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.
Well, we all know that our rightwing extremists (aka garden variety Repubs) cannot be described as “lunatics”, or even “extremists,” by our corporate media. Same rule as our domestic rightwing terrorists.
Demagogues have charisma (by definition). Hitler had charisma. It shouldn’t be seen as a politician’s only attribute. In a responsible democracy, “charisma” wouldn’t prevent journalists from identifying crackpot, baseless positions as “extremist”. But we are quite a ways away from a responsible democracy. Also note the lie about being an “independent”. Yes, she’ll be even further Right that Calgary Cruz…but this “independent” lie is a means to an end right now.
That nutjob Ernst can be put forward as a Repub “breakout star” shows how deep the rot and gangrene has spread to the body politic and our media institutions. That she would take over Harkin’s seat and give IA a double dose of Repub is yet another sign of the rising irreconcilables and angry rurals. The weight bearing beams have given way. Make those lib’rul “spenders” squeal, Brownshirt Joni!
Just don’t touch those farm subsidies! That’s not the squealing we want!
If Cargill and/or ADM told a Senator Ernst to cut the farm subsidies, her only question would be by how much.
If Ernst were on the national stage, she would have crashed as quickly as Palin did. A shame the media and all too often voters don’t vet and evaluate candidates for Governor and Senator honestly and critically and spare their states and the country from having to suffer the crazies and dimwits. Was going to say “as honestly and critically” as they do for POTUS, but have to remember that Nixon, Reagan, GHWB were elected, and GWB got close enough to steal one if not two elections.
Roman Hruska famously once said that mediocre people deserved representation on the Supreme Court too.
But I’m pretty sure the barking mad are already adequately represented in the Senate.
The media reflects its ownership, and the