I would love to just have a beer with this guy and pick his brain sometime.
I think the true gift that Colbert may give to the race is for people to see what little difference there is between the absurd political rhetoric he uses and the absurd political rhetoric that the "real" candidates speak. When it starts to become painfully obvious that there is very little real difference, it might, might I said, force the candidates to begin offering substantive policy ideas.
Possibly, and possibly not. The scary thing--there are people out there who don't know the difference, and take him at face value! In the Vanity Fair interview, he talks about this a bit. At an appearance in DC this weekend, he spoke more in depth about an encounter with a man who complimented him on the piece he did on the Daily Show with the diverse Republican party--the man said he loved it, but didn't see the satire at all. Stephen tried to explain it, and the man replied, "Well, if you say so, but I loved it!"
I'm not a stalker, really. He's just getting a lot of press lately.
3 comments:
I TiVo Daily Show and Colbert Report regularly to watch, so I saw his announcement to run (and the pieces after that). I'm a bit torn. On one hand, our political process has grwon so ridiculous that I love what's he doing to puncture it. On the other hand, there's a lot of crazies out there who are way too attached to Colbert. Witness the voting to name the Hungarian bridge, repeated Wikipedia edits, and the $100K he raised for the Yellow Ribbon Fund through the sale of WristStrong bracelets and the auction of his wrist cast. I'm wary of the effect his campaign will have on the South Carolina primaries, since Colbert already notes that he hadn't been able to predict the success and audience interactions he's had with the show.
If you want to read something really interesting, check out the recent Vanity Fair interview. It's a rare out-of-character piece, and it convinces me even more that I would love to just have a beer with this guy and pick his brain sometime.
I think the true gift that Colbert may give to the race is for people to see what little difference there is between the absurd political rhetoric he uses and the absurd political rhetoric that the "real" candidates speak. When it starts to become painfully obvious that there is very little real difference, it might, might I said, force the candidates to begin offering substantive policy ideas.
Possibly, and possibly not. The scary thing--there are people out there who don't know the difference, and take him at face value! In the Vanity Fair interview, he talks about this a bit. At an appearance in DC this weekend, he spoke more in depth about an encounter with a man who complimented him on the piece he did on the Daily Show with the diverse Republican party--the man said he loved it, but didn't see the satire at all. Stephen tried to explain it, and the man replied, "Well, if you say so, but I loved it!"
I'm not a stalker, really. He's just getting a lot of press lately.
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