Social Media Engagement Will Decide Election 2012

Digital Politics Radio: Engagement with online political ads & content more significant than with consumer brands with viewers showing strong desire to share political content on social media and ways to establish an online conversation. Interview with Jay Samit, CEO SocialVibe.

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Digital Politics Radio: Value exchange web ad engagement, insights about targeting, sharing, persuasion, fund raising and turning online social media friends into "digital block captains." Interview with Jay Samit, CEO SocialVibe.

A Socialvibe study shows social media will play a vital role in determining the 2012 election. With a 94% participation rate for engagement on political advertising campaigns the Socialvibe study shows that Facebook friends, not the evening news or TV advertisements, will inform most voters.

The SocialVibe study (PDF) finds people are more likely to share interesting news articles, videos or online petitions with one-another via Facebook or email than they are to watch the nightly news.

The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor

Although a wide variety of goods have long been produced by state and federal prisoners for the US government—license plates are the classic example, with more recent contracts including everything from guided missile parts to the solar panels powering government buildings—prison labor for the private sector was legally barred for years, to avoid unfair competition with private companies.

But this has changed thanks to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), its Prison Industries Act, and a little-known federal program known as PIE (the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program). While much has been written about prison labor in the past several years, these forces, which have driven its expansion, remain largely unknown.

Somewhat more familiar is ALEC’s instrumental role in the explosion of the US prison population in the past few decades.

Read the entire story @ The Nation

And, read the companion story, "EXPOSED: The Corporations Funding The Right-Wing Front Group ALEC," @ The Nation

Gov. Perry Pushes ALEC-Backed Agenda To Privatize Texas Universities

ThinkProgress: Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), a potential presidential candidate, has been quietly pushing initiatives that would transform the state’s public university system into a business-style model driven by “efficiency and profitability,” The Washington Post reported today.

The reforms Perry is seeking to implement are favored by one of his top campaign donors and the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), an affiliate of the American Legislative Exchange Council.

ALEC is a conservative public policy organization that often drafts model legislation for use in state legislatures across the country, and Republicans in several states have used its model legislation directly.

NPR Profiles Gov. Perry's Prayer Rally

On Saturday, Gov. Perry, who is widely expected to enter the race for the White House, is hosting a religious revival in Houston to pray for what he calls "a nation in crisis."

Late last year, shortly after he won his third term, Gov. Perry began to envision an event that is now called "The Response."

"With the economy in trouble, communities in crisis, people adrift in a sea of moral relativism, we need God's help," said Perry. "And that's why I'm calling on Americans to pray and fast like Jesus did."

Listen to the Story from NPR Morning Edition (4:24) Correction - The audio and a previous Web version of this story incorrectly identified James Dobson as being "of Focus on the Family." Dobson was the founder of that group but is no longer associated with it and is a Family Talk radio broadcaster.

An event spokesman, who is a former Perry speechwriter, says the daylong affair will be filled with prayer, inspirational messages, Scripture readings and praise music. The event is being held in the 71,000-seat Reliant Stadium, normally used for rodeos and NFL games, but so far only 8,000 people have reportedly registered for the prayer rally.

Perry invited all his fellow governors. The only one to accept was Sam Brownback of Kansas, but he is now backing away. His office says Brownback is "on vacation," and if he goes, "it's at his discretion and on his dime."

While the governor claims it's nothing more than a Christian prayer rally, the event has touched off a holy war among critics.

"I mean, when you talk about the religious right, this is the fringe of the fringe here," says Dan Quinn, communications director of the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based watchdog group that tracks the far right in Texas.

"This is clearly, when you look at it, religious extremism and naked partisan politics," Quinn says. "I think it's one of the most cynical displays of using faith as a political tool we've seen in a long time."