Campaign Audio from PRX

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News is coming over the wires that Obama is closing the delegate gap in Texas thanks to the confusing post-primary caucus. While Clinton still won the popular vote in Texas she is dangerously close to loosing the delegate count. CQ has a good wrap of this and above we have some choice audio on how this happened and the problems that came with it.

Want more?

Here is a previous post on possible legal action to come. You can license both of these pieces here and here

WNYC posted audio from Obama’s economic speech today. It’s here. I’ll be working to cut it up and find other relevant material soon. Refresh this page in a hour say.

Update: Here’s part of Clinton’s housing speech on Monday

Update#2: Here is an excellent commentary on repairing the housing crisis, here’s a long piece about what having a home means, here’s a 30 minute doc on the subprime loans, and here’s an uber-short heart breaker about loosing a home.

Update #3: Here you can find housing statistics for your state/region

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Remember when your mom use to say “yes, even you can be president one day.” Well, she forgot to add “if you got half a billion dollars.”

Above is a radio piece produced by the Center for Public Integrity about money in politics. They are predicting the 2008 presidential election to cost a billion dollars. The story overviews the progression of money in politics from Nixon all the way to President G. W. Bush.

I recently lent a hand to West Virgina Public Radio searching campaign finance records for the state’s top donors. We saw evidence of wealthy citizens trying to buy their way into Congress, children “writing” checks to their parents favored political candidates, and business owners using their employees to further their personal political prerogatives.

For sure political contributions are a form of free speech. But only a fool would think all donors are merely expressing their right to petition the government. This year newsrooms should spend some days looking at campaign finance in their local areas. PRX is busy coming up with ways to help so stay tuned!

In the meantime: license this piece and air it, find out what kind of campaign disclosure records your state keeps, and get in touch to let us know what you’re working on and how we can help.

We have audio from KOPB of Bill Richardson endorsing Barack Obama. A very moving speech. HereÂ’s the endorsement and also what ClintonÂ’s camp had to say about it. Here are some other Richardson speeches. And hereÂ’s a wacky piece putting New Mexico and its politics on the map.

Update: found some Latino stuff and Immigration. Have at it.

Barack Obama’s speech today on race and politics tried to do a couple things, not the least of which was to halt the tide of bad press flowing out over Pastor Wright’s controversial sermons.

Going over the soundbites from the speech you can see a logical progression:

1. Obama condems Wright
2. Obama places Wright in the context of the “black church”
3. Anger in African-American communities creates resentment in white communities
4. and, finally, Obama is the candidate who can heal both black anger and white resentment.

A very nuanced argument to thread with such a blunt instrument as mass media. Hopefully news programmers are up for the challenge. If you are such a producer here is Obama’s speech in the raw along with some choice cuts that I’ve annotated for your ease.

Good luck!

After thought: it’s interesting to listen to Clinton’s (very brief) speech at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.

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Josh Marshall gone main stream?

The well-read blogger from Talking Points Memo blurred the lines between independent and main stream media evermore when he won the Polk Award for toppling Atorney General Alberto Gonzales. Now is has come to pubradio. Here is the third weekly commentary he’s posted to PRX about last week’s hiccup that was Geraldine Ferraro.

Look here for more TPM commentaries ready to air.

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What does it sound like when political flacks whine and stomp their feet? Here’s that recording from the teleconference last week where Obama lawyer, Bob Bauer, ambushes Clinton press officers by asking hard questions about lawsuits filed over caucus irregularities. …can you can feel the litigious love?

Emily McCord had her first brush with the national press last week at an Obama rally in Dayton, OH. As WYSOÂ’s morning reporter and ATC host, McCord knew the rallyÂ’s location as a place for rock concerts and monster truck rallies, but now correspondents from the TV networks buzzed around in their fancy blazers and satellite trucks.

“I remember just laughing and thinking ‘they are going to think I’m a fraud. They’re going to know I’m a local!’”

That night McCord filed a story for WYSO about the eventÂ’s turnout and the general mood of the crowd (she also posted sound for the PRX collection). WYSO is one of OhioÂ’s smallest newsrooms. With only one fulltime reporter and two reporter/hosts much of their news comes from a statewide news service. The primary was everyoneÂ’s first foray into covering politics.

“It was trial by fire here, we’re definitely very green,” she says, “but it’s a really small and dedicated staff.”

With 37,000 watts WYSO focuses their in-house news coverage exclusively on a the Miami Valley with a population of 1.7 million. In the weeks leading up to the primary WYSO produced a handful of reporter packages: vox-based stories on voter issues, turnout on election day, and interviews with two political science professors. They also aired essays from youths who gave their issues.

“I really like the local aspect of public radio. I‘m a community oriented person and I like that.”

With such a large national story like the election, McCord found she could keep the local angle by focusing on two organizations that work to get the vote out in Dayton. McCord says one of the organizations has strong religious ties while the other reaches out to young voters. McCord plans to follow each group throughout the year which will help frame the national discussion in a way that local listeners can appreciate.

Here at PRX we have some tools to help. At the top of our main collection page is a del.icio.us tag cloud with a number of links like “AfricanAmericanIssues” or “ClassStruggle.” In McCord’s case we have “YouthIssues” and “Faith.” Each of these links lead to audio in our collection that could easily be worked into a local story. For example, there is a raw lecture posted by Minnesota Public Radio about the history of faith in politics. For African-American issues we have a number of speeches by the candidates where they address concerns in the black community.

McCord says sheÂ’s anxious to get started using the PRX collection to help her locally.

“Nationally, thatÂ’s what people respond to. It’s really in-depth and where the people are in the local community. ItÂ’s something that gets overlooked a lot, but itÂ’s the most important part.”

We’re all familiar now with the Clinton campaign’s 3AM phone call ad that is variously credited with ending Barack Obama’s 11-in-a-row winning streak in state primaries and caucuses. Where did this phone call image emerge first in this campaign? I think I found the initial instance in Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy address at George Washington University on February 25th. Was this a first phrasing of the dramatic moment when a crisis awakes a sleeping commander in chief? Let us know…