Taking a cue from Jason Kottke, I’m compiling my list of cities and towns that I’ve visited in 2007. The rules are you must spend one or more nights in each place so I can’t count day trips to places like El Paso, TX,  Santa Rosa, CA or Rochester, NY. The cities in italics were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.

• New York City, NY
• San Francisco, CA
• Laguna Beach, CA
• Las Cruces, NM
• Arcata, CA
• Miami, FL
• Washington DC
• Chicago, IL
• Barcelona, Spain
• Dublin, Ireland
• Boston, MA
• Carmel Valley, CA
• Rincón, PR
• Greenport, NY

You might find not coincidental that there is a lot of overlap with this list.

I was checking my Gmail account today when a little text ad appeared on the top of the page:

I rarely click through on ads that I see, text or banners, but for some reason this one caught my attention, so I clicked through to see a site that is selling two children’s books, one titled Why Mommy is a Democrat and one titled Why Daddy is a Democrat.

Here is an example of one of the pages from the books:

I guess I’m a skeptic at heart, but when I first took a look at the site I thought surely it must be some Republican joke targeted at Democrats, like those books that explain why Mommy or Daddy is gay. But apparently these are simply children’s books about being part of the Democratic Party.

I still think it is weird that we need books that explain politics in this way to children (and it definitely reeks a bit of discomforting propaganda - it assumes a universal underdog stigma is attached to being a Democrat, something I’d expect more of someone writing a children’s book about the Green Party, for example), but I definitely give props to the author for his creative use of Google AdSense. I clicked through.

In advertising, we often make distinctions between “traditional” and “interactive” advertising. While I dislike these terms, and often use air-quotes in my own conversations about “traditional” advertising, I also realize that the two are often different beasts. Sean from two forty eight put together a deck about how traditional agencies need to wake up and embrace digital coffee. Or something like that. The deck is a bit hard to read (fonts are small) but his points are valid to anyone who is trying to invoke change at a traditional shop.

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2008 will certainly be a big year for politics in the US, and potentially will include one of the most important elections we’ve seen in a long while. Everyone is wondering just how powerful of a role the Internet will play in this election, and how much in advertising dollars will be spent online to back politicians. And all the major networks and online players are starting to get involved as well, from YouTube/CNN debates to Yahoo/Huffington Post/Slate Debates to now ABCNews Facebook’s debates that will be airing live on TV and online this weekend. A couple things seem striking to me about all of this:

• Suddenly people have realized that these network hosted debates are exclusionary. Ron Paul has been left out of the Fox debate this Sunday and candidates are also excluded from ABCNews/Facebook debates as well. This makes sense from an executional POV, as certainly it is difficult to host a meaningful debate with an unwieldy number of potential candidates, but it also is notable because the Iowa Caucus hasn’t even started tonight, and already, candidates with low polls (i.e. no votes have been cast yet) are getting pushed out of the race. Meaning - do networks influence the political outcome? Which, leads to my next point,
• What does it mean when networks are each keen on creating their own separate debates? Does this help or hinder the democratic process? What criteria is determined for inclusion or exclusion in a debate? Hopefully the networks will be transparent in their selection criteria for inclusion/exclusion in debates. These debates can be used for entertainment and education, but networks must surely also understand the social responsibility of holding such debates.
• I find it interesting that many of the networks are creating alliances with online giants. These partnerships are undeniably mutually beneficial, but they are also fascinating from an outsider’s POV. What made Google hook up with CNN, and Yahoo with Huffington Post/Slate and ABC with Facebook?
•  I’m curious to see if political coverage is more intense this year, especially with the writer’s strike still dragging on, and the networks’ need for more prime-time content.