Politics

A big financial backer for Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign, Foster Friess, went on MSNBC today, started talking about sex, and then said “gals” in his time would put Bayer aspirin between their knees as a means of birth control. Seriously, I can’t.

And neither could Andrea Mitchell, who didn’t manage the next question she was reeling so from that blast of cuckoo.

Business Insider notes that, after some Googling, they couldn’t find any past connection between Bayer aspirin and birth control, though the company does make birth control pills.

The comment was followed by jokes on Twitter and the addition of Foster Friess to the list of trending topics on the social network this afternoon.

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Social media’s imprint on presidential election coverage continues to expand. As Jim Roberts, assistant managing editor at The New York Times, observed, “Social has profoundly impacted how journalists cover the election, how campaigns spin the news cycle and how the public consumes news. Social platforms have also amplified story lines and have become a conduit for news scoops.”

Ben Smith, editor-in-chief at BuzzFeed, added that with social media “Campaigns are competing with news organizations for readers’ attention.” And Amanda Zamora, national digital editor at The Washington Post, noted, “experimenting with new social platforms allows us to reach new audiences.”

Political reporters and editors from print, online, and television discussed benefits and drawbacks of using social media in 2012 presidential election coverage.  Roberts moderated the panel held during Social Media Week on Wednesday in New York. Twitter, described by Peter Hamby, political reporter at CNN, as “an invaluable resource,” was the main focus. Below are key takeaways.

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Rick Santorum has gotten a tremendous jolt after his wins in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota earlier this week. His presidential campaign raised $1 million twice this week. And supporters are becoming increasingly confident that he is a viable candidate.

After he got whomped, Mitt Romney came out with his guns blazing, aiming not just at Santorum, but Newt Gingrich and Republicans as a whole. With some time to reflect, he and his supporters are toning that down. But others are calling for him to ramp up his messaging in other ways.

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Democratic members of Congress including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) have launched a campaign that wants to channel the fervor generated by the backlash to Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s move against Planned Parenthood onto women’s rights.

“One Million Strong For Women” is a grassroots initiative that’s currently collecting email addresses on its own website and is being promoted on the sites of the participating Congress members. It’s not yet clear to us what the campaign will be doing specifically, but the site says, “We’ve got to build a grassroots force that’s ready to take them on whenever and wherever they attack women’s rights and women’s health.” “Them” are the opponents to women’s rights.

First up: Support for President Obama’s decision in favor of birth control coverage in insurance plans, which is coming under fire from Catholic leaders and lawmakers.

[via Huffington Post. That link will also take you to an interview with Karen Handel, who resigned from her post at SGK yesterday. Angry woman!]

To kick off Black History Month, President Barack Obama and his presidential reelection team has launched African American for Obama, a campaign that will go grassroots to build support for the President and, more importantly, encourage black voters to head to the voting booths in November.

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Hot on the heels of his win in last night’s Florida primaries, Mitt Romney went on CNN to say that he’s not concerned about the very poor. Oh what?!

Let’s try it again. Mitt Romney went on CNN and told Soledad O’Brien, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. There’s a safety net there, and if it needs repair I’ll fix it.” That still sounds kind of bad.

One more time. Romney told CNN that he’s not concerned about the very poor OR the very rich because his focus is on “middle income people.” In addition, we need to get poor people into the middle class. You’re a millionaire robot that doesn’t care about people who have no money and are hanging on to raggedy safety nets. Boo!

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While two Megaupload executives have been bailed out of jail in New Zealand on Internet piracy charges filed in the U.S., Sandvine has released figures on how the shutdown of Megaupload affected other networks worldwide.

Sandvine says with all the attention on Internet regulation, a number of competing sites have either decided to shut themselves down, or dramatically alter the way files are uploaded or downloaded from their servers.

For example, FileSonic has halted any new uploads and is only allowing users to download their personal files.

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The President is on the Internets again. This time, he’s doing a Google+ Hangout, answering questions during a live Q&A next Monday, January 30 at 5:30 ET. Questions will come from YouTube users and can be submitted here.

While the President has been an active social media user for the purposes of these sorts of Q&A sessions, GOP candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have actually done hangouts before Obama.

Obama joined Google+ in November. The White House announced it had joined Google+ on Friday.

Separately, senior advisors to the White House will be available after tomorrow’s State of the Union address to answer questions about the speech on Twitter, Facebook, and at live tweet ups. Experts will be available to answer questions on Twitter on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. More info about those events here.

[via Mashable]

Newt Gingrich should save his outrage for some of his own offensive comments, but here we go.

In a Nightline interview, Gingrich’s second wife Marianne says that Newt wanted an “open marriage” so he could be married to her and date Callista, who is now married to the GOP presidential candidate. Newt and Marianne were divorced after she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

So at last night’s South Carolina debate, when CNN reporter and debate moderator John King asked him for a response to the allegations, he went off on King and the “news media.” The other night, we went to Mediabistro’s “Meet the Teachers” event where one of the attendees talked about being prepared for an “unexpected” question. It sounds to us like Gingrich had some rehearsed anger here, making sure to deflect attention away from the issue (though he said the story was false) and onto distaste for the “elite” news media.

“It’s as close to despicable as anything he can imagine,” he says. He was “appalled” and “astounded.” How’s about you give us all a break Newt Gingrich?

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Michelle Obama is tweeting. Actually it’s the President’s campaign staff that will be doing most of the tweeting. But any posts with the “-mo” attached will come directly from the First Lady. This is the similar policy for the President’s account.

The President introduced Michelle to the Twitterverse this morning (so cute, these two!), and the account will serve as a way to connect to voters and Obama supporters. Her Twitter handle has launched in the wake of discussion surrounding the new book The Obamas, which, based on media accounts, seems to focus quite a bit on the First Lady. Michelle Obama made an appearance yesterday on GMA to talk about her image.

“I just try to be me, and my hope is that over time people get to know me, and they get to judge me for me,” she said.

[via TheWrap, Washington Post, New York Times]