Shane Goldmacher of the National Journal provides one more example of what the Democrats are up against in this media environment. The Republicans’ Senate nominee in Iowa, Joni Ernst, is a gaffe machine whose policies range from arresting federal officers who are implementing ObamaCare to opposing the mythical Agenda 21 to supporting a Personhood Amendment that would ban several popular forms of contraception to waxing nostalgic for the days when the poor relied on church charity to eliminating the EPA, the IRS, and the Department of Education, to a balanced budget constitutional amendment to agnosticism on climate change and WMD in Iraq. And only Politifact would contort itself enough to say that it is only “half-true” that Ernst supports the privatization of Social Security.
Yet, despite these stark-raving mad and wildly unpopular positions, we are told that Ernst is an outstanding candidate.
What the Republicans also have going for them this year is Ernst herself, a folksy state senator and lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard who has emerged as one of the breakout stars of 2014. She burst through a crowded Senate GOP primary with an ad touting her farm-girl roots castrating hogs. “Let’s make them squeal!” she said of Washington spenders. The ad drew national attention (627,000 YouTube views and counting) and a deluge of donations.
It hasn’t hurt that Ernst has a toothy grin and would be the first female combat veteran to serve in the Senate—”Mother. Soldier. Independent leader.” is plastered on her campaign RV. Or that she is running in the 2016 caucus-kickoff state—Republican presidential contenders have been tripping over themselves to fly into Iowa to help. Ernst hauled in $6 million in the third quarter, the most of any candidate in the country in any quarter this cycle.
“She’s got momentum. She’s got charisma. But Democrats have great organization there,” former top Obama strategist David Axelrod said of the race on MSNBC earlier this month. “It’s really organization versus momentum and charisma, and we’ll see.”
I’m not saying that Joni Ernst doesn’t have any charisma, but she’s a lunatic. If she loses on a ballot in which the Republican governor will be reelected in a walk, she will lose precisely because she is a lunatic.
That really ought to be the story, but instead we are told how folksy and compelling she is.
This kind of media coverage isn’t confined to Iowa. You can find similar biases in the coverage of every contested Senate race in the country, and several of the gubernatorial ones.
