With the recent announcement of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, news agencies and partisan watch groups have eagerly taken on the job of defining this woman and what her appointment would mean for this country.

Sotomayor’s liberal leanings could greatly impact future decisions concerning hot-button social issues like gay rights and abortion. Comments made in lectures at Berkeley Law School and at Duke University are providing plenty of fodder for conservative opponents.

Coalition for Constitutional Values has released a nationwide ad campaign in support of Sotomayor’s nomination. With a six-figure buy, the thirty second commercial provides a brief biography and pictures of the potential Justice with Obama’s nomination speech emphasizing Sotomayor’s qualifications.

In rebuttal, but on a much smaller scale, conservative Judicial Confirmation Network’s attack ad uses Sotomayor’s Berkeley comment saying Latina women will more often make better decisions than white men to question her ability to provide “equal justice under the law.” The web ad is up on most major news sites and is being passed around via email through conservative activists.

Obama’s approval rating is high and the Democrats enjoy a majority in the Senate, making her confirmation likely. This brings up an important question: is it necessary or appropriate to run campaign-style ads for a Supreme Court Justice nominee? Sotomayor’s confirmation is dependent on the votes of a mere 100 senators.  Does publicizing the nominee to arouse public interest and opinion carry any weight? 

Neither ad mentions any of Sotomayor’s previous rulings that would give insight to her stance on any major issue. These ads provide no firm understanding of where she stands. Both rely on her character, which each side is easily manipulating in their favor.

Only time will tell; when hearings begin in July, we will see if ads have any effect in the court of public opinion or on partisan voting blocs.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, under new chairman JOHN CORNYN, has a new website and brand new spot targeting Senate Majority Leader HARRY REID.

The effort, the first targeting a 2010 senate candidate, flies under the website called www.REIDistributewealth.com .

The new spot, titled, “Trillion” was released this week.  The details of the broadcast buy are unclear. 

The NRSC’s interest in targeting Reid stem from what Republicans consider his staunch partisan approach and what appears to be his electoral vulnerabilities.

A Las Vegas Review-Journal article on Monday cited recent polling, by a conservative political action group, showing Reid vulnerable among Nevada voters.

Reid was viewed favorably by 47 percent and unfavorably by 47 percent of Nevadans surveyed by the Salt Lake City-based polling firm NSON Opinion Research for the Legacy PAC, a California-based activist group that hopes to target Reid for defeat in 2010.

In the survey of 400 Nevada voters, which carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, 47.3 percent viewed Reid favorably, including 27.3 percent who had a very favorable view and 20 percent whose opinion was somewhat favorable.

Among the 46.8 percent who had an unfavorable opinion of Reid, 8.8 percent of those polled viewed him somewhat unfavorably, while a whopping 38 percent had a very unfavorable view.

An old friend of mine, Bryan Cook, is an editor, producer, technical director, and writer based out of CA and NYC.  He just started a new blog, Signal Through Noise, which examines the nexus of technology and contemporary communication mediums. 

Recent STN posts covered new interactive television technology being developed by TIVO and a company called Backchannelmedia.

This technology bridges the gap between passiveness and activeness, when it comes to the relationship between programming and viewership.

According to Cook, TIVO announced a deal with Domino’s Pizza, which will allow viewers to order Domino’s menu items for delivery with the click of the remote.

A deal between TiVo and Domino’s Pizza…will allow TiVo subscribers to order pizza through their TiVo boxes.

Orders can be placed whenever the consumer wants, but the exciting thing is clearly the thought that if a couple of guys are watching a game on Sunday, they will see an ad for Domino’s and without ever having to get up and find a phone, order a pizza for delivery. Subscribers can order Domino’s Pizza from various entry points on the TiVo user interface, including via “tags” spotted during live ads.

Backchannelmedia appears to have somewhat similar interactive technology.  Here is a brief overview of how their technology works:

Backchannelmedia’s technology allow viewers, through one click of their remote, to forward links related to specific television content – whether it’s an entertainer performing a song they like, a news story they may be interested in learning more about, or a product they may be interested in purchasing – to a Web portal of their choice, such as an email account, a Backchannelmedia portal or a television station’s own Web site; the viewer simply clicks on a small icon at the bottom of their screen.

The icon is rendered by Backchannelmedia’s Client set-top-box software when it detects a unique identifier encoded in the metadata of the program or ad’s digital transmission. On clicking ‘OK’, the viewer’s request for more information is automatically recognized, recorded and sent via an Internet return path to the viewer’s designated site. The users “clicks” can later be conveniently accessed via their personal computer.

On the face of it, I really like this technology.  Allowing TV viewers to directly respond and act on an advertisement or product placement is very convenient for the consumer and very useful for the marketer.

This type of interactivity could revolutionize the TV commercial and advertising experience for all parties.  I’m also excited by what this could mean for political advertising, as it could stimulate a drastic amount of direct response for candidates for office or organizations pushing a particular issue agenda.

Imagine if a voter who watches and inspiring bio ad about a candidate can use their remote to sign up for email alerts from the campaign or learn more about the candidate’s schedule or how to contribute.

Or imagine if your watching TV and an organization brings a major legislative issue, about to be voted on in the House, to your attention.  Then you would be able to use your remote to contact the organization about your interest and how to contact your congressman about your position.

Such interactive media, like other web platforms, will continue to place democracy at the viewers fingertips.

Very interesting posts, Cook.  Keep it up.

A few months ago I came to the conclusion that the cable news networks (FNC, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC) would do considerably well during this presidential season – outperforming 2004 and general expectations.  I also made the assumption that the cable news networks would do even better during the course of both Party conventions.  Now, I’m not claiming that these predictions were anything earth shattering, as anyone who pays attention to voter viewing habits, election coverage and ratings probably could have come to the same conclusion a few months ago as well.

However, I was so sure of this magnetic effect of viewership to the cable networks that I made several arguments in the past few weeks to clients and buyers to consider putting much more emphasis into purchasing airtime during nightly convention action.

So it does warm my heart to see hard data reaffirming my prediction.

In a story posted today, Matea Gold of the L.A. Times reported a small piece on the convention viewership draw to broadcast and the cable networks.

The opening night of the Democratic National Convention drew more than 22 million TV viewers, a 20% larger audience than in 2004, according to Nielsen Media Research.

NBC drew the most viewers, pulling an average of 4.71 million viewers for its hour long special anchored by Brian Williams, up 4% from four years ago.

Overall, the picture was even rosier for cable news networks, whose decision to devote nearly all their programming to convention coverage paid off.

CNN averaged 4.27 million viewers, beating the broadcast networks for the first time with its convention coverage.

All three posted major gains over 2004. 

There are a few reasons for the substantial increase that I predicted.  Here are a few supporting points – some are more obvious than others:

Check out after the jump

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