Media Criticism

I was prepared to leave the post-mortem of the Iowa caucus to my last entry but I have to address one last issue that arose this morning. The New York Times had an entry in its Caucus blog that discussed a connection between caucus-goers for Bill Richardson and the Barack Obama campaign. The blogger spoke about a potential Richardson-Obama pack in individual caucuses to throw Richardson’s votes to Obama after the first ballot as if it were Watergate 2008. I know that these reporters and bloggers are exhausted from all the time they spend in Iowa but this entry seems to show a lack of knowledge about caucuses.

It is time for caucus school, boys and girls. In the Iowa Democratic caucuses, a candidate needs 15% of the vote in an individual caucus to remain viable. There were three candidates in 95% of the caucuses who had a reasonable shot at viability: Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Individuals who were caucusing for Joe Biden, Bill Richardson or Mike Gravel were propositioned by voters of the top three candidates to join their cause. The end result was a lot of horse trading and conversations by non-viable voters who became important to the top three candidates in a close race early in the evening.

There was no conspiracy and an agreement between Richardson and Obama for something like a vice-presidential position would be ridiculous. Every second- and third-tier candidate had a contingency plan for non-viability in caucuses. I have read several places about the Kucinich campaign instructing organizers to promote switches to Barack Obama after the first ballot. The New York Times was making a mountain out of a mole hill regarding any sort of agreement because they failed to note the realities of the Iowa caucus. There are only so many candidates who will get a piece of the viability pie. Whatever one can say about the usefulness of the caucus system, the beauty of a caucus is the ability of voters to convince their colleagues on the fringe to join a singular cause. In the end, the Times was either guilty of not doing their homework or writing a poorly constructed blog entry about a non-issue.

Most Americans probably didn’t see the Des Moines Register Republican debates this afternoon because they were at work. Since the final date of the Iowa caucuses was not determined until recently, the newspaper and the candidates for the Republicans and the Democrats weren’t able to finalize a date for the debate. The compromise for everyone involved was 1:00pm Central time on a Tuesday. If you haven’t seen clips from the debates yet, you don’t need to worry too much since there was little of substance that came from the debate.

You can blame two factors on the failure to get much out of the Register’s debate: the moderator and the format. Carolyn Washburn, the editor of the Des Moines Register, acted as moderator for a field of candidates including professional presidential candidate Alan Keyes. Washburn alternated between the weaknesses of past moderators like Anderson Cooper and an overly zealous approach to watching the clock when lesser known candidates were speaking. I am not a huge Fred Thompson fan but I loved it when he snapped back at Washburn for asking a question that asked grown men to raise their hands. Senator Thompson should be lauded for challenging this ridiculous trend in political debates. Ideas should be bandied about instead of relegated to silent nods and hand waving.

The format has been blamed by some pundits for encouraging sound bite responses by all the candidates. You could have any format in a political debate and have it fail miserably. If you give a politician 30 seconds and a microphone, prepare to hear an abbreviation of their stump speech. I like the format’s limitations on direct confrontations since civil discourse often turns into one-upsmanship.

There were a few good things that came out of Tuesday’s debate. Alan Keyes shows what a true 1990s family values conservative looks like and I can’t imagine more than a dozen voters will like the cut of his jib. Mike Huckabee’s frontrunner status finally exposes him to some criticism and critical analysis. I think the winner in this debate was Fred Thompson because he gave off the presidential vibe that many primary voters look for. You should all check back tomorrow for my look at the Democratic debate and a comparison to the management of the debate by the Des Moines Register.

I know that readers of this blog are probably sick of me talking about the primary debates. I also understand that I sound like a broken record when it comes to the failings of the televised debates for both parties. I am here today to say that I have heard the best debate in a long time about the issues and it involved no visual elements whatsoever. National Public Radio and Iowa Public Radio have done what a dozen plus debates have failed to do: get candidates to talk about issues.

There were parts of the Democratic debate on December 4th that were uncomfortable or imperfect. The question about buying Chinese toys for Christmas was a throwaway question and Christopher Dodd seemed to criticize and make light of the question all in one answer. I couldn’t possibly blame NPR for the failings of political dialogue; that blame is best left to commercial media, the parties and the American public. The NPR debate format may not have solved all of the problems with American politics but it gave a game plan for future debates to succeed.

NPR used a few questions from listeners and activists to guide the debate. The candidates present in Iowa for the debate were given room to roam when answering instead of being penned in by the fact that the debate host had to get through dozens of ridiculous questions. The debate was more civil even when Hillary Clinton and John Edwards got into a tiff about the condemnation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard by Congress. I am no Luddite and I enjoy technology but my hope is that we have more radio debates in the future. It is time to stop messing around with all of these crazy debate formats and spend hours on public radio listening to candidates have substantive conversations about the real issues facing America. Down with YouTube, up with old time radio!

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 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.

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.

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.