Media Criticism

The Republicans muddied their primary waters last weekend with a Vegas victory for Mitt Romney and a Southern rise for John McCain. The Democratic Party has an equally difficult process in choosing a candidate for the 2008 elections which seems to be a Democratic year. While the Republicans have the problem of multiple candidates who have regional difficulties, the Democrats are torn between the cold pragmatism of experience and the quick-burning light of change.

In recent days, Senators Clinton and Obama have alternated between barb trading and uneasy friendship in various public meetings. The tone of this evening’s debate in Myrtle Beach leaned more heavily to the former especially concerning the pasts of both candidates. Obama pointed out Clinton’s role as a “corporate lawyer�? on the Wal-Mart board in Arkansas while Clinton spent an abundant amount of time pointing out Obama’s “Present�? votes in the Illinois legislature. John Edwards seemed to be more relaxed than the other two which is a certainty achieved through a 4% showing in the Nevada caucuses.

I am not sure what the impact of an individual debate can have on a race considering the full-press coverage on stump speeches by CNN, MSNBC and C-SPAN. If the South Carolina debates told us anything about the Democratic field, it is that it will extend well beyond Super Tuesday. I can envision a John McCain-Mitt Romney fight after Super Tuesday in addition to the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton battle that was raging on stage. In both parties, candidates like Mike Huckabee and John Edwards will stay in for awhile to assert their influence. Huckabee can deliver an interesting group of voters to McCain or Romney while Edwards can parlay his delegates for a role in the next administration.

CNN has not learned from past debates on the importance of decorum. The temptation to let politicians loose is strong since the public wants answers from these candidates. The problem is that Clinton, Obama and Edwards don’t know their own limits. A politician is like a door-to-door salesman; one foot in the door can lead to an hour of talking. Wolf Blitzer said at the beginning that some of the answers may be less than the time allotted which seemed to get a smirk from all three candidates. We all know that a no-holds barred debate is going to take place no matter what; CNN should at least pretend to practice limits so that the public can criticize the candidates instead of the media for run-on arguments.

CNN’s latest primary debate with the Democratic candidates minus Mike Gravel demonstrates the network’s inability to function in the real world of politics. The location of the debate may have been disorienting as Wolf Blitzer stated that this was the first presidential debate in the state of Nevada. I know the bright lights and glitz of Las Vegas probably caught the eye of Blitzer and his rag tag group of talking heads but CNN’s “best political team in news�? needs to shore up a few major weaknesses.

Blitzer got blown up at several points by the candidates as he tried to play the role of harried debate moderator. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards were penned into a melee by questions from the insufferable Campbell Scott and John Roberts, the hair-do of all hair-dos. Obama was able to push Blitzer aside while going after Clinton while Senator Biden and Dennis Kucinich tried to squeeze in some time in front of the CNN cameras. I am convinced that leaving aside the moderator for this debate would have been fine because the boos and cheers of the crowd would have done a better job than Wolf.

I think most media observers would agree that the combination of moderated questions and audience questions (which only look like they are spontaneous) needed to be tinkered. The final question to Hillary Clinton was sexist but it was also an indication of what is wrong with this election. Dennis Kucinich was asked a question about UFOs and Mike Gravel a question about a failed business deal unrelated to his political career in past debates. A woman that was clearly a Bill Richardson supporter got in a birthday wish and a softball question regarding contractors in Iraq. Much like the YouTube debate in the summer, CNN’s efforts at democratic involvement in the debate process needs significant tweaking.

As a side note, I would like to thank CNN for putting on the least objective post-debate show ever. Space alien James Carville joined Anderson Cooper to speak to the success of Hillary Clinton. I had the sound off but I could tell that Carville was singing the praises of Senator Clinton due to his relationship with the Clinton family. I say all of this having already made my decision on a candidate but I know that many Americans aren’t even close to making a decision. CNN is doing a poor service to undecided primary voters by offering up bad questions, disorganized responses and skewed spin room analysis.

