During Street Team orientation in January, my colleagues and I had full reign of Viacom’s downtown Manhattan building. On our way to seminars and meals, I’m sure we shared elevators with writers, producers and execs who all thought the same thing. “Who are these kids?” and “WTF are they doing here?”

This week The Daily Show correspondent, Demetri Martin, aired a segment called Trendspotting. In it, he talked about the young vote. Around the 3:30 mark, he busts into a music video with Las Vegas lights flashing “Street Team ‘08″ and breaks into new territory, spoofing MTV’s Street Team with his cast of colleagues.

Here is a link to the Daily Show clip.  

One of my Street Team colleagues made an observation on a about the segment on our internal gchat group thread.”Dude, that writer probably rode with us in the elevator during our orientation.”Dude,” I thought, he’s totally right.

Last week the government recognized DC by giving the city its’ personal mint on the quarter. Last week the District of Columbia, the only city the the country who’s people do not have Congressional representation, submitted three designs, each with the words “Taxation without Representation” included.  All three were rejected. Check out the political cartoon Tom Toles from the Washington Postdrew in response.

As announced by the George Washington Hatchet, Clinton returned to Washington on Monday to deliver a “major” foreign policy speech. The speech, which involved an audience of a little over 200 people, was more a conversation with donors, as noted by the reserved seating, than for the students who were allowed to straggle in and find the few open spots minutes before her entrance.

Still, the audience at large was hardcore Hillary and hung on every word of her forty-five minute foreign policy speech which followed her common theme of experience. Based on the mosaic of expensive suits, bow ties and military Generals, I took away that this audience was less comparable to a true representation of the American people and more the Washington elites who play with their pocketbooks, especially when campaign season is abreast, like an extracurricular activity.

“The American people don’t have to guess whether I understand the issues, whether I would need a foreign policy instruction manual to guide me through a crisis, or whether I’d have to rely on global advisors to introduce me to global affairs. I’m lucky to have had a pretty good inside view, over the eight years in the White House and now over seven years in the Senate,” she said.

The speech came a day after the Washington Post published an article, The Value of Newness, by David Ignatius, who challenged the idea that experience won’t do much for the rapidly changing landscape of 21^st century global warfare. In the Op Ed columnist’s words, “the intellectual matrix formed by the Soviet threat, and before that by Hitler’s rise in Germany, needs to be reworked. There is a new set of problems and personalities – and if America keeps trotting out the same case of characters and policy papers, we will fail to make sense of where the world is moving.”

Could Ignatius be right?

The timing of Clinton’s speech, and that of Ignatius’s article, came not long after significant caucus returns: the Democrats abroad global primary. The group, made up of expatriates living across the globe, cast absentee ballots from February 5-12 in 33 different countries. The results, which were reported last week, endorsed Senator Barack Obama with an overwhelming majority of 65 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 35 percent.

Will this loss hurt Clinton more than others? If her speech was any indication, she’s not phased. Her candidacy may be fading with eleven straight caucus losses and a dipping approval rating, but none of that is demonstrated by her devotion to the campaign trail and her aspirations of the Presidency.On a closing note, Sen. Clinton spoke in a calm voice to the crowd.

“I will never let America’s good name be disgraced. I will always protect and defend our nation. And I will always advance the tradition and values that have made our country, as President Abraham Lincoln said, “the last, best hope on Earth.””

With the nomination hanging on her performance in Ohio and Texas, it appears Hillary has one last, best hope. A shot at the general election. 

At age 87, Dean of the White House Press Corp, Helen Thomas, is still kicking ass and taking names. Throughout her tenure as a wire reporter for UPI, Thomas helped to break the Kennedy assasination, traveled to China with Nixon, and covered the “Washington side” of Vietnam, Korea, the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and now Iraq. Today, she writes a column for Hearst News Corporation which comes out every Thursday in the Falls Church News Press. When I asked Helen about her New Years Resolution, she paused and then with a burst of energy said, “Send Bush to the Hague!”

The McCarville Report, an Oklahoma-based blog, put last Tuesday’s DC primary in perspective when he said this: 

“The nation’s capital and its suburbs have a rare opportunity to help decide a presidential election rather than just obsess about it, as next Tuesday’s three-jurisdiction contest centers on Washington and its two neighbors.”

