Victory Speech

This week I am featuring famous words by famous Americans.   Well, I'm sure you have heard by now that the US election is over and President Obama has been elected to a second term as President of the United States.  

After the election was finished,  President Obama gave a Victory Speech.  You can watch it at the New York Times website.  The link below has the video of the 20 minute speech broken down into key moments.  So, you can watch the whole thing or just a small part.  It also has the transcript so you can read a long with the video.  

NY Times Interactive Victory Speech

I'm a not so famous American and people don't normally ask me for a quote.  However, I recently won an award for talking about American Culture and English.  I have to give my own victory speech at the award ceremony.  I only have 1 minute to talk though.  I wonder what I should say.  Any ideas?  Leave your suggestions in the comments.  

What Does the World Think about the US Election?

We've been talking a lot about what is important to Americans in the US Presidential election but how do people outside of the US feel about it?  Although you can't vote if you are not a US citizen, the election does impact other countries.

In this video produced by Christiane Amanpour, she asks reporters how people in different countries feel about the 2 candidates.  She also says that in an opinion  poll done by the BBC,  in their survey, President Obama is the top choice for all the countries except for one.  One of the reasons quoted is that they know him and like his friendly attitude towards other countries.

Funny Political Ad

The candidates make many TV commercials as part of running for President.  They want to give you reasons to vote for them and give you reasons not to vote for the other person.  Sometimes the ads are sweet and emotional, sometimes they are angry and they say harsh things about the other candidate.  

Here is a commercial that uses humor.  At the first Presidential debate, Governor Romney said if he was President he would cut funding to PBS.  

PBS is a TV station that does not have commercials so they get money to make programs from the US Government and from private donations.  

There is a popular Children's show on PBS called Sesame Street and one of the main characters is a big yellow bird called Big Bird.

President Obama's campaign used that idea to create this funny video.    


What do you think about this commercial?

Campaign Time

This week we will explore the "Road to the White House."  How does a person go from an ordinary citizen to President of the United States?  What is the process?  

Candidates must get the word out that they are running and want your vote.  One way to do that is with a commercial.  Here is a funny commercial I made at adomatic.us.

Twitter and the US Presidential Election

Twitter is changing the way people communicate about important (and not so important) topics.  I just finished watching the US Vice Presidential Debate and twitter is alive with comments.  If you want to join in the conversation or just read some of what people are saying here is a twitter hashtag to use #VPdebate.

Here are some other Hashtags related to the election -

#Debates
#Obama2012
#RomneyRyan2012
#Mitt2012
#TeamJoe
#VPdebate

You can also follow the candidates twitter accounts
@BarackObama
@JoeBiden
@MittRomney
@PaulRyanVP