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.

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.

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.

The underlying theme of any presidential primary debate depends on who is hosting the candidates. Forums held by the AFL-CIO will probably not deal with the environment while the Logo Network debate probably won’t get too far into the Iraq War. I understand that the good graces of the host make a focused debate a necessity in order to get the best questions from the panel. The Democratic debate held on September 9th on Spanish-language channel Univision may be drawing too fine a line in pleasing constituents with debates that few people watch.

I think that Hispanic voters who are interested in the debates have probably watched the endless hours of debates already conducted across the country. The political correctness that is rife within the Democratic Party was obvious when Senator Dodd and Governor Richardson (who is HISPANIC!) tried to speak Spanish to the chagrin of hosts. Every candidate was required to speak English which was then translated into Spanish for the viewing audience. The difficulty of listening to candidates of any party lay out their talking points for an hour and a half is made more significant when it is filtered several times over.

All of these points lead to one conclusion: the primary season is not too long, just the list of debates. While I have an interest in what candidates have to say on gay marriage or the environment, I don’t want to hear 90 minutes on the topic. I have not decided who I will vote for in my primary and I definitely have not thought about the general election yet. Like most voters, I will make a decision as I approach the ballot box. These debates are focused too much on a particular issue based on questions from single-minded forum moderators and offer nothing that a look at each candidate’s website won’t yield. If the Democrats and Republicans insist on holding similar debates in future election seasons, here are a few suggestions:

1) Let local news stations host the debates, not issue-oriented groups.
2) Space these debates out so that you have no more than one every month.
3) Stay away from the YouTube debate…please!

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.�?

This week’s Economist is full of articles worth mentioning here. One, in particular, reveals how one candidate’s media image is shaping the whole of the campaign.

John Edwards, in an attempt to both distinguish himself as a candidate and create real change, outlines very specific policies in his speeches. Normally, candidates generalize the issues and offer a vague party platform in an attempt to gain votes. Edwards seems more interested in policy than politics, however. According to the Economist, “[h]e has grand, progressive, goals–to end the war in Iraq (obviously), provide universal health care, address global warming, eliminate poverty in America within 30 years–and detailed blueprints of how to do it all.”*

Even more amazing than Edwards’ bold move to make policy proposals is the fact that the other two Democratic candidates (Clinton and Obama, both leading Edwards in polls and money) are following suit. They’re not proposing as many specific policies, but the choices they make seem sometimes to be defined by Edwards’ position. For instance, Edwards has a comprehensive energy plan to “reduce America’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% before 2050 with a cap-and-trade system of carbon permits.” This is similar to one of the most radical bills in congress, which Clinton and Obama began supporting “soon after the Edwards energy plan was released.”

However, Edwards seems significantly more moderate than the two candidates leading him in the polls. He favors troops staying near Iraq to “prevent a genocide, deter a regional spillovr of the civil war, and prevent an al-Qaeda safe haven.” His health care plan echoes Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s. Ironically enough, Obama’s “paler version” of Edwards’ plan was criticized for being too watered down.

What’s the upshot? Ultimately, the Democrats are fighting about real issues of policy, and the political theater (while still in full force–Edwards’ speeches all begin the same way) is taking a back seat. The role of the media in this is substantial; the media’s portrayal of candidates has a calculable effect on the turnout of elections. For once, a candidate has decided to play a different angle. Instead of the empty platitudes of a “better America”, Edwards is offering real solutions to the problems facing the country. Even if you don’t like all of his solutions (I certainly don’t), you know what you’re getting.

I, for one, am harboring the (maybe vain) hope that we’re witnessing the emergence of a new politics. Right now, Edwards’ voice is what the left needs; all of the candidates are using his ideas. Maybe this year’s presidential battle will be more than the traditional theatric farce.

I’m hoping, but I’m not holding my breath.

*Source: “Man of the Left”. The Economist. 7/21/2007

Edwards, economist, Democrats, election, policy, health care, global warming