The three main objectives of the Demand a Plan campaign are:

1. Require a criminal background check for every gun sold in America
2. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines
3. Make gun trafficking a federal crime, including real penalties for “straw purchasers”

Like most modern advocacy campaigns, this one gets creative with social media:

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PRNewser spoke with Jessica Kantor, livestream’s head of marketing and content, at November’s Digital Hollywood conference and met recently with Kantor and her colleague, Sam Kimball, EVP of advertising and brand sales, at Livestream’s New York office (left) and here. Below are highlights of our conversation on the Livestream model.

Elements of Livestream’s successful equation include:

1. Brand snapshot and evolution: “To viewers, Livestream is entertainment and live TV”, Kantor explained. “Anyone in the world, both individuals and companies, can broadcast their events”, Kimball added. Viewers can also see past events by accessing Livestream’s online channels.

Adoption of Livestream during the past five years has been steady, but it wasn’t easy early on. “Event organizers may have been nervous at first, since nothing replaces being there in person”, Kantor said. “Livestream isn’t mainstream yet, though more people use it now.”

2. A myriad of usage occasions. Entertainment and music events are popular, and musicians often tape segments at Livestream’s studio as part of their press tours. Livestream is also available overseas, and “as long as an internet connection exists, you can go live”, Kantor noted. Livestream’s most remote customers without internet acces, such as SpaceX and the Volvo Ocean Race, need to rely on a satellite feed and proprietary equipment.

Political candidates frequently Livestreamed events this fall; Kantor said that Obama’s campaign used the service extensively. “The President’s dedicated video team made it a priority, including the final rally with Bruce Springsteen and Jay Z”. Another political customer is Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who Livestreams his press conferences. (They’re also entertaining, thanks to his sign language interpreter.)

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Sure, so many A-list celebrities have come out in support of President Obama that his list of endorsements is beginning to look like “an episode of Dancing with the Stars…with [actual] stars”, as Colbert so aptly put it. But Romney has the endorsement of a bonafide prophet (albeit a nut-gathering, tail-twitching prophet).

A squirrel in South Carolina correctly “predicted” the winner of the 2008 election by choosing to eat nuts out of a bowl featuring a picture of Obama, rather than McCain. This year, the hungry little critter preferred Romney nuts, putting to rest any and all speculation that Obama may win a second term in the Oval Office.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, sales of Halloween masks often mirror the popularity candidates enjoy with the public and hint at the ultimate winner of presidential elections. Spirit Halloween, one of the largest costume retailers in the U.S., says that the Obama mask is leading with 64% of the retailer’s nationwide mask sales.

Spirit Halloween’s “Presidential Index” based on mask sales has accurately predicted election winners since way back in the glory days of 1996. Nothing about this survey is scientific, of course, but PR experts know that our business has as much to do with timing and circumstance as psychology and hard science.

PR professionals are trained to extrapolate meaning and patterns from even the quirkiest of correlations and relationships. This type of data is our Mars Rover, and seeing human behavior in a new and revealing way for the first time is our ancient Martian streambed. In other words, this is PR geek stuff. continued…

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We recently told you about the president’s foray into home brewing, but now it seems that this historical and popular (not to mention delicious) hobby could potentially make a difference in the swing state of Colorado.

Obama visited Golden, CO this past week. Golden is the home of Coors Brewing Company, where beer is more than just a drink–it’s a culture. In fact, Colorado’s front range has been called the Napa Valley of Beer thanks to a local beer festival, a multitude of brew pubs, and a beer-making-club called “Foam on the Range.” What’s more, Colorado has more members in the American Homebrewers Association than any other state in the union.

And Colorado isn’t the only place home-brewing is popular; while the centennial state may have the highest concentration of members, membership in the American Homebrewers Association jumped 26 percent just last year.

We can see why Obama wants to talk beer and homebrewing in Colorado: It’s one of those “swing states” you hear about so much, and the President certainly would like to call its nine electoral votes his own.

One last note: Were you wondering what might be in Obama’s politically potent presidential home brew? Funny you should ask! continued…

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Earlier this week, in an effort to use Twitter to further the message that Romney can succeed where the president has failed, the GOP used the social network’s promoted hashtag service to purchase #areyoubetteroff, and is paying $120,000 per day for the privilege. Not a bad investment really, assuming that once the hashtag was out in cyberspace and no longer in the hands of the GOP, people decided to use it the way the republicans were expecting (by answering with a resounding, “No! We are not better off! Romney for president!”). But unfortunately for Romney, the Twitterverse had an overwhelmingly different response.

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Cars once symbolized freedom, rebellion and adventure, and the open road reached out to all of us: rebellious teenagers, vacationing suburban families, slick hot rod enthusiasts, rootless counter-culture drifters and middle-aged husbands alike.

Then things changed.

The Ford Mustang, the classic Cadillac and macho GTO took a back seat to more energy-efficient cars made by employees living on the other side of the planet. Foreign-built cars were more reliable, less expensive and–most importantly–got better gas mileage. The American automobile industry has never been the same. continued…

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No word on whether the intern/PR rep/spambot who usually mans the feed will ever get his or her moment in the sun.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

A still from yesterday's event. From left: Mike Allen, Karen Hughes, Don Baer, and Pat Mitchell

During the Paley Center for Media’s International Council forum on digital media and politics in New York on Wednesday, Mike Allen, chief political correspondent for Politico, discussed the current explosion of media coverage.

“Now there is no place that everyone automatically goes for news. In the new world, all media outlets face the nightclub conundrum – when they’re hot, everyone goes there. Politico needs to make sure we don’t end up like Studio 54,” he said.

The panel was moderated by Pat Mitchell, president and CEO of the Paley Center for Media, and the other panelists included Don Baer and Karen Hughes, both worldwide vice chairs at Burson-Marsteller and former presidential communications advisers, for Clinton and Bush respectively.

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Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House

Politico quotes the following excerpt from the book:

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