Giant screens used for political speeches generally have an Orwellian quality. Not always, of course. Newt Gingrich? Orwellian. Steven Colbert? Not so much. Saturday in Madison the best seat for the Sarah Palin/Americans for Prosperity/Koch Brothers/Andrew Breitbart speechifying was at home following the Channel3000 livestream. The Channel3000 camera was fixed on a high platform and focussed on the podium so the only obstruction was the snow that was being driven horizontally past the lens by the 30 mile per hour winds. The microphone was wired directly into the Flash unicast servers so there was no audio interference, regardless of the efforts by the people to drown out the voices of corporate ickiness. It was a good remote set-up.

Locally, there were challenges for the right wing “great communicators.” The big screen displaying images of the speakers seemed better positioned to communicate with the thousands of protesters on the Main Street lawn than with the few hundred teabillies on the King Street sidewalk. The left wasn’t giving anybody slack. Bells, drums, and roaring voices drowned out the sound system. The Americans for Prosperity carpetbaggers–Palin, Breitbart, et al.–were impossible to hear unless you were at the front of the gathering. Even so, at least one local lefty lamented the fact that the Koch brothers could afford better Audio/Visual gear than we can. In truth, this was the first time I’ve seen a big screen mounted on the Capitol wall. I hope they didn’t damage the building.