Media Criticism

Anyone who has read past entries on Media Critiques is aware that I dislike the current state of polling and the use of polling by the media. Polling experts claim that the numbers they produce on topics ranging from the latest fashions to the popularity of the president can be extrapolated to the entire population. This type of certainty demonstrates a failure by seemingly intelligent pollsters to recognize that polling is a corollary of marketing and not of academia.

The impetus for my latest rage about polling comes from an article in the Columbia Journalism Review discussing a Zogby poll that claims 52% of Americans would support an attack on Iran. Writer Michael Meyer points out a number of faults with the poll including the use of only two choices to respond to a hypothetical (yes, HYPOTHETICAL) completion of nuclear weapons by Iranians in the near future. Meyer fails to point out that Zogby may be the worst of the worst when it comes to polling due to the poor wording of poll questions. I shouldn’t push Zogby polls forward as the king of bad information as every polling company shares a similar stake in my contempt.

I am not only concerned with the appearance of political support for an Iranian war inherent within the Zogby poll. My concern spreads into the 2008 presidential election where it appears that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination without a problem. The ignorance of Washington elites of what real life Americans outside of polling groups feel about the political scene gives polling its power. Polls are a gauge of the perspectives of a few people that allow politicians and executives to proceed with their own initiatives with the thin veil of public support. Polls, like the Bible, can be interpreted in a number of ways. It is time to stop giving public opinion polls such a large role in our lives and show our support for an issue by picking up a phone, putting pen to paper and screaming out loud to people in the Washington echo chamber.

In last week’s edition of Newsweek, the magazine’s political reporters highlighted the quaintness of Iowa in relation to its status as the first nominating contest in the nation. While the article is interesting and a bit condescending to the people of Iowa, the graphic entitled “Fixing the System�? was particularly interesting. The nascent debate over reforming the primary system in America is highlighted by four distinct plans.

First term Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) wants to break the nation into four regions while maintaining Iowa and New Hampshire as the first nominating contests. These regions would rotate position with successive elections to ensure national balance. Renowned political wonk Larry Sabato wants a purer regional system with four regions picked at random each election year. Sabato’s system includes a provision for two small states to be chosen randomly as the first nominating contests. The American plan offered by political scientist Thomas Gangale would group states by combined congressional districts while the Republican National Committee would allow states to go from first to last based on ascending population level.

These ideas are a good start and every voter needs to push their chosen party, their representatives and their neighbors into action. Iowa and New Hampshire may have a historical role at the beginning of the nominating process for both parties but it is time for a new tradition. I think media outlets would love the idea of rotating primaries, a national primary or something else that would create variety. After all, it is all about the story for reporters and pundits. There would be plenty of stories to be had by speaking to voters in Rhode Island, California or Montana that suddenly are thrust into the role of kingmaker for the first time in the history of the primary.

I think the debate over the primary process hinges on what happens in upcoming months. If candidates like Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani receive their party’s nomination, there will be no furor over the excessive role of money and political legacy in early nominating contests. I guarantee if somebody like Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul or John Edwards is able to wrestle the nomination from frontrunners, organizations like the DLC and the Republican National Committee will be able to push for change because they do not want insurgents to disrupt the system.

I announced my endorsement of Senator John Edwards a few posts back but I want to speak today about Governor Bill Richardson. Richardson is the type of candidate that looks fantastic on paper, a shoo-in for the nomination: former energy secretary, governor of a “purple�? state, experience in foreign policy and a platform that is purely Democratic. As Mother Jones reports today, the problem with Richardson’s campaign is that politics is not simply about ideas.

I admit that when I hear Richardson speak in debates, I cringe at the wonkiness of his language. I love his perspectives on the environment, education and college loans. I also like the idea of someone from the West giving a presidential bid a chance. The problem is that Governor Richardson is an ideas candidate not a candidate that evokes happiness, anger and bile at the opposition party in each of his speeches. Richardson is deeply ensconced in Democratic politics and his connections to Bill Clinton and other moderates do not help him in an election where Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd and Joe Biden are fighting for votes.

His campaign cannot define itself as an outsider campaign (Edwards, Kucinich), a reform campaign within reason (Obama) or a desire to use new ideas bandied about in Beltway meeting rooms (Biden, Dodd). Governor Richardson projects an idea instead of a charismatic template that voters can apply to other candidates. I would never instruct someone as experienced in politics as Bill Richardson to try to be more charismatic; Bob Dole tried to be more charismatic in 1996 and he got creamed. I would say that Richardson needs to be aggressive in using new media and highlighting the fact that voters can get a Hillary Clinton-plus platform without the baggage.

I saw this piece in the New York Times Caucus section this afternoon that indicated that Ron Paul won a straw poll among New York Republicans. Since there hasn’t been a strong Republican since Thomas Dewey was governor in the 1940s, I thought it was strange that the Republican Party even met in the Empire State. As I suspected, Ron Paul’s victory in New York was relatively hollow as a total of 60 Republicans narrowly placed Paul ahead of second place Rudy Giuliani.

