The breakdown among struggling middle-class whites stands out, in large part, because Obama actually holds a six-point (50-44) advantage on the question of who would do more to advance the interests of the middle class generally. Seventy-one percent of non-white voters said Obama would do the most to help their individual economic interests, to only 22 percent who thought Romney would. Among middle-class non-white voters Obama bested Romney by better than 3 to 1. Continue reading →
Content Section ‘American Idol’ Finalists: From Sanjaya to Taylor Hicks, Where Are They Now? [PHOTOS] Sanjaya Malakar tends bar in the East Village. Camile Velasco worked at a Subway in Los Angeles. A.J. Gil became homeless. And Jessica Sierra checked into rehab for cocaine addiction. To be a contestant on American Idol is a dream … but what happens when the reality TV’s shows lights dim? To find out, The Daily Beast launched a special investigative project, interviewing 70 finalists from the first 10 seasons of the show. Some were difficult to track down, with no publicists and defunct MySpace pages. Nearly all the contestants we interviewed say they don’t regret doing Idol, but many are stuck in an entertainer’s purgatory: bouncing from one manager ... Continue reading →
Google+ launched brand pages six months ago, introducing new social lingo, including "hangouts," "circles" and "+1s." But strike up a conversation with a digital marketer these days, and talk of "+1s" has been replaced by that of "pins." Rather than challenge Facebook and Twitter for mindshare, Google is a distant fourth to Pinterest, with its "pin it" button now appearing alongside Facebook, Twitter and email buttons on prime web real-estate such as eBay and Amazon product pages. Even the platform's "best" brands haven't put a ton of effort into building out the pages. Nissan, for example, was lauded late last year for having one of the best new Google+ brand pages, even down to the animated GIF in its header image that gives the illusion ... Continue reading →