JESS3 - Blog / Karl Rove has an iPhone!

I don’t know about you, but I’d like to learn a little more about that Drinking Liberally group.
– Ex-White House adviser Karl Rove

The only phrase I identified with on the screen was Drinking Liberally.
– Ex-Senator Max Cleland (D-Georgia)

Karl Rove and Max Cleland spoke to over 100 online political consultants today in Washington, DC during Yahoo’s The Rise of Citizen 2.0 event. Yahoo’s Citizen 2.0 crowd was the politico set.. Leslie, Jon Henke Bill Beutler and I, got to the Willard Hotel around 1:30.

The event started with a Yahoo ad sales guy talking a little too excitedly about internet stats. Then he introduces a very talented ethnographer. This kid was like 30 years old with a thick english accent. He presented some great video testimonials from people all around the country talking about politics. We heard a range of people discuss how blogs and social media and the internet shaped their opinions … some great stuff was shown. It makes me want to do some ethnography studies myself … (mental note, research ethnography strategy). One of the scenes profiled was filmed in a mid-west chapter of the democratic group “drinking liberally”. everyone else profiled was like in their house on the sofa with no noise in the background and it was like this really nice polished interview format. When the people from this group were talking about idealistic political strategies they were slightly red nosed, holding a wine glass … it was rather amusing and the topic of many jokes moving forward.

Max Cleland, who was ironically dethroned some might say by Rove himself!

Cleland equated the internet to “Viagra for political junkies” where you can find everything from “fishing to fornication.” “It’s Dodge City without the Sherriff.” I was really impressed with Max and I think we can all learn a lot from his dedication to life! tThis man lost four limbs for our country … and he is still a lot more feisty than you. This guy was pulling out all these money quotes and stories. He is a true blue politician. I wasn’t really familiar with him until today.

I sat across the aisle from Rove and at the beginning of the event I had my picture taken with him and the event started before I could make my introduction. Then at one point there was a short intermission and he stood up and went to talk with someone else and I dropped my card on his chair. Leslie noticed that when he went back he picked the card up, looked at it for a minute and put it in his pocket. I then come back and Max Cleland is speaking. Then at the end of the event, Buetler wanted a picture with Rove and we end up getting a group shot and a full on conversation with the architect. I hand him my card and he says to me oh yes I was looking at your card, “haven’t we met before?” … I’m like “uhhh (you mean at that strip bar with those midgets and the ice cream?)” and I’m like “no, maybe you remember me from before when we took that picture,” and he’s like “no, you look really familiar I know you from some where” … and we had this cool dialogue about what everyone does. I told him about how I do design and he told me that his wife is a graphic designer. At one point he said and I quote “I’m a mac guy, I have an ipod(iphone), a macbook pro.. apple/mac/cool?!?” It was soo classic … he then took my photo with his iPhone … kinda nuts. We said good-bye and went on to the cocktail portion of the event. Politics aside, I was pretty impressed with Rove as a person … he was funny intelligent, witty.