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TamCam: Governor John Sununu Confident Of 'Easy' Romney Victory In November

October 22, 2012 By Tammy Haddad

Romney supporter Governor John Sununu says the Romney campaign identified 15 critical states and “people are going to be surprised at how easy this victory is on November.”

Governor Sununu defended his relentless attacks on President Obama’s performance, “I know what a president can do and what a president can’t do, and all the problems I cited a president has a great deal of control.”

He promises the Huffington Post he will not to come back to Washington if Romney wins.


Filed Under: 2012 Election Tagged With: John Sununu, Presidential Debate, Tam Cam

Watch Tam Cam LIVE from the Presidential Debate

October 22, 2012 By WHC Insider

Tune in throughout the day and see what’s happening at Lynn University LIVE.   Tammy Haddad will be reporting and interviewing media and politicos who have gathered in Boca Raton, Florida.



Broadcasting live with Ustream

Filed Under: 2012 Election Tagged With: Presidential Debate, TamCam

TamCam with Frank Fahrenkopf at the Presidential Debate

October 22, 2012 By Tammy Haddad

As seen on the Huffington Post: Debate commission chair says ‘no applauding tonight.’

Filed Under: 2012 Election Tagged With: 2012 Presidential debate, Frank Fahrenkopf

First Ever Live “Smartphone Town Hall” During Tonight's VP Debate

October 11, 2012 By WHC Insider

Make sure you check out Huffington Post for the first smart phone polling of reaction to the Vice Presidential debate.

Read the full release and get ready for one of the greatest nights of this election season:

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

World’s most powerful smartphone insight tool teams with Huffington Post to gather live feedback to Vice Presidential Debate in first ever Live “Smartphone Town Hall.”

Chicago, IL – October, 2012 – As people watch political debates they’re thinking 2 things: the first is “What do I think of this?” The second (by a narrow margin) is “What did everyone think of what just happened!?!”

For the 2012 Vice Presidential Debate Thursday October 11th, Over the Shoulder® and the Huffington Post will answer that question in a revolutionary new way. The two have partnered to create the world’s first live “Smartp

hone- based Townhall” of over 1,000 debate watchers around the country. The“Town Hall’s” opinions on the unfolding debate will be immediately published onnumerous Huffington Post properties, during and immediately after the debate.

Debate-watchers who tune in, can now weigh in, LIVE, using Over the Shoulder (www.overtheshoulder.com) and the smartphones in their hands.

“Smartphone insight work like Over the Shoulder is one of the most promising growth areas for market research at the moment,” says Leonard F. Murphy, Editor-in-Chief, GreenBook & Senior Partner, Gen2 Advisors. “Forty- two percent (42%) of global researchers we surveyed plan to use some form of mobile-based research in 2012. That’s up from 22% who used it in 2011. Mobile Ethnography itself is projected to be used by 24% of the industry, up from only 10% in 2011.  That’s simply unprecedented adoption-rate growth.”

Murphy adds, “There’s a huge amount of excitement and interest in Digital Insight methodologies like Egg Strategy’s Over the Shoulder. It opens up the possibilities to get in-the-moment, in-the-situation insight that simply weren’t possible to access before. Over the Shoulder is the right product at the right time to capitalize on these trends.”

Filed Under: 2012 Election Tagged With: Vice Presidential Debate

DNC Forced To Change Plans But Keeps Spirits Alive

September 6, 2012 By WHC Insider

Although it’s no hurricane Isaac, the Democratic National Convention was forced to deny 50,000 eager supporters the chance to see President Barack Obama deliver his keynote address in person, due to the chance of severe weather today in Charlotte, North Carolina. The President addressed credential holders, many of whom were community organizers across the country, via a conference call earlier today and said “I regret that we’re not all gathering together in one place to deliver my acceptance speech tonight.” Instead, credential holders will attempt to gather at smaller community events to watch the speech on TV.

Commenting on the convention so far, President Obama said “we’ve had an unbelievable convention. Michelle — what can I say? I’m a little biased, but she was unbelievable. And yesterday President Clinton, who I think broke down the issues as effectively as anybody could; to hear from ordinary Americans who tell the story of their lives from veterans to businesspeople to workers; and to hear some of our great governors and members of Congress — I could not be prouder of the work that everybody has done. Mayor Castro from San Antonio is obviously just an incredible talent.”

MSNBC won convention ratings for the first time ever with it’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention – check out their recap of past Obama big speeches, just hours away from his address this evening:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Filed Under: 2012 Election Tagged With: Charlotte, Democrats, DNC, President Obama, Weather

RNC Schedule Modified for Isaac

August 27, 2012 By WHC Insider

As media and delegates filed into the Tampa this weekend, they not only prepared for hours of sessions, speeches, and events, but they braced for Isaac.  The tropical storm, now in the Gulf of Mexico and headed towards New Orleans caused the RNC to suspend their events today and instead shift gears on an already packed schedule Tuesday-Thursday.

James Davis, the RNC Communications Director told ABC News said they were “cautiously optimistic” about the rest of the week. They will continue to monitor the situation and hope that landfall doesn’t cause a destruction to rival that of hurricane Katrina in Gulf Coast.

Filed Under: 2012 Election

2012 Presidential Debates: Crowley and Raddatz Join Lehrer and Schieffer

August 13, 2012 By WHC Insider

Presidential elections are determined by a few important moments and most of those moments happen during presidential debates.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, where Janet Brown serves as Executive Director, and co-chairs Frank Fahrenkopf and Mike McCurry rule,  announced their slate of moderators for the 2012 debates.   You can bet both campaigns are already pulling tapes of their interviews and previous debate performances to prepare for this years.  A hat tip to Martha Raddatz who’s war coverage will be great preparation for her role in the Vice Presidential Debate between VP Joe Biden and the newly named running mate to Mitt Romney, Rep. Paul Ryan.  There will be several changes to format which you can read about in the official announcement here.

Fahrenkopf and McCurry quotes from the release, “The new formats chosen for this year’s debates are designed to focus big time blocks on major domestic and foreign topics.  These journalists bring extensive experience to the job of moderating, and understand the importance of using the expanded time periods to maximum benefit.  We are grateful for their willingness to moderate, and confident that the public will learn more about the candidates and the issues as a result.”

This year’s debates – for the first time – will be available LIVE on line.

Filed Under: 2012 Election Tagged With: Barack Obama, Bob Shieffer, Candy Crowley, Jim Lehrer, Martha Raddatz, Paul Ryan, Presidential Debates, Romney

Comedy Central Joins Election App War

March 29, 2012 By WHC Insider

For those who are fans of satirical commentary during the election season, Comedy Central allows you to join with like-minded folk and some of the top people in the news-as-comedy business with their new app.  The “Indecision Election Companion” has a live “Peanut Gallery” that allows you to vote on how a speaker or guest is doing and add your 2-cents during an on-air appearance.  There are also the popular “Snap Shots” that are constantly updated pictures of political figures with clever captions.  Like something so much it made you laugh?  You can of course share it with your friends via social networks Facebook and Twitter.
In the battle for space in election coverage, Comedy Central has become popular with show hosts like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert using campaigns as comedy fodder.  2012 will prove to be no exception, and the Indecision team is giving people a chance to chuckle while on the go.
Check out the review from Mashable and download the free app here.

Filed Under: 2012 Election Tagged With: Apps, Colbert, Comedy Central, iOS, Jon Stewart

Will Current TV Anchor Olbermann Return on Tuesday?

January 8, 2012 By Tammy Haddad

Dear David Carr,  Only you could have such great reporting on Keith Olbermann’s battle with Current TV on production matters that make all the difference between success and failure in television not just on election night.

Here is Mr. Carr’s column from Monday’s New York Times:

When I saw the story last week about Keith Olbermann and Current TV lawyering up, I couldn’t help thinking, My, that was quick.

It was just six months ago that I wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine about the well-traveled anchor’s bold new partnership with Current TV, the low-rated liberal cable channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore.

I wondered how Current TV and the hot-headed Mr. Olbermann would get along, but back then, it was all hugs and hopeful rhetoric. At a Yankees game I attended with Mr. Olbermann, he said he was looking forward to working at a place where he would hold the title of chief news officer and where the corporate meddling would be at a minimum. Mr. Gore was similarly upbeat in a phone conversation for the article.

“Yes, he is a piece of work in all that that implies, but I have read all kinds of things about him and the Keith Olbermann I know is a good friend, extremely intelligent and uniformly positive,” Mr. Gore told me, adding, “The relationship is way more textured than owners and an employee. We are partners and friends, and this will be the first time that he has been an equity participant and co-owner of a channel that he works at.”

