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Meet Tom Krieglstein, First Person In Line For Barack Obama's Chicago Rally

Posted 11/4/08 1:43 pm EST by in Barack-Obama, Campaign '08, Election, election 2008, Street Team


You gotta get up really early to make history. Or, in the case of 28-year-old Tom Krieglstein, stay up late. Hours before anyone else thought to line up for tonight's rally in Grant Park for Senator Barack Obama, the Wrigleyville, Chicago, native proudly took his place as the first person in the queue at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, a full 24 hours before the doors open for the event.

"It's history," he said, explaining why he showed up so early. "Having Obama as president is history, and that's why I wanted to be the first person in line." For two and a half hours, Krieglstein was the line, since his fiancée got sick and bailed on him. Then, around 10:00 p.m., a second person showed up. The #3 slot didn't get filled until early Tuesday morning. Read More...

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Diddy Works The Crowd At Manhattan Polling Station

Posted 11/4/08 12:43 pm EST by in Campaign '08, Diddy, election 2008, Election Night, Street Team


Diddy votesBy Akshay Bhansali

OK, OK. The lines may be a bit of a pain as you queue up to cast your vote for the next president of the United States today. But if his Diddyness can muster up the spirit, so can you! And let's see you try to do it with 10 cameras following you.

Well, perhaps his trip was a bit expedited. In fact, once Sean Combs entered the Coalition School for Social Change, his polling station in Midtown Manhattan, his visit to the voting booth probably clocked in at around eight minutes. And during those eight minutes, Diddy did what he does best: electrify the room. Sullen, drowsy would-be voters were jolted awake. Frowns and droopy eyes were quickly replaced with smiles, hugs and flash photography. Combs was cordial and friendly as many, including an 80-year-old fellow marathon-runner, struck up conversation with the entertainment titan. Read More...

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Jay-Z, Diddy, Other Celebs Asked To Stay Away From Obama Rally

Posted 11/4/08 11:18 am EST by in Barack-Obama, Campaign '08, Election Night


The Obama campaign has reportedly asked some of his famous supporters stay away from his rally Tuesday night in Chicago's Grant Park, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Although the campaign is reportedly grateful for the high-profile support, several prominent celebs have reportedly been asked "politely but very firmly" to skip the rally and focus on attending the Obama inauguration in January, should that occur.

An Obama insider reportedly told the newspaper's Bill Zwecker that Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Ben Affleck were among those asked to stay away from tonight's festivities.
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Sway Says No Interview Has Topped His Campaign-Trail Talks With Barack Obama

Posted 11/3/08 8:42 pm EST by in Barack-Obama, Campaign '08


Last time I spoke with Senator Barack Obama in Greensboro, North Carolina, right after the first presidential debate, I wrote afterward that it felt like I was talking to an "everyday citizen."

Now that I've talked to him again, this time just outside Las Vegas, I believe that's even more true. He comes off like a regular person — a regular person who just so happens to be running for president.

And that's what makes it so, well ... it's hard to put into words.

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McCain Campaign Gets Knocked Down By '80s Rockers Survivor

Posted 10/15/08 11:59 am EST by in Campaign '08, Election, election 2008, Election Night


We've more than exhausted our allotment of boxing metaphors to describe the presidential campaign. But here goes one more: Whoever is in charge of picking the music played at Republican candidate Senator John McCain's rallies is either punch-drunk or down for the count.

You'd think after getting smacked down by the Foo Fighters, John Mellencamp, Heart and Jackson Browne (who actually filed suit against McCain for using "Running on Empty" in an ad broadcast in Ohio) that someone, anyone, in the McCain camp would vet song choices at least as thoroughly as they vetted vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin (OK, maybe that's a bad example).

But in the latest song snafu, the guitarist for '80s rockers Survivor has asked the McCain/Palin campaign to stop using their "Rocky III" anthem "Eye of the Tiger" at events, according to a post on the band's official Web site.
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The VP Debate: Who Do You Think Won? Seriously, We Want To Know

Posted 10/3/08 11:46 am EST by in Campaign '08


He won. She totally won. At least she didn't fall on her face. Thank God he kept it brief. Does anyone really buy all this "betcha, gosh, golly wow, Joe Six-pack" crap? What was that dude even talking about? It's kind of hard to fail when the bar is set below the bar. Is winking a debate tactic? What about crying? Does it count as an answer if you don't really answer the question and just talk about whatever you want to talk about? Do vice-presidential debates even matter? Is anyone seriously going to be swayed by either of these two?

