her daughter thinks work is a six-figure word.

Youth vote?  The average gamer is 33 years old. This is gonna turn off some middle aged voters. The last time gamers were predominantly minors was like 1988, not 2008. Hey isn't that when Joe Lieberman was first running for senate?

Really, the fuddy-duddy caucus needs to shut its stupid mouth.

I don't know... A lot of gaming blogs have been going political as of late and promoting that readers vote out and not vote for the people in congress trying to suppress first amendment rights...  They won't even type Jack Thompson's name... he has become the bumbling version of Lord Voldemort to the Gaming community.

I think Iraq is a four-letter word.

Here's an interesting protest - a man is logging into the Army recruiting video game, America's Army - and posting the names of the dead in the chat feature of the game.

http://www.unr.edu/art/DELAPPE/Gaming/De ad_In_Iraq/dead_in_iraq%20JPEGS.html

Videogames are free speech. The internets are free speech. Some of that speech is for adults. Parents, act accordingly. If Democrats want to help parents they should make healthcare universal and portable. I know so many parents where one person works solely to get good benefits. Video games? Please.

on the cost of college educations?

That's where we need action, and action right away.

The costs of college are going through the roof.

Boy HRC looks horrific in that pic...

All I can figure is that Hillary thinks she's appealing to the old vote.  Over 65 is a key component in Iowa but then again the video poker crowd is claiming they were the ones who shot down Jim Leach in an Iowa congressional race.  This is what gives people the creeps about Hillary.  PS- I still hold it against Tipper Gore that she crusaded against song lyrics back in what the 70s or 80s.  The harm lingers, ladies.

...would have no problem with raising awareness of the ESRB ratings.

That's what the system is for to give you a general guideline for the game if you don't have a chance to learn more about it. I don't think gamers would be upset if parents were actually responsible and actually took the time to read the ratings and if stores actually followed the ratings at least roughly. A public awareness campaign of the existence of the ESRB and that you should use them might be a waste of money, but as far as I know it's not a First Amendment issue unless you think it's a good thing for 12 year-olds buy Leisure Suit Larry.

(I know the last is hyperbole, I'm trying to make a point.)

I'm no HRC fan but as I recall, Hillary apologized for her "work is a four letter word" comment. The so-called "Youth Vote" will be usurped by Obama and Edwards. The question is: will they show up to vote in the primaries? If they do, Hil will be "toast."

While at first impression I completely agreed with this post... I actually bothered to read the article and the comments on the gamers' blog. Which apparently Arianna Huffington didn't, because this is a press conference NOT to denounce violent video games and the industry, but to partner with them to raise awareness of the ratings system among parents.

Small potatoes and not exactly the large-scale leadership on more critical issues that Hillary ought to be demonstrating? Heck yeah. A reminder to us younger voters of the fact that she's chosen to triangulate here and trumpet it loudly, rather than more constructively address the concerns of parents from day one and realize this wasn't such a huge issue? Absolutely.

But it seems that at least on this particular thing, we'll see Hillary and Joe talking about how the industry listened to them rather than making loud noises and embarassing themselves. The past record gives folks every reasons to  be skeptical, and a its reminder that Hillary definitely does not currently have much youth appeal (especially compared to Obama, Edwards, and even Clark). But THAT's where the relevance of this ad campaign lies, not in its actual content.

I work in the video game industry for one of the most controversial game publishers out there.  (props to anyone who can guess...)

We hate Lieberman because of his sanctimonious and ignorant crusade against us.  When Clinton teamed up with Santorum against us she quickly fell out of favor with pictures of her photoshopped into various... shall we say, less than flattering positions, all over our office.  

That said, the ESA is incompetent.  What did they do when we were made a scapegoat for the ills of society?  They started the Gamer Voter Network or something as ridiculous sounding.  Voters don't vote based solely on the issue of video games.  The ESA needed to go on the offensive and educate consumers about our industry.  People associate gamers with kids, but the median age of a gamer is 28.  We're after the 18 - 34 year olds.  

I think this move is good.  They are finally EDUCATING consumers about the ratings.  They aren't demanding that we change our games.  At least, not yet.  They are showing PARENTS what to look for.  

I was showing off a super violent, gory and bloody game I was working on at a consumer event one time.  We built a closed off theater so we could manage who sees it.  We weren't letting anyone in under 17 unless they were accompanied by an adult.  I couldnt begin to tell you how many parents brought their small children in after we tried to tell them not to.  

