Public Opinion, the Press, and Speeches

• George Washington, properly understood.
• You may find historical data on presidential approval in Pika, p. 90. Here is a graph of recent data.
• An example of a press conference memo.
• A clip of today's press briefing.
• A reading of the Gettysburg Address runs just two and a half minutes.
• Listen to FDR's "map speech" while looking at a 1942 map.

One of the WP politics blogs had this to say about Colbert's appeal:

"a Republican polling firm, recently completed a national poll of 1,000 likely 2008 voters that included Colbert's name in both the GOP and Democratic primaries. (He has announced his plans to run in both the Democratic and Republican primaries.) In the field from Oct. 18-21, the survey has a 5 percent margin of error.

In the Democratic primary, Colbert takes 2.3 percent of the vote -- good for fifth place behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (40 percent), Sen. Barack Obama (19 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (12 percent) and Sen. Joe Biden (2.7 percent. Colbert finished ahead of Gov. Bill Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (2.1 percent) and former Sen. Mike Gravel (less than 1 percent).

He was less lucky in the Republican field, where he took less than 1 percent of the vote behind even longshot candidates like Reps. Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul."