Wampum

With PBS handing Frank Luntz, a longtime Republican pollster with unresolved ethical issues and strategist, the job of providing "immediate public feedback on the performances of the candidates" during post-forum coverage on the Tavis Smiley program, you'd think that every presidential campaign's (left) at-home team would scramble to provide multi-screen, pizza and beer, and local surrogates to local media and accredited bloggers. You can't beat PBS for sticky eyes, they have the next few minutes when the spin that sticks starts, and you can't beat the networks for their late news sticky eyes and spin agenda either, but what you can do is offer the local affiliates a stand-up that looks as much like "news" as the shows the network and PBS are running, with local color, and targeted messages, both for your guy and about the competition, or even message on the meta, the FOX-Congressional Black Caucus event, or CNN bumping Michale Moore for some frontal semi-nudity with Paris Hilton's nearly headless torso. It is a chance to frame, and message the morning news and the local talk, and please a whole bunch of bloggers, and we are a viral lot, with access and beer and pizza.

Its a chance to get more air minutes and column inches than the wire copy from Washington normally gets in the local media, an opportunity for the campaign to run two events, an A event away and a B event at home, simultaneous, and a video remote with the candidate still hot and sweaty from the main show, and virally, move that local blog payload into the blog contest for best campaign and candidate.

So I called the Richardson offices in ABQ and Santa Fe. No event planned. Sigh.