Many of them started crying from what they saw.  

People like that should be sterilized.  No doubt their parenting skills are making each generation less than the one before.  

This brings to mind Tipper's work with the PMRC. I think however, the youth vote really doesn't care about these little excursions. This is not a top line story.

Hillary will likely weather this and the youth vote won't suffer. And the young kids will just ignore it as they have most of the rating schemes.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but sine the new rating scheme went into place, isn't there now a game where XXX sex is a part of it?

The internet and games that can be modded are immune to this kind of thing, I would say.  Hillary is somehwat irrelevant, however, wouldn't you agree?

that even running Dodd or Vilsack will be better for the longterm health of the party.

  ...is what breeds naderites.

 I don't condone becoming a naderite. But this is how they happen -- by Democrats wasting time and political capital on self-serving, mind-numbing banalities like this. This is what makes the Greens look so much more serious than the Dems in the eyes of so many young people.

Hillary is the Lieberman of 2008.

  Hillary Clinton thinks work is a four letter word uh?  What a bastard. Guess she can have the luxury of working in the US senate, which never meets or does work anyways, while I'm going to be working 60-100 hour weeks until I retire or drop dead at some pain in the ass professional job. Nice to know our politicians have their priorities straight.

With the caveats that actually reading the posts show this isn't the terrible thing that you make it out to be, I have to agree with the general idea.  My distaste for both Lieberman and Hillary was initially formed while I was in high school, not because of Lieberman's impeachment sanctimony crap or Iraq, but because of their video game sanctimony crap.  And I'm not alone in this.  Not that it seems like Hillary CARES to try to capture or motivate the youth vote in the first place.

I believe your going to see alot more of hillary and lieberman together.I think shes decided the way to win the pres election is to piss off the net roots and suck up to the lieberman republicans.lieberman won becouse of repugs.

At first glance, this makes me mad, but, after the contextualization, I do not have as much of a problem with it.  I think there should be an age/irony requirement on many games I enjoy (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Destroy All Humans come to mind).  What concerns me is the pattern that Hillary is establishing.  And I think this is Stoller's point.  

Hillary has run as fast as she can to small stupid topics that can paint her as a moderate or allow her outflank conservatives on their right- the flag-burning amendment, her GTA: San Andreas flap, this, whatever the hell she isn't doing on Iraq. While at the same time she has failed to stake a position on anything substantial.  She is not an inspiring personality on television, like her husband, and she is not setting herself up to be inspiring on a policy front either.  Obama may lack substance right now, but at least he gives a good speech on TV.  I would want her to be inspirational in at least one of those ways if she were the Democratic nominee, but as of right now, I can see neither.

Having come of voting age in '98, I am more familiar with the incremental, "moderate" Bill Clinton of post-1995 (Welfare Reform, FCC deregulation,yuck) as opposed to the bolder 1992 campaign version (Universal Healthcare, Gays in the Military).  HRC seems to be following the later model.  I started paying attention to politics in 1996, and could not understand why any true liberal would have really cared to have voted for Clinton(then, I came to understand the repugnant nature of the GOP, and accepted the lesser evil argument about the Democrats).  Anyways, the point is HRC makes me not care.  I will still go to the polls because I hate the modern GOP, and that has defined my voting patterns and voting interest for the forseeable future.  But it is just not that way with others my age.  

You have to give them a reason to go vote.  Hillary has yet to do that, and she is amassing a track record which indicates that she won't give them a reason to go vote, much less become a part of the generational alignment that has been bandied about the left blogosphere.  Her politics are based on a pre-Iraq, pre-Katrina, pre-Bush mentality that assumes you have to moderate your message to win.  People my age aren't idiots, most of us can see when you are trying to moderate, and it just looks like you have no conviction, and lust for power.  If you are truly a centrist, great, but show some conviction to earn my respect.  Don't run around doing small symbolic stuff to try to thread a politic needle that doesn't even seem significant enough to have conviction about (OK that was convulted).  

So yeah this is foolish, but not destructive on her part.  Her general course is more cause for concern.  As someone who plays games, I could not care less as long as they don't start taking them off the shelves (which she did advocate for San Andreas), but I would assume I am even in the minority there.  My complaint isn't that I have generational beef with soccer moms. It is just that I want a vibrant party with an inspirational leader with the courage of her or his convictions.  Here endeth the rant.