The presumably well-hydrated junior Senator  received good marks for the blitz, which some see as a risky gambit given the Beltway’s distaste for anything truely bipartisan. We see it as a fete of messaging, logistics and negotiation to get the job done, though it is questionable how much of a difference it makes to do seven shows instead of one or two. That’s perception, yo and the there’s the GOP’s problem regarding latino voters in swing states to contend with. A recent survey found the bloc more likely to vote Republican if a bill goes through.

You can watch the highlights in 3 minutes courtesy of The Fix:

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The big reveal is a TL;DR profile in this coming weekend’s New York Times magazine in which Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin review the painful details of the fallout and his plans for a new beginning in which he will rise from the ashes like a triumphant phoenix in boxer-briefs. It seems that Weiner entertains fantasies of running for mayor of New York City next year along with everyone else who lives in the greater metropolitan area.

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Colbert isn’t just a genius when it comes to self-promotion: he knows how to win attention for other people, too. On last night’s show he didn’t just advise Clinton to start tweeting — he had an account ready!

Fast Company calls this a “giant guerilla marketing stunt”. 83,000 followers on the strength of a single tweet? We might just have to agree. Somebody name this man Pope already! (Not really.)

Just spent amazing time with Colbert!Is he sane? He is cool! #cgiu

— Billy Jeff Clinton (@PrezBillyJeff) April 6, 2013

Oh, and the feed’s bio reads: “I am President William Jefferson Billy Jeff Rodham Clinton. Stephen Colbert is my BFF.” We greatly admire Colbert’s unparalleled ability to make everything all about himself, but most importantly we hope that @PrezBillyJeff follows our 7 hashtag strategy tips. If a tweet falls in the forest…

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The Human Rights Campaign’s drive for marriage equality has taken social media by storm as the Supreme Court hears arguments in the Proposition 8 case. The social campaign launched around 1 p.m. EST Monday afternoon, when the organization changed its Facebook profile picture to the logo at left.

So what was this all about? “Red is a symbol for love, and that’s what marriage is all about,” HRC spokesperson Charlie Joughin told MSNBC.com on Tuesday. “We wanted to give people an opportunity to show their support for marriage equality in a public and visible way.”

Even if you failed to log into Facebook, celebrities and politicians alike made sure their Twitter followers knew all about the campaign:

Use this photo for your profile pics this week in support of marriage equality during these very… instagram.com/p/XVCe0XRsXT/

— Lance Bass (@LanceBass) March 26, 2013

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We were fascinated by today’s Christian Science Monitor profile of the man Kim Jong-un hired to perform public relations duties for the People’s Republic of North Korea. That still-mysterious country is one of the few things on the planet Earth that remains less popular than the Kardashian family.

His name is Alejandro Cao de Benós, he’s a Spanish man with “aristocratic roots”, and his official blog features a lot of stories about “Corea del Norte”. What else? He appears to have been an enthusiastic North Korean sympathizer for some time, and as the only non-Korean employee of the nation’s foreign ministry, it’s his job to travel around the world, speak to various media outlets and try (in vain) to convince people that Kim Jong-un isn’t as bad as we all seem to think he is. Cao de Benós’s only real messaging strategy is to insist that “everything you’ve heard is a lie” and that every supposedly bad thing North Korea does is in direct response to an aggressive action from the West (aka America).

Oof.

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Though marijuana remains illegal under federal law, Colorado and Washington both legalized it for recreational use in November — and Maryland looks likely to follow. Much of the public believes that the legality of marijuana is inevitable — and because we live in a “representative democracy”, there is a chance that policy changes will (gradually) mirror the public’s evolving attitudes.

We also live in a capitalistic society, so everyone from investors and purveyors to distributors and consumers envisions an emerging multi-billion dollar industry as weed goes mainstream. The process will be contentious: Americans have always had a complicated relationship with our vices (just as individuals do), and we will have to find an uneasy middle ground between personal freedom and national/economic interests regarding the green stuff just like we did during the 1933 repeal of prohibition and the push for modern tobacco regulations.

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In an effort to boost revenue for New Jersey school districts, Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill into law in January that would allow advertisements on school buses. Half of all revenue generated will be used by to offset transportation costs, while the other half will be spent at the discretion of the Board of Education. The bill’s sponsors called it “an easy way for schools to generate additional revenue to help keep programs running.”

While ads promoting alcohol, tobacco, and political advocacy are prohibited and the ads are technically targeted to passing motorists (not the kids themselves), the whole idea of monetizing school buses doesn’t sit well with everyone. And one town’s proposal to allow ads at the school track and sell naming rights to libraries, cafeterias and classrooms has some up in arms. An editorial published on nj.com voices concerns about the messages such ads might send to children:

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As expected, former VP Xi Jinping officially assumed the presidency after receiving a ridiculous 99.8% of the vote in The People’s Congress. Xi posed as a reformer, and his primary goal is to convince the growing number of Chinese citizens who aren’t happy with their government that his administration is more concerned with improving quality of life than lining its own pockets.

In order to do this, he’s taking some steps right out of the political PR playbook that will look familiar to anyone who has suffered through an American presidential campaign.

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Unlike another Obama speechwriter named Jon (Lovett), who left to co-create the flailing NBC sitcom 1600 Penn, Favreau will be a real-life journalist! Here’s Beast publisher Tina Brown‘s note:

I am thrilled to announce that President Obama’s former director of speechwriting Jon Favreau is joining The Daily Beast as a bi-weekly columnist. It’s wonderful to have his combination of writing talent and sophisticated insight as commentary on the political scene.

Says Jon, “I’m excited to join the talented variety of writers and political observers who contribute to The Daily Beast, and hope I can add a new perspective from time to time based on the experiences I’ve had over the last several years.”

Please join me in welcoming him to The Daily Beast!

Best,
Tina

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Today the VP’s office issued an official apology for “bullying” (not our word of choice) a student reporter at a press event. In summary: Biden, attorney general Eric Holder and Maryland Senator Ben Cardin called a press conference to announce a new domestic violence prevention initiative. A reporter for Capital Press, who also happens to be a student at the University of Maryland, accidentally sat in a section of the room that was not reserved for media and took photos of Biden as he spoke.

After the event, a member of Biden’s press staff spoke to the reporter and demanded to watch as he deleted the (supposedly) forbidden photos. Scandal!

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In addition to having a nice beard, Justin Herman runs social media at the U.S. General Services Administration’s Center for Excellence in Digital Government. This moniker may read as a joke to cynics, but Herman, like Booker, clearly believes that a more engaged government is a more effective and efficient government–and that politicians and administrators are mistaken if they see Twitter and Facebook as mere “announcement platform[s].”

Sound familiar?

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The incredibly named Judge Milton Tingling declared in his opinion that New York City is “permanently restrained from implementing or enforcing the new regulations”. Why? Because the ban’s official language was confusing and its “arbitrary and capricious consequences” difficult to enforce. According to the judge, “the loopholes in this rule effectively defeat the stated purpose of the rule”. Oh, and something about Big Brother getting too heavy for his britches…

“The Rule would not only violate the separation of powers doctrine, it would eviscerate it. Such an evisceration has the potential to be more troubling than sugar sweetened beverages.”

We’d like to think that those PSAs and protests and weird calls for racial equality had something to do with this decision, but they didn’t. Not at all. And now for a challenge: the first person to create a social media campaign for a major soda brand that makes light of Bloomberg’s crushing defeat without being too smug about it wins our respect for a lifetime. This might be hard!

We plan to appeal the sugary drinks decision as soon as possible, and we are confident the measure will ultimately be upheld.

— NYC Mayor’s Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) March 11, 2013

Oh, and by the way: remember when Bloomberg loved Snapple? Those were they days, weren’t they?

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No, really: Booker, who remains one of the world’s most popular politicians on Twitter, wasn’t suggesting that the South by Southwest attendees who gathered to hear him speak should produce reality TV shows or promote smartphones. But he did credit Kutcher with bringing him into the social media fold by introducing him to the land of 140 characters–and he implied that the most successful political leaders of the future will be those who follow him headfirst into the digital maelstrom by interacting with real-life people rather than just posting press statements and linking to complimentary op-eds.

See, it’s one thing for an elected representative to have an official account–they pretty much all do at this point. But Booker’s social voice is closer to that of, say, an “influencer” like Richard Branson than Vice President Joe Biden, whose feed consists of fairly rote announcements created by administration communications staffers.

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Now, champion of all things green and climate-related Al Gore is hoping to elicit the same can’t-look-away public reaction when it comes to not-so-pretty facts about global warming. Gore’s Climate Reality Project has hired Arnold Worldwide, one of the agencies behind “Truth,” to raise awareness about the dangers of climate change and challenge the “fake science” and half-truths being circulated.

Arnold has answered the call to action by creating a website/social media tool called “Reality Drop,” which finds climate news from all over the Web and compares it with the most relevant science. Articles displayed in red are said to contain myths and denier-science, while those displayed in green contain evidence that climate change is an undeniable scientific fact. Visitors to the site are encouraged to share the green articles on Facebook and Twitter, and also to “drop some reality” on the red articles by posting comments containing copy-and-pasted scientific facts provided on the Reality Drop website.

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We must bring balance to the Force. #Sequester #JediMindMeld twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…

— The White House (@whitehouse) March 1, 2013

Hey Oreo, looks like the folks in government know a thing or two about “real-time marketing”. And yes, the “mind meld” URL does link to a page detailing the President’s deficit reduction plan. The team may not have been as quick on the draw as Han Solo or the cookie guys, but they did paint their sci-fi critics as “a bunch of stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf herders.”

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