Exurban Jon's Blog

My sophisticated debut on national radio.

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:51:00 GMT

On today's broadcast, Dennis Miller posited an important military question concerning submarine duty. As a former submariner, I answered the call with my trademark class:

Download Excerpt

Friday Music Blogging: Torche.

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 03:48:00 GMT

Time for one last House foreclosure.

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 01:30:00 GMT

On Tuesday, Nov. 2, you can finally evict the deadbeat residents. VOTE.

(Disturbing) Photo of the Day, 10/31.

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:30:00 GMT

A man gets on his knees next to a car carrying U.S. President Barack Obama as he pulls away from Valois restaurant in Chicago, October 31, 2010. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Goldwater auction taking submissions.

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:04:00 GMT

Do you want to help out some great Arizona conservatives while advertising your product or service to Arizona's best and brightest? The Nov. 18 Goldwater Dinner featuring New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will include a silent fundraising auction.

If you have anything you can donate — tickets to a sports event, use of a vacation home, art, jewelry, special gifts, etc. — contact Kara Caldwell at (602) 462-5000 x225 or at kcaldwell@goldwaterinstitute.org. She can give you more auction details, coordinate item pick-up and provide you with an IRS receipt for your gift.

Quote of the Day, 10/26.

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:00:00 GMT

"[Obama is] your ideal, and if he fails, it means that the things that you value—the smoothness, the snark, the verbal facility, the elevation of talk as against thought and action, the veneer of worldliness; the right schools, the right clothes, the right frame of reference; the nuance; the sophistication—that these things are, in the real world, not all that important.

And then, of course, neither are you."

- Noemie Emery, Weekly Standard

What every candidate (& campaign manager) needs to know.

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:38:00 GMT

Marketing guru Seth Godin notices a major shift in candidates and the campaigns they run:

When TV was king, the secret to media was money. If you have money, you can reach the masses. The best way to get money is to make powerful interests happy, so they'll give you money you can use to reach the masses and get re-elected.

Now, though...When attention is scarce and there are many choices, media costs something other than money. It costs interesting. If you are angry or remarkable or an outlier, you're interesting, and your idea can spread. People who are dull and merely aligned with powerful interests have a harder time earning attention, because money isn't sufficient.

Thus, as media moves from TV-driven to attention-driven, we're going to see more outliers, more renegades and more angry people driving agendas and getting elected. I figure this will continue until other voices earn enough permission from the electorate to coordinate getting out the vote, communicating through private channels like email and creating tribes of people to spread the word. (And they need to learn not to waste this permission hassling their supporters for money).

Mass media is dying, and it appears that mass politicians are endangered as well.

I'm iffy about Godin's repeated use of "angry," but agree completely that today's candidate requires a wholly different approach to reach today's voter. This explains the success of those candidates with a compelling narrative over those with merely a powerful pedigree.

We saw this across the nation in the GOP primaries (Rubio vs. Crist, Miller vs. Murkowski, Lt. Col. West vs. Brady) and appear to be seeing it again for the general election (Angle vs. Reid, Bielat vs. Frank, McClung vs. Grijalva). While Godin mentions the need for money, the interesting candidate can now use small-donor moneybombs to erase the seemingly insurmountable financial advantages of incumbency.

Let's face it: a massive TV buy won't cut it in an age where many of us rarely turn on the TV. Saturating a local market via print and radio won't reach those of us on our iPads and iPods. But an interesting story will find us wherever we are. And it will move us to tell everyone we know.

The future belongs to the compelling, not just the connected.

Friday Music Blogging: Sufjan Stevens.

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 00:28:00 GMT

I'm leaving in a few minutes to see Sufjan Stevens at the Mesa Arts Center. In honor of the show, here he performs "Chicago" on Austin City Limits.

Powerfully effective new Angle ad.

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 01:56:00 GMT

Elections have consequences.

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:15:00 GMT

Budding videographer and all-around great guy Ben Howe explains how we got here.