When a racy brunette in a bikini gyrates in a steamy video, declaring a crush on US Democratic hopeful Senator Barack Obama, it's clear that the hoopla surrounding this election is going to be like nothing that came before.
In her own musical moment, formerly frosty Senator Hillary Clinton has been spotted on her own Web site swaying to music in a trance-like state and Senator John McCain in an unguarded moment sang, "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."
These campaign snapshots, starring on computers everywhere, are partly the product of the YouTube video sharing craze which has opened a new dimension in political campaigns.
The latest sensation this past week handed Clinton's chief Democratic rival, Obama, unwanted top billing in a raunchy Web video by a scantily clad woman dubbed "Obama Girl."
"I got a crush on Obama ... I can't wait until 2008 ... I love it when you get hot on Hillary in debate," lip-synchs model Amber Lee Ettinger, grabbing her 15 minutes of YouTube fame in a video not linked to the campaign.
The mock music video features Ettinger dancing next to a picture of the toned 45-year-old candidate strolling out of the surf in Hawaii and has migrated from the Web to cable television.
Maybe all publicity is good publicity, but Lee Rainie, who studies the intersection of campaigns and the Web for the Pew Internet and American Life Project says viral videos raise worrying questions for candidates.
"You love that people are engaged with your campaign ... but it is pretty hard to have control of your message," Rainie said, adding that anyone with a modem and a video camera could seize an unwanted role in the race.
The line between an advertisement sanctioned by a candidate and one that just materialized and seizes the public imagination is also becoming blurred.
As candidates trade fire on Iraq, abortion and health care, sometimes traditional, offline, campaign hijinks are also rattling the dignity of the White House dreamers.
In one incident, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani was left red-faced after a 140-page blueprint of how to win the Republican nomination showed up in the New York Daily News late last year.
Operatives on other campaigns mocked the security lapse, from a former New York mayor and Sept. 11 hero, who is basing much of his campaign on ... security.
Top Democrats have not been spared embarrassment either.
Clips of Democratic front-runner Clinton's woefully off key rendition of the US national anthem at an Iowa campaign rally this year, picked up on an errant microphone, flashed around the world.
But the slick Clinton campaign, which rarely misses a trick, used the embarrassment to claim an avalanche of free publicity, launching a competition to chose a campaign song.
"I won't sing it in public ... unless I win!" Clinton said on one Web site video, then swayed to music in another, in a canny attempt to chip away at what critics say is the former first lady's starchy image.
McCain sung his off-the-cuff Iran-themed version of the Beach Boys hit Barbara Ann at a campaign event -- and soon lived to regret it.
His indiscretion, a sign that in the Internet age a candidate is never safe, was soon the subject of a political ad by liberal group MoveOn.org, which ended with the slogan "We can't afford another reckless president."
In one of the most surreal campaign ads ever, ex-senator Mike Gravel, the longest of long-shots on the Democratic side, stares blankly at a camera for over a minute, then walks off and throws a rock into a lake -- leaving puzzled viewers to draw their own conclusions.
In another bizarre moment, Dennis Kucinich, another Democratic also-ran swirled around a stage at a health care forum with his arms outstretched shouting "no strings, no strings" to show he was not a puppet of special interests.
The crowded Republican and Democratic presidential debates have also offered up their own share of odd moments.
Three candidates raised their hands and said they didn't believe in evolution in one Republican debate -- unthinkable in a developed Western nation other than the US where conservative Christians wield considerable influence within the party
In another light moment, Giuliani threw up his hands in mock fear of divine retribution at a lightning strike as he discussed abortion in a New Hampshire debate between Republican presidential hopefuls.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
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