Those are just some of the rants, raves and rhetorical questions that came up in the MTV News editorial meeting on Friday morning following Thursday night's vice-presidential debate between Republican Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Democratic Senator Joe Biden. Except for the copious cursing, it was probably not unlike a million other conversations that took place at those now famous Average Joe and Jane Six-pack breakfast tables all across the country.
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Lindsay Lohan Calls Out Sarah Palin For Homophobia

Posted 9/15/08 12:32 pm EST by in Campaign '08, Lindsay Lohan


You can have your Jon Stewarts, your Chris Matthewses and your Frank Riches. But when I want some serious, hard-hitting political commentary on Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, I go to the same source I went to last week for wisdom on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks: Lindsay Lohan's MySpace blog.

Joining a chorus of celebrity critics that already includes Matt Damon and Margaret Cho, Lohan took to her blog on Sunday to lay into the Alaska governor for her views on abortion and homosexuality, not to mention for posing for the cover of celebrity rags when she's, like, not even a real celebrity.

"I really cannot bite my tongue anymore when it comes to Sarah Palin," Lohan wrote. "Is it a sin to be gay? Should it be a sin to be straight? Or to use birth control? Or to have sex before marriage? Or even to have a child out of wedlock? ... I find it quite interesting that a woman who now is running to be second in command of the United States only four years ago had aspirations to be a television anchor. Which is probably all she is qualified to be."
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Barack Obama Is Not A 'Rock Star'

Posted 9/5/08 7:33 pm EST by in Barack-Obama, Campaign '08


Barack ObamaDear Everyone Who Has Inexplicably Co-Opted the Phrase "Rock Star":

Please give it back. Seriously, it's not funny anymore. Really, I'm not writing this to be snarky or make fun of shut-ins still clinging to their prepubescent glory days (this isn't another "open letter to New Kids on the Block Fans," after all). I'm doing it because I care. And because I can still remember a time when "Rock Star" wasn't a catch-all term used to describe junior senators from Illinois and governors from Alaska. It was a state of mind, a way of life, a swearing, swaggering, strutting thing, one that wanted to sleep with you (or your sister), steal all your drugs and then get into a fight with a bouncer. You could point at someone and go "now that guy — the one with the bottle of Jack, the leather pants and the sh--ty attitude — THAT'S a Rock Star."

Now? Not so much. Over the past few weeks, I've seen the term used to describe the magnetic appeal of both Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (in pieces like this and this) and Republican VP nom Sarah Palin (here and here). While I certainly admire the political pundits (and basement-dwellers with a Blogspot account) of this great nation for trying to, you know, "rock the vote," I will most respectfully have to disagree with all of them.

More of James' argument, plus your chance to agree or disagree, after the jump!
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Live From The DNC 'Freedom Cage': Opera-Singing Blogger Serenades Cops

Posted 8/26/08 10:34 pm EST by in Campaign '08, Democratic National Convention


David Kravitz has no beef with the DNC. In fact, the rangy opera singer from Massachusetts was only in the officially designated protest zone (dubbed the “freedom cage” by protesters) on Tuesday afternoon to check it out and snap a few photos.

Luckily for him, like at the Tent State University site across town, there was plenty of space. In fact, the soccer-field-size, heavily fortified parking lot with barely a glimpse of the Pepsi Center in the distance was empty except for a fellow blogger from Kravitz’s bluemassgroup.com site and a local Denver college couple who were also hoping to see some real live protestation.

So Kravitz did what any opera singer worth his salt with an open stage and a public address system at his disposal would do — he belted out a powerful rendition of “God Bless America” as one of the shock-troop-looking cops took some personal video and gave him a round of applause. The dozen heavily fortified officers on the other side of the impenetrable fence near the cop joined in on the applause, happy to have any action in the zone, which they said has been a virtual ghost town since it opened two days earlier.

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Tent State University Protest — A Few Miles From The DNC — Hasn't Drawn Too Many Students

Posted 8/26/08 6:48 pm EST by in Campaign '08, Democratic National Convention


Tent State University
Organizers predicted tens of thousands would flood Cuernavaca Park in downtown Denver as part of the Tent State University anti-war protests going on all this week during the Democratic National Convention.

Maybe they were taking a walk when we stopped by today, but just a day before Rage Against the Machine are scheduled to headline a show in support of the protest, the scene at the far-flung park — several miles from the Pepsi Center — was more like a Sunday picnic with your mellowed-out buds than a 1960s-style revolutionary effort to disrupt the Dems' party. Local media had reported some clashes between anti-war protesters and other anarchist groups since Sunday, including an intense clash just blocks from the Pepsi Center last night, during which police used their pepper-ball rifles to disperse crowds near the 16th Street mall and later arrested 90 protesters.

More on the Tent State University protest plus photos after the jump.
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