That didn’t seem to count for much on Tuesday night when Mr. Gore found himself participating in Current TV’s coverage of the Iowa caucuses while Mr. Olbermann was nowhere in sight. Without the star power of Mr. Olbermann and the trappings of a well-financed news outfit, the former vice president looked as if he were trapped in the studio of a midsize public access station.

Meanwhile, Mr. Olbermann refused to participate in any programming outside the parameters of his regularly scheduled “Countdown,” a show where he has all but taken himself hostage by broadcasting against a black backdrop. The motif scans as a running protest against the technical problems at the channel, with a candle lit to mark the start of the vigil. That nice, gooey start-up rhetoric now seems very far away.

Mr. Olbermann did excellent on-air work for CNN, Fox, ESPN, and MSNBC, but that never stopped him from burning bridges faster than they could be built. It rarely ended well in spite of his skills.

As it turned out, past performance was a good predictor of results going forward. Current executives have been reduced to communicating with their biggest talent through his manager and lawyer, with both sides working the media to get their story out. By creating drama in yet another high-profile assignment, Mr. Olbermann could be running out of options, but don’t bet the house on that, given how desperate cable channels are for anyone who can generate ratings, never mind the rough edges.

Having worked for big, moneyed cable outfits in the past, Mr. Olbermann was clearly disappointed in the deep technical problems at Current TV, a cable news start-up that had trouble producing live news programming, including “Countdown,” his 8 p.m. show. He declined to lead the channel’s special political coverage until those problems were resolved, but Current TV officials called his bluff and went ahead without him, pre-empting his show in the process. It was a game of chicken in which everybody ended up with egg on their faces.

The impasse has been remarkable to behold, even if few people are watching. Mr. Olbermann, who is reportedly being paid $50 million over the course of a five-year contract, had more than a million viewers when he left at MSNBC at the start of last year, but in the most recent ratings period, he was reaching just 200,000 people a night at Current TV, according to Nielsen. He’s been very disappointed in those numbers, and the fact that the channel has hired talent and built out capacity on the West Coast without his input. After a summer of production problems that never seemed to be resolved, a power failure darkened his studio last month. He responded by sitting in the dark.

Current TV executives are going through all kinds of gyrations to patch things together, while at the same time expressing surprise that Mr. Olbermann is acting like, well, Mr. Olbermann. When I talked to David Bohrman, president of the channel, he praised the quality of Mr. Olbermann’s show; but when I asked him about coverage of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday night, all he could say on Friday was, “I hope Keith is part of our political coverage on Tuesday night and beyond,” adding, “That’s up to him.”

(Over the weekend, both sides said that progress had been made, and that although Mr. Olbermann will not be in front of the camera on Tuesday, he will be involved in Current’s election coverage on future nights. He confirmed as much on Twitter late Sunday. Earlier Sunday a spokeswoman for the channel said, “He’s told us he will do upcoming special election coverage, we hope he does and we would love for him to do it.”)

Mr. Olbermann’s contractual rights at Current TV are significant — he has control over the content of his show and his lawyers have argued that the channel has no right to pre-empt it for special election coverage — and management has very little leverage over him. So the channel is left to check his Twitter updates for indications of his mood, which is usually not very good.

Executives at Current TV told me they contacted Mr. Olbermann two months before the Iowa caucuses about being the anchor and executive producer of their coverage, and he declined. Mr. Olbermann thought it was silly to attempt to expand coverage when the channel’s marquee show lacked reliable production. But that didn’t stop him from calling in his staff for a news meeting on the day of the Iowa caucuses as if his show were going to appear, when he clearly knew that no such thing was going to happen, a pretty callous stunt by any measure. It fell to Mr. Bohrman to send a memo to the staff saying there would be no installment of “Countdown” that night. Ugly business, that.

But if Mr. Olbermann is disappointed in the widespread technical failures at Current TV, it should be pointed out that he helped choose the studio, an old building on the far west side of Manhattan that has turned out to be a lemon. He is a part of the management team, and you generally don’t get to rail against the Man if the Man is you.

Executives at the channel say the embarrassing public fight has more to do with his unwillingness to play, let alone play well, with others. Which is kind of a running meme in Mr. Olbermann’s career, but this time was supposed to be different.

By enrolling him at a high level in the remaking of Current TV and keeping the bureaucracy at a minimum at the small, privately held company, Mr. Gore and Joel Hyatt, the founders, hoped that the brilliant but chronically oppressed anchor would find the angel of his better nature. No angel has been forthcoming. Instead Mr. Olbermann has expressed multiple grievances through letters from his lawyers.

