Media Criticism

The Des Moines Register published a poll on Sunday that showed Senator Hillary Clinton gaining a lead on previous Iowa favorite John Edwards and the “it�? candidate, Senator Barack Obama. The Clinton campaign and the mainstream media have pushed this recent success by Clinton as a sign that she is emerging as the most viable candidate for the Democrats. My question about this poll and other polls is whether they are a product or a generator of media hype. In other words, does the Des Moines Register poll result from Clinton’s hype in the national press or will the poll generate greater press for Clinton and feed conspiracy theories among independents?

I look back to the Iowa Republican Party’s straw poll as an example of how starved for news the mainstream media is these days. The poll was bought by Mitt Romney and not attended by Giuliani, McCain and Fred Thompson. The hype around Romney’s success and the dark horse success of Governor Mike Huckabee were grasped onto by major newspapers and TV networks after months of exhausting rhetoric. The answer to my original question based on the Iowa straw poll and subsequent straw polls in other states is that the poll is reflective of media attention rather than grassroots support.

Clinton and Romney share a similar problem in a general election. Both candidates would try to point out flip-flopping and political opportunism while failing to address their own flip-flopping and opportunism in the past. The Iowa caucuses are still three months away and there are too many independents in states like Iowa and New Hampshire to claim that Senator Clinton has struck a blow against her opponents. I implore the national press and the voters of early primary states to consider their choices carefully and avoid these polls like the plague.

This is apparently the connection that Senator Barack Obama wants to make while pushing for the Democratic nomination. In a way, Obama does resemble Kennedy in his relative inexperience and high optimism for the power of Americans to improve their own lot. The Obama campaign has dragged out Ted Sorensen, a 79 year old former speech writer in the Kennedy brain trust, to help the candidate drive him this connection. Sorensen provides an endorsement of Obama’s role as the young, hip candidate among a group of establishment politicians in a way that no other octogenarian can do.

The problem for Obama is that the historical parallel is faulty. The 1960 election that allowed Kennedy to rise to power was tainted with corruption. Richard J. Daley certainly helped Kennedy win Illinois with back room machinations and the nomination of Senator Lyndon Johnson from Texas helped win over conservative voters. If Obama is Kennedy then Hillary Clinton is Johnson without the scowl or the large frame. I find it difficult to believe that Senator Clinton would leave her spot in the Senate to become a vice president to a candidate without her pedigree.

This comparison between Obama and Kennedy also begs the question of how Obama would deal with the war on terror. Kennedy may have used fluffy language about the Peace Corps and Americans giving back for the benefit of their nation, he also escalated conflict with the Soviet Union with involvement in Cuba and Vietnam. Barack Obama needs to be careful about harkening back to history to avoid comparisons during the general election that may be unflattering. The Democrats need to think about substance instead of style to distinguish themselves from the Republicans in 2008 (that is, if the Republicans choose Mitt Romney, the ultimate hair-do).

The people who read this blog are probably sick of me talking about the Democratic debates, the 2008 election and other aspects of politics that are fueled entirely by the media. I even get sick of these diatribes but I think I have given myself the unintentional mission of ending the long primary process once and for all, one blog at a time. To fuel this fire, the awful trio of the Huffington Post, Yahoo! and Slate are putting on a unique debate and a “mashup�? tool that allows people to put individual answers together into their own package. Here is a little bit more detail on the debate from the New York Times:

Here’s how it works: Charlie Rose is hooking up by satellite individually from his studio in New York with each of the eight Democratic candidates, who are scattered across the country. He’ll question them each for 12 minutes on three topics _ Iraq, health care and education. There will also be a “wild card�? question.

According to all three sponsors, these answers will be available on Friday through each website. The “mashup�? tool will also be available to help political and technological nerds the opportunity to get involved in yet another debate.

Marc Lampkin makes a good point in his latest post on the Huffington Post, a liberal blogging website headed by Arianna Huffington. Lampkin discusses the use of the “mashup�? tool as a way for people to hear what they want to hear from each candidate. Yahoo!, Slate and the Huffington Post should know better. This is already what the mainstream media does to candidates particularly the minor candidates who only make it on the news when they make a gaffe or do something silly.

If the Internet-using public is indeed tired with politics as usual and poor media coverage for their candidate, they should not resort to the “mashup�? tool. Instead, they should search for unabridged audio, video and written transcripts of their speeches to hear what they are saying around the country. Lampkin’s final point is that we will hear more of the same which makes a “mashup�? of what Obama, Clinton or even Kucinich or Gravel useless. Let’s stop pretending like high-tech gadgets and tools are really going to improve the process until we are actually ready to change the process in Washington D.C.

I can’t wait to vote for president in the November 2008 round of balloting. That is, if I can scrounge up the $35 it will take to get into the ballet. Maybe I can have the DNC or RNC pay my way in. Wait a minute, we don’t have to do that in the general election. It is free. So are the presidential primaries. I guess I was mistaken due to the recent Iowa straw poll won by professional spender Mitt Romney.

The Iowa straw poll was one of the most anticlimactic events in recent political history. Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and a slew of others did not bother to campaign in Iowa. Bottom tier candidates like Tommy Thompson and Hunter Thompson hoped that their hard work in the state could yield a second place finish behind Romney. Even the surprising move up the ladder by Mike Huckabee could not save the boring finish in Iowa.

I love watching speeches, listening to debates and tracking what candidates are doing. The Iowa straw poll is a sign of what is wrong with modern politics. The New York Times’ blog on political issues covered the poll like it was something important. The Iowa Republican Party got a big donation from Iowa voters as well as the various campaigns that paid entrance for their voters. Most importantly, nothing substantive came of the event because everyone knows that a) Mitt Romney has cash, b) Ron Paul has fervent supporters and c) John McCain is sinking fast. Well done, Iowa, I can’t wait to see how you set the pace in a few weeks. I assume you will continue moving your primary up to maintain the pace as “First in the Nation.�?

In my elevators at work, there’s this farce of a news delivery service called “Captivate”. Essentially, it’s a bunch of advertisements that have one-sentence clips of everything that’s ever happened in the world. It’s unfortunate to think that this is the main source from which many get their news.

I saw two clips that made me laugh. The first was one about Clinton’s performance in the recent Democratic debates. It said that “a body language expert” determined that Clinton had “won” the debates in terms of confidence. Of course, those words don’t really mean anything; what exactly is a “body language expert”, anyway?

The next clip was about how lobsters don’t age. Apparently, as lobsters grow older, their bodies don’t begin to fail, and they don’t become more susceptible to disease.

So, the information I really gained on my elevator ride was that, no matter how good Ms Clinton looks, she will never age as well as a lobster.

Clinton, lobster