I have railed against the use of straw polls in past articles especially when Mitt Romney funded his victory at the venerable Iowa straw poll this summer. Ron Paul’s supporters have been incredibly active on the Internet as well as street corners of city nationwide promoting their candidate. This grassroots campaign should be successful in straw polls in restaurants, convention centers and homes throughout the United States. I know that Ron Paul has been successful in raising a substantial amount of money as well as garnering the support of independents and Democrats but an exhaustive list of straw poll victories means nothing. Paul better win in January 2008 (or December 2007, depending on changes in primary laws) if he has any hope of turning potential into reality.

Straw polls are like any other poll: flawed and misleading. Hillary Clinton’s bloated lead in national polls, Giuliani’s lead in national polls for Republican polls and the diffuse nature of American politics heading into 2008 make statistical analysis impossible. Howard Dean was leading heading into the Iowa caucuses in 2004 and a smear campaign by John Kerry, Richard Gephardt and DLC Democrats helped derail his populist campaign. If Ron Paul gets any more support before the caucuses, expect Mitt Romney to use some of his money to find faults in Paul’s platform. I say enough with straw polls and lets leave the polls to political pundits that need to fill 24 hours of cable news space.

While the Democrats and Republicans focus their attention on Iowa and New Hampshire, both national parties are contending with issues of scheduling. The Democratic Party seems to be victimizing itself at every turn by adhering to the ridiculous legal mandates within Iowa and New Hampshire state law dictating their place in the primary process. DNC Chairman Howard Dean and others have indicated that Florida and other states will not have any delegates at the national convention next summer if they hold their primary ahead of the party’s schedule. Candidates are signing pledges not to campaign in Florida, Michigan and other states in order to provide legitimacy to their primary efforts.

Howard Dean may think that he is establishing discipline but the DNC and the RNC aren’t legal bodies. Political parties are organizational tools established at the will of the people to help define (or divide, depending on your perspective) political thought. If states want to pass laws that move their primaries to Christmas, the Democrats need to recognize the legal reality. I am not a fan of Iowa and New Hampshire acting as the initial political determinants for the presidential campaign but their legislatures are autonomous from the ideas of political parties.

The Democrats will suffer greatly if they persist with the policy of keeping delegates of violating states out of the convention. Democratic activists feel that 2008 is a slam dunk but the party has screwed up in the past (just look at the 2004 convention when they played patty cake with President Bush). An article in Salon today points out the frustration of activists in Florida which may lead them to sit out the presidential primaries or choose a Republican candidate in November 2008. Dean’s image as the grassroots hero, cultivated in 2004 and in his 50 state campaign of 2006, is greatly damaged by his bureaucratic overreaching.

We have too many problems in America to allow the national party committees to derail the political process. Future problems with Iran, Social Security, health care and dozens of other issues mean that the Democrats and Republicans need to allow the primary process to happen organically. If voters dislike the process, they can speak with their state legislators and vote out legislators that support an acceleration of state primaries in the next election. The DNC and RNC need to begin planning their conventions and laminating passes and allow politics to play out amongst the states.

An article in the fall 2007 edition of Dissent, a public affairs magazine, compared and contrasted several books by Democratic candidates to determine their usefulness in determining character. The article by David Greenberg looks at books by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Bill Richardson to cut through the mixture of modesty and self aggrandizing to find the truth. The conclusion in Greenberg’s article seems to be that the problem of ghost writing and help from aides makes it difficult to make heads or tails of a candidate’s claims to political success.

The lone exception to the problem that Greenfield calls “committee writing�? is Bill Richardson. His book Between Worlds along with some background research provide a picture of a candidate that is in love with name dropping, conventions and the pomp and circumstance of major party politics. This would seem to be objectionable to anyone that is tired of politics as usual but the author seems to have a grudging admiration for Richardson’s candor. I could understand this search for a silver lining by Greenberg after reading thousands of pages by people that have spent their lives winnowing speech down to its basic elements.

I have read a few biographies of prominent figures in the past including Colin Powell’s 1996 biography that prompted a draft movement for Powell within the Republican Party. In my experience, I have found few silver linings like David Greenberg has within the pages of Dissent. The one difference between my reading of Powell’s biography and my reading of current candidate books is that there are myriad online and print resources available to check on a politician’s claims.

As a writer for CensorSpace, I came out quickly to endorse former Senator John Edwards in his bid for the Democratic nomination in 2008. This endorsement means very little and I don’t think that the blogosphere, whether liberal or conservative, makes nearly the difference that it thinks it does on politics. I feel it necessary to disclose this fact as I have vacillated on the available candidates in both parties in previous posts on Media Critiques.

I am coming out today to endorse wholeheartedly the candidacy of John Edwards for the Democratic nomination. There are many reasons I have chosen Edwards over other candidates not the least of which is that Edwards is an underdog with a detailed populist program facing the two-headed monster of Hillary and Barack. John Edwards has been releasing specific policies since the beginning of his campaign including a national health care plan and plan to deal with poverty that include ways to pay for these programs. His most recent policy has put my support over the top for Edwards over my next choice, “someone else�? followed by “third party.�?