(Problems have only deepened since Mark Rosenthal, a chief executive Mr. Olbermann got along with, left in the middle of last summer and Mr. Bohrman, an experienced news executive, was brought in from CNN.) Current TV wants to be a player in the cable news/opinion world and most especially in the 2012 election, but their production capabilities are not ready for prime time and the man who was supposed to take the lead has barricaded himself within the four corners of his show and, so far, he’s not coming out. Mr. Hyatt, who is also the chief executive of Current TV, did not see that coming when we spoke last May.

“We think of Keith as our partner and as our friend,” he said then. “We don’t think of him as our employee, we don’t think of him as we’re a conglomerate and management, he’s the talent or worse, the employee.”

He was right about the last part. If Mr. Olbermann were simply an employee, they could tell him to show up at 7 p.m. Tuesday to anchor coverage of the New Hampshire primary. They can’t, and he won’t.

E-mail: carr@nytimes.com;

Twitter.com/carr2n

Filed Under: 2012 Election, News, News Media

VP Gore Launches Political Comeback

January 5, 2012 By Tammy Haddad

As published in the Huffington Post:

Vice President Al Gore made a stunning, unexpected return to politics for the 2012 Iowa Caucus as a political analyst for his own cable channel, Current TV.

For those who migrated over to watch Keith Olbermann, there was a moment of shock and awe as the former vice president and 2000 presidential candidate gave his political views on the Republican candidates, Supreme Court decisions, Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and the perils of being called a “flip flopper.”

With hands pressed together, fingers intertwined, and wearing a sports coat with an open collar French blue shirt, VP Gore pointed out the “most significant endorsement of the day” occurred outside of Iowa: Rupert Murdoch electrified the Twitteratti with his tacit endorsement of candidate Rick Santorum as the “only candidate with genuine big vision” for the United States. Gore went on to point out the political impact for all the candidates of the Murdoch tweets saying, “Romney cannot be very happy.” With his analyst hat squarely on his head, Gore reminded the audience of Senator Santorum’s very big loss in his re-election bid in Pennsylvania: “For an incumbent to lose by 18 points…. the vulnerabilities in his record is responsible for the 18-point loss.”

Gore was angry when he talked about Ron Paul’s comments about race saying, “The messages were so shockingly racist, outright racist. It’s just not enough to let that stand there when there are things beyond the newsletters…. I think we are kidding ourselves.”

Surrounded by unidentified “Young Turks” and former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Gore reminded the audience of how his re-election campaign bloodied GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole “in 1996 because the Clinton Gore campaign ran a lot of ads in the heartland… against Dole.”

He compared it to the negative ads run by independent groups against Gingrich in Iowa saying, “that opened the proverbial flood gates… devastating on Newt Gingrich.”

The former vice president seemed to struggle to be measured about Gingrich, stating, “He has an interesting mind. I am trying to be charitable. I don’t think we have seen the last of him. Unlike the proverbial cat he probably only has three lives… he has a role to play in this unfolding drama.”

When asked by Current TV host Cenk Uygur if Gingrich will survive this, Gore replied, “He still has something to say,” and with a nod “the media on all sides has an interest in keeping this going. He will go to South Carolina and probably Florida.”

Gore spoke directly to Democrats saying that, “Should they count so much corporate money and special interest money trying to defeat president Obama we cannot lose sight of how it tilts the playing field,” with this final warning, “And nobody knows where it comes from.”

Like the veteran vote counter he is, Gore points out: “It’s no long winner take all before March 1 on the republican side. It stays that way… that is the delegates they will get and it still gives a slingshot effect. The person that wins, gets the prize. It’s still a significant thing to come in first.” No one in politics knows the pain and truth of these words more than Vice President Gore.

Welcome back to politics, Mr. Vice President.

Tammy Haddad, President, Haddad Media, co-founder, White House Correspondents Insider, and former MSNBC Vice President for Washington.


Filed Under: 2012 Election Tagged With: 2012 Election, Al Gore, Current TV, Newt Gingrich

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About White House Correspondents Insider

Exploring “behind the scenes” of the most powerful reporters and editors in the world, the Washington press corps. We track the White House Correspondents’ weekend and all the activities around it from journalists and media companies to the White House and politicos. Tammy Haddad is Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief of WHC Insider and she hosts the Washington Insider podcast.

White House Correspondents Insider is not affiliated with or approved by the White House Correspondents Association which is a registered trademark of the WHCA.

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