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Ear to the Ground

Facebook Triumph for Colbert

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Posted on Oct 29, 2007
Colbert thumbs up
AP photo / Jason DeCrow

Yes, but is America ready for a president who wears mock turtlenecks?

Regardless of Americans’ varying opinions about Comedy Central court jester Stephen Colbert’s satirical (or is it?) play for the White House, one thing’s for sure—the man’s getting results.  While Barack Obama’s bid to build a loyal network of young’uns on Facebook grew slowly, Colbert’s followers almost crashed the ultra-popular site’s servers in mere days.


BBC:

After Colbert announced on 16 October that he would run, high-school student Raj Vachhani set up a group on Facebook called “1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T Colbert”.

The group was inspired by a similar movement in support of Democratic nomination hopeful Barack Obama, called “One Million Strong for Barack”.

While the group supporting Mr Obama took more than eight months to gain 380,000 members, Mr Vachhani’s group backing a candidate running in just one state has become one of the largest political groups on Facebook in less than two weeks.

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By The Village Idiot, October 31, 2007 at 3:23 pm Link to this comment

Quote: “I would like to believe that Colbert is smart enough to know that he could not handle the job of the Presidency. “

Why not? Because he lacks experience with foreign and domestic policy? Well, we’ve had plenty of “experienced” politicians in the last few administrations, and to me it appears experience is NOT an asset. Even I could’ve started the Iraq war and led it straight into the ground, or eviscerated long-standing environmental protections, or dropped the ball on children’s healthcare, and I’m just some random idiot…

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By Kevin James, October 31, 2007 at 12:33 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Funny!!....lets call the Iraqi citizens, the Palestinians along with the Afghanistan’s tormented population to join US in the laugh!!

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By Deborah, October 30, 2007 at 10:12 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I think every state should write Colbert in as President for real. And Stewart should be his vice.

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By Doug, October 30, 2007 at 6:44 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Every four years we get a comedian running for office. Frankly I’d rather be laughing at Pat Paulson. He was the first, at least for me, he was the best at pulling it off. Frankly I get a little tired of Colbert.

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By jerry, October 30, 2007 at 12:22 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

We should take Colbert (half) seriously.

What other choice do we (those of us who are outraged at Bush and elected a Democrat congress to stop him) have?  We are faced with leading Democrat candidates who support Bush and his war, plundering, corruption and violations of the Constitution.  Steve could be our “none of the above” candidate.

Colbert at least may try to solve our problems instead of promising us more war.

And we’ve seen other presidents and candidates who have been elected based on their show biz celebrity.  Ronald Reagan for example; surely Colbert’s appearances are more dignified and statesmanlike than those of Bonzo the chimp.

At least Colbert will not be easily intimidated and will stand up for his principles, whatever they are.  I’d be tempted to vote for him just based on his humiliation of Bush and the stuffed shirts at the national press club.

I hope he selects Jon Stewart as his running mate.

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By Kevin James, October 30, 2007 at 11:00 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I guess this is as good as any place to wonder why there was no coverage on the “War protests across America” last Saturday?! I understand the rest of the media but I thought here we care about things like that!

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By Stephen Smoliar, October 30, 2007 at 10:58 am Link to this comment

I would like to believe that Colbert is smart enough to know that he could not handle the job of the Presidency.  This is why I continue to believe that he is running his campaign as a “social experiment (and why, in the spirit of his levity, I felt it necessary to remind him that there are regulations concerning performing experiments on human subjects):

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2007/10/who-is-stephen-colbert.html

I would even go so far as to say that he has a hypothesis that he is testing with his experiment:  The more downright stupid things you say, the better your chance of rising in the polls and possibly getting elected.  His joke about running in both primary parties in order to lose twice was an initial probe in the spirit of this hypothesis.  His more recent attack on Georgia was far more explicit (although, as I observed on my own blog, it has its roots in a “classic” bit of humor):

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2007/10/strong-words-in-south-carolina.html

Then there was his attack on John Edwards.  The Edwards staff decided not to treat this one as a joke but (in my opinion, at least) pulled off a good move in preparing a reply that had its own element of wit.  Then again, giving Edwards the opportunity to play Toto and sniff out the man behind the curtain may be just what the guy needs to draw more attention from the electorate.  Now, if it turns out that Colbert has DELIBERATELY set himself up to be “exposed” by Edwards in order to improve Edwards’ standing in the polls, then he may well be smart enough to be dangerous!

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By Louise, October 30, 2007 at 10:34 am Link to this comment

Once upon a time, and many years ago, when I was in High School. On a dare, we persuaded the school “nerd” to run for student body president. Of course we were ridiculing him, but we didn’t let him know that. Mean I know, but kids can be mean.

We campaigned long and hard for him. Daily getting chuckles, everybody jumped on the elevate the “nerd” bandwagon.

Anyway, you probably know how the story ends.

He won! And through the experience, gained the respect and self-respect he had never had. [Which had made him such a nerd in the first place] He went on to work his way through college, much to the surprise of everyone, [especially his parents] and eventually became a very successful attorney.

Now, should we take credit for his success? No, of course not. Maybe we just jump-started his idle battery.

In any case, his story reminds me the impossible and improbable can happen.

I doubt Colbert really wants to be president, but stranger things have happened. I mean, we have a laugh a minute guy in the White House now. Wouldn’t it be fun and refreshing if we had a “real” comedian running things? Someone we could laugh with instead of at.

Or as WykydRed (#110430) so succinctly put it ...

“It is definitely sending a message to politicians. We’re done with the bullshit. You can tell because we’re signing on with ...
a REAL bullshitter!”

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By Douglas Chalmers, October 30, 2007 at 4:24 am Link to this comment

So, that means that he is a “white man” to the Democrats and an intelligent (white male) alternative for the Republicans, uhh?!?!

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By WykydRed, October 30, 2007 at 4:02 am Link to this comment

I went over to join and had to stand in line! It was great. There’s a running, hourly tally of people joining. It is definitely sending a message to politicians. We’re done with the bullshit. You can tell because we’re signing on with ... a REAL bullshitter!

And BIG kudos to Raj! He moved. And the world moved with him.

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By Douglas Chalmers, October 30, 2007 at 2:13 am Link to this comment

“Colbert says he will run for president in his home state - South Carolina - as both a Democrat and a Republican….”

Cool…..!!!

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