Mr. Edwards is now railing against drug advertisements that help drive up the price of pharmaceuticals in the United States. You know those commercials for penis medication and sleeping pills? They cost money in prime time and that money goes back to the public in the form of higher retail prices. One of the former senator’s first acts as president would be to promote a two year moratorium on consumer advertising for new drugs. He would also provide the FDA the power to stop advertisements that are misleading or based on questionable evidence. It is no wonder that Edwards has a devoted, if small, following in states like Iowa and South Carolina.

I have been advocating in various publications for the regulation of drug advertisements since my days as an ultra-liberal graduate student in Wisconsin. Drug companies complain about the high price of research but they don’t seem to mind putting money into lobbying, advertising and hectoring doctors to peddle their drugs. Mr. Edwards has come out for things that I believe in like investment in education, health insurance and a sound foreign policy in recent months. The smear machine within the Republican Party, the Democratic Leadership Conference and the media has focused on expensive haircuts. It is time to get past media obfuscation to find the truth.

This will be the last time I write about Mr. Edwards in this blog until the primaries unless there is an incredibly compelling reason to do so. I will not be a shill for Edwards (beyond this entry, at least) nor will I attack other candidates on his behalf. I simply want to say that corporate media can be reformed for the better with John Edwards in the Oval Office. If that is a sentiment that is incorrect, then I will no doubt look back upon this post in upcoming months to cringe at my narrow mindedness. For now, it is time for change in the way drug companies, lobbyists and major political parties do business.

For everyone waiting for Senator Barack Obama to lose some of the sheen he has gained as the new, sexy candidate and alternative to Hillary Clinton, the following story seems to do the trick. The Obama campaign has been experiencing public relations issues in planning a concert in South Carolina because he has a controversial singer named Donnie McClurkin in the program. McClurkin, according to the New York Times, has a mixed record when dealing with homosexuality. The Chicago Tribune states McClurkin’s account of being raped as a child and recovering from homosexuality in adulthood. Members of the Human Rights Campaign say that McClurkin is nothing but a gay baiting entertainer.

Obama attempted to ease concerns by bringing in an openly gay minister for pre-concert song and prayer. I think that the fundamental problem with this whole story is that there is any note of religiosity involved in a campaign concert. I understand that South Carolina is a key state, that Democrats need to act like they are religious and that gospel musicians are the perfect salve for stump speeches in the South. If Obama really wants to be the new hope for the Democratic Party and America, he needs to cancel the concert and plan a series of speeches on today’s issues.

I have never been totally convinced about Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. He lacks the specific plan of John Edwards, the experience of people like Joseph Biden and the political sophistication of Hillary Clinton. I think that Obama is like all the other Democratic candidates in his vacillation on issues of foreign and domestic policy. He sounds a note of optimism in a field of pessimistic candidates but does that make him competent?

As we approach the primary season and the quick run to the general election, I am becoming extremely frustrated with both the Democrats and the Republicans. Obama’s gaffe in South Carolina only proves that his new hope for America includes the same garbage as the hope brought by Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter…you get the idea. We are still grappling with the problem of religion and state as well as the fundamental freedoms of people to pursue happiness. Barack Obama only looks good when compared to other candidates like party hack John McCain, flip floppers Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney and fringe candidates like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.

Unless a new candidate like Al Gore or Michael Bloomberg emerges in the next month or so, I will be looking to third parties for potential candidates. I am tired of politics as usual in America and the self-serving charge by both major parties that a third party vote is a waste. If Barack Obama and others want to keep disillusioned voters like me in the fold, they need to address critical issues the same way throughout the country. Obama shouldn’t preach tolerance in Iowa and act like a hate monger in South Carolina.

This title is fairly melodramatic but after writing my entry yesterday on Senator Hillary Clinton gaining the lead in the Des Moines Register poll Sunday, I noticed an article discussing Mitt Romney’s polling numbers in the Hawkeye State. Romney won the meaningless Iowa straw poll, has the good looks and charms to win over menopausal voters and seems to have one thing working for him: the Republicans don’t know what they are doing at this point.

While Romney’s ridiculous grin and tough guy talk seem to win over some voters in Iowa, the national polls indicate otherwise. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani maintains a lead over other candidates on a national level while Romney seems content to weight out the conservative backlash against Giuliani. Republicans and independents that plan on voting for Republicans in upcoming primaries need to look at national numbers when considering the value of their vote.

Giuliani may be questionable in the eyes of conservatives when it comes to homosexuality and abortion but that is not the calculation voters need to make. The pulley system of American politics ensures that both parties will nominate a moderate that looks evil to the opposition party but won’t really do that much for America. This system failed in 2000 and 2004 (I guess the pulleys were off their tracks) but both parties need this election badly. The Democrats need to push their mandate further while Republicans need to get past the failures of the Bush Administration and reclaim conservatism.

The X factor in this election is Fred Thompson. Thompson may not be gaining traction in the meaningless polls mentioned above but he is bringing in dollars. He stands as a conservative pillar among moderates and flip-floppers and I have a feeling many conservatives uneasy about Giuliani for President or a landslide for Hillary Clinton may flock to him. He has everything Ronald Reagan had: a penchant for blindly accepting conservative values and presence on camera.

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.