Walter Shapiro explains how we’re supposed to pick our presidents:
This is how presidential vetting traditionally works. The press pack pounces on the logical fallacies in a candidate’s positions and the shakiness of his resume. Party elites and top fundraisers then decide, if they have not already, that any candidate subjected to this kind of non-ideological media assault is unelectable. And eventually voters—especially when the calendar moves beyond activist-dominated Iowa—get the message that they are trying to elect a president and not merely thumbing their noses at the establishment.
That pretty well explains what happened to Howard Dean, although I don’t think he committed too many logical fallacies. It’s also interesting to see why Shapiro fears that the vetting process won’t work this time and the Republicans might actually nominate a doofus like Herman Cain.
Aiding Cain—and potentially defying past election cycles—is the fact that Republican voters are highly skeptical of the media: 72 percent of conservative Republicans and 62 percent of all Republicans believe that there is “a lot” of bias in news coverage, according to a national survey by the Pew Research Center.
In other words, our Establishment Media has little influence over what’s left of the Republican Party. The more they diss a Sarah Palin or a Herman Cain, the more popular those candidates become. At least, that’s the theory. In truth, people came to hate Sarah Palin with a white-hot passion. But the media probably kept her popular for longer than she deserved.
I’m ambivalent about Shapiro’s worldview. I think the media does effectively vet the candidates, weeding out the lunatics. And that serves a needed function, I guess. But the media does this very, very inefficiently and it tends to obsess about superficial stuff like whether a candidate connects with the people. Too often, the media tries to weed out candidates because they have some unorthodox view rather than that they’re totally unprepared to be president. And the media is actually terrible about vetting the actual nominees. They are too afraid of being biased to fairly arbitrate who is telling the truth.
The only folks the Establishment Media have influence with are centrist independents above a certain age. That is, swing voters.
Let that sink in.
Another reason to find a way to motivate voter turnout for candidates that does not depend on subsidizing the Establishment Media. Take away their quadrennial Christmas profits.
The only folks the Establishment Media have influence with are centrist independents above a certain age. That is, swing voters.
Really? Or do you mean the easily gullible who think the establishment media is the the final arbiter of truth even though no one to the left of Harold Ford, Jr., ever gets fluffed by David Gregory.
The folks who have made “a habit of watching the news every night” because that’s what their parents did. Those would be highly educated people of a certain age–45 to 70 or so. Folks who are conventional to an extreme and who have not been hurt economically over the last 40 years. And pride themselves on “voting for the man, not the party”. And their political independence. The size of that group is likely diminishing.
I don’t think they ever evaluate the truth of the media they watch. They assume that these are professionals like themselves, so why would they do other than report the truth. And these folks generally are lower-to-middle level white-collar workers.
And the newscasts have been hemorrhaging viewers, why? Sure older people still listen/watch, but I bet close to half have it on as noise/filler around the dinner table(such as it is).
I think that would pretty well kill my appetite. We did away with all TV about 4 years ago. Miss Jon Stewart and Colbert a little, but we can always get clips from the Comedy Central web site. We’re 80 bucks a month richer, too.
“Filler” works better, Calvin. It goes right in under the thinking apparatus and sets itself up in the subconscious. The argument that the sub-45 age group is less affected by newsmedia than their older brethren? Totally empty. They see the headlines and a fed a virtual cartoon of what is happening unless they live in the deep woods with no outside contact whatsoever. This too sets up in the subconscious.
If the controllers could put a system in place that simply told people what to ‘think” during the time that they were asleep, then those controllers would be in complete control.
Bet on it.
AG
A system that “tells people what to think while they’re asleep” sounds a lot like what we already have, AG.
I mean physically asleep. All defenses down.
AG
I am not sure it is true. Party loyalty hasn’t increased over the last 30 years that I have noticed.
I think people are less tied to party now than the ever where for the simple reason that niether party at this point looks like it has an answer to globalization and the decline in living standards that it has caused.
There is also the opposite phenomenon: a large segment of the media falling in love with a candidate who does not become the nominee (Fred Thompson in 2008, McCain in 2000, Bruce Babbitt in 1992) because of his presumed “seriousness.” If Huntsman weren’t at .0001%, they’d probably be swooning over him right now.
Yes, that’s a good observation.
They slobbered over McCain in ’08 as well. Remember, all the news outlets were calling McCain “The Comeback Kid” despite finishing 4th in Iowa.
