Sort of like Walter Mondale’s 1984 political slogan, “Where’s the Beef?,” the 2008 political campaign is all about pork- pork barrelling, that is.

John McCain’s campaign last week launched a video game on Facebook called “Pork Invaders,” a spoof on the 1978 arcade favorite “Space Invaders” that takes aim at pork barrelling, or government spending that aims to satisfy a group of voters in exchange for their political support. 

In the game, players use arrow keys to shift a McCain logo across the screen to shoot red “vetoes” at a herd of pigs looming above.  But watch out, the pigs are ready to aim at and, well, soil, the Arizona Senator’s logo.  The more pigs players “veto,” the larger the amount of dollars saved in the budget. 

The low-tech game is a “unique way to get the Senator’s message out there about pork barrelling and earmarks,” according to Rick Gorka, a spokesman for the McCain campaign.  

Facebook users can add the video game application to their profiles.  This is one of the first online strategies McCain’s campaign has used on Facebook, a social online network popular with the young voters who have flocked to support McCain’s rival, Democrat Barack Obama.

“Folks on Facebook tend to get news in non-traditional means, whereas our grandparents would sit down and watch the news with Tom Brokaw,” said Gorka.  “Facebook is yet one avenue we can use to target voters in this election.”  

But will the game really be popular with young voters?  The majority of high school and college-aged Facebook users weren’t even born back when “Space Invaders” was popular and could miss the humor of the campaign’s spoof. 

McCain’s campaign describes the game as “very popular” with users, yet it’s only drawn 433 daily active users out of the 80 million on Facebook.  Obama doesn’t have his own video game (for now), but he still overwhelmingly leads McCain in terms of pledged Facebook supporters.  Over a million Facebook users list themselves as Obama fans, easily trumping McCain’s tally of 152, 619 supporters. 

– Posted by Jennifer Martinez

The wireless industry’s clout attracted former U.S. presidents last year, but this year it was just enough to lure the former wannabes.

This year’s headline keynote speakers at the CTIA annual industry showcase were former presidential candidates John Edwards and Fred Thompson? Last year the wireless show nabbed Former actual Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton as keynote speakers.

After lamenting lost chances and nodding to the increasing importance of technology in campaigns, both politicians then got busy criticizing how the mainstream media has handled the presidential campaign so far.

Edwards spent a good deal of his keynote discussing how voters, despite wall to wall coverage of the campaign, seemed largely ignorant of  the remaining hopefuls’ John McCain (R), Barack Obama (D) and Hillary Clinton (D) differing approaches to issues such as global warming, national security or health care.

“What you’d expect is a more informed electorate,” said Edwards in answer a question about the impact of 24-hour media  coverage of the campaigns.
“Unfortunately that’s not the case,” he said during the questions session after his keynote.

“There is so much focus on the superficial. The American people deserve better. You deserve to be better informed than that,” said Edwards before refusing to reveal who he would vote for and saying that he would not consider a nomination for vice-president.

Thompson was equally contemptuous of the mainstream media campaign coverage. 
“There’s nothing more dangerous than a writer or a television personality with dead airtime he’s got to fill up,” said the former actor.

“Controversy is the name of the game and sometimes it’s generated when it’s not really there,” he said of coverage of the campaign so far.  “We’re seeing it in these campaigns, the good side and the bad side of these new ways to communicate,” said Thompson.

In his speech he referred  to the double-edged sword of blogs and services like Twitter, which lets users send updates to a large group of people.

However, neither seemed to blame the media for their failure to win nominations for the top job. Thompson blamed his failure on his taking advice that he should “be himself.”  Edwards said, “If some of you voted for me it wasn’t enough of you.”

(Photo: Sinead Carew / John Edwards (top); Fred Thompson (bottom)