Obsessing? Is that what you call staying up until 3AM following the returns and then regurgitating it to the first person you see at work? Perhaps, but he’s also right about another thing, DC can have an impact. The city is the perfect battle ground for Obama and Clinton because it is as unique as a Democratic demographic comes:  gay, straight, immigrant and southern Baptist, female power and collegiate – topped by some of the biggest pocket books in the country.   

Check out how I spent the day jumping from poll to poll.

Last week I received an e-mail from an Indiana University School of Journalism grad student, Abby Tonsing. She was assigned a story — a story on me  and two MTV Street Team colleagues, Sia Nyorker (NJ) and Whitney Allen (IN), also Hoosier grads.

So last weekend I etched out some time between sleep and, well more sleep, to do an interview. It’s just killer having two jobs. But after a story like this, how can I complain?

Three Cover Political Races as MTV Citizen Journalists

In this video, I’ll talk about the upcoming seven Primaries/Caucuses and January fundraising totals. Excited yet? Oh, you will be…Looking back at the CNN Dem Kodak Debate, I consider the ideas of experience and transparency in government — who’s talking about it and who’s not. (And accept my apologies in advance, Clinton indeed won NH but in the moment I had a brain blank.)

Super Tuesday was super indeed, but just as soon as it began, it’s over – and while much of America will breathe a sigh of relief, the season has just begun.

Still neck and neck, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are running a marathon far more competitive and unprecedented than anything this nation has seen. The unbelievable part is they both have the audacity to hope that each will win enough delegates to win the Democratic Convention in August.

But if you watched the Super Tuesday returns, you know it’s still a close race. And when it’s close, it means there’s little time to rest. As reported by the Washington Post, Clinton and Obama have already set out on the next crucial Primary competitions, in DC, Virginia and Maryland.

Next Tuesday, voters from the District of Columbia, the humble abode to the next President of the Unites States, or POTUS as we like to say, will decide where to spend their 38 delegates. My prediction? Too close to call.

Last July, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty (D), endorsed Barack Obama. According to Mayor Fenty, the endorsement had much to do with Obama’s potential to engage people least involved in the political process, and in the case of DC, the 600,000, including myself, without a vote in Congress – are exactly who he’s talking about.

In a prepared statement, Fenty had this to say:

“Senator Obama has committed to empower those who have been locked out of our political process for far too long, and his commitment to helping Washington obtain full representation in Congress is particularly important to our residents.”

You bet it is, Fenty. Nothing says I don’t matter like leaving a right to vote at the DMV when I decided it was time to get a DC license. 

Last week Presidential hopeful Barack Obama announced a fundraising total of $32 million in the opening month of 2008 ALONE. As reported by Bloomberg, the amount dwarfs his own records — along with candidates on every side of the field — including competitor Senator Hillary Clinton. Clinton, who just released her January total, reported a significant $18.5 million less than Obama.

There have been times when I’m literally running, twisting through bodies and assembling equipment on the matted mud of the National Mall to swing a story. Then there was last Monday, at American University, where I chased one that I didn’t think I could possibly get.

It was almost 12:15 and I had no more than a half hour to get some footage and maybe an interview before returning to the full-time job. But I hit a road block: I couldn’t get in the rally where Sen. Ted Kennedy would be endorsing Obama. Fuck, I thought to myself… how am I going to tell the story now?

I paused. Composed myself — and headed around the corner to where a congregation of people stood. Now that’s my story.

I heard the echo of a chant which had been captured by the underpass tunnel and I immersed myself.   I had my camera attached to my tripod so I lifted it up as high as I could in the air. It was shaky and a little dark, but at this point, I thought, I had no choice. This would be unpredictably raw — and rare.

They congregated. They chanted. They all just stared as if Barack Obama would actually walk out the front door. It was a phenomenon to watch. Some were curious, others inspired, some just drawn with no other apparent reason but pulled by some kind of silent force.
 
Can this really be the type of movement that only has happened in the ’60s? Will the momentum continue? His campaign has been one of resilience and persistence, and up to this point — has passed expectation and barrier.