You missed the best example: Bill Bradley in 2000.
Most of these (excepting Thompson) are also cases of the media trying to create the narrative of a close race when, mathematically, it isn’t. That’s how we got three extra months of Clinton/Obama in 2008, too. The narrative happens not to be true, but as a purely coincidental side effect it does generate a lot more readers/viewers and ad dollars.
Yes, Bradley 2000, absolutely, with the added kicker that much of the media hated Gore for reasons that were either false or stupid; these carried over into the general election.
I enjoyed how Shapiro subverted his own column with the following sentence: “After Pat Buchanan narrowly won the 1996 New Hampshire primary, a newspaper columnist named (whoops!) Walter Shapiro declared, ‘He should be considered the presumptive frontrunner.’ “
That’s not to say there isn’t an element of truth in Shaprio’s thesis—just that it’s more complex than he describes.
A more accurate and useful translation of Shapiro’s shallow statement…the truth of the matter:
End of story?
We get a Bush or an Obama. Another safe corporate tool. “Safe” for the 1%, for sure.
Bet on it.
It’s a lock.
AG
Just for the record, the Dean campaign had crashed before the “ARRRGH” moment. 2004 Iowa Democratic caucus results according to Wikipedia:
Approximate # of Delegates
Percentage Won
of Votes
Kerry 38% 20
Edwards 32% 18
Dean 18% 7
Gephardt 11% 0
Interestingly, the liberal vote broke 32-16 Edwards-Dean for 48% and the Centrist vote broke 38-11 Kerry-Gephardt for 49%. However, I don’t consider 32% in a four way race “crashing”. There were many problems with the Dean campaign in Iowa, notably reliance on non-Iowans flooding the state to tell Iowans how to vote (a Trippi idea) and “dirty tricks” by Vilsack.
Also, McCain placed fourth with 13% in 2008, but eventually won. The only campaign that truly crashed from voters in Iowa was favorite-son Gephardt getting 11%, zero delegates.
Campaigns are not over until the candidate…and/or his backers/owners/controllers, of course… decide that they are over. Dean was still a viable candidate until the media coup de grace. One loss is not a death sentence. Say Edwards had been outed as the asshole he is a week after his 32% showing. Suddenly Dean would have magically been right back in the running again. Only after the media-addled public’s view of his character was totally assassinated by a truly massive media campaign following the “AAAAARGH” moment…which was a total farce in the first place…did Dean throw in the towel.
AG
I wouldn’t worry overmuch about Cain:
http://www.newser.com/story/131750/herman-cain-doesnt-appear-to-have-a-campaign.html#.TqXGJ_n2TD8.em
ail
“Is it a campaign, or is it a book tour?” one South Carolina operative asked. In Florida, the Miami Herald says that even prominent Republicans can’t get Cain’s skeleton staff to return their calls, and aren’t sure who’s in charge. In Iowa, Cain has an office with four staffers, but he’s not campaigning hard there, supporters tell John Dickerson of Slate–one county chair complains that Cain has thrice bailed on scheduled appearances. Cain’s newly-hired Iowa chair tells Politico that he’s trying to “bring some much-needed organization” to a very grass-roots operation, but added, “I wouldn’t say that this effort would ever be professionalized.”
So either Cain will be the first candidate to win a nomination without having to do any work. Or he’ll disappear into a puff of smoke. Full disclosure: I am a Ron Paul supporter.
I say it’s a book tour that got out of hand. Juan and Armstrong Williams are going to be awed at the grifting clinic Cain’s going to put on as the next voice of the so-called Black CONservative.
this is bullshyt, because the MSM aided and abetted Caribou Barbie. If they had told the truth about that woman, the 2008 race would have been over by October 1st. But, they didn’t.
so, I don’t wanna hear it.
Absolutely. The following video has been available for years, as has been plentiful evidence of her stupitdy, viciousness and utter banality. Regardless, the media beat went on and on and on and on, with almost no mass coverage of anything deeper than her posed winkings, photo ops and “You betchas.”
Why?
How?
Because the entire big-time media system of America is full of shit, that’s why. It is a total disinformation system.
Look at this vid and then ask yourself how Sarah Palin became a sucessful national politician when evidence like this resided in full public view on YouTube and elsewhere.
Ridiculous.
But it works…
Watch it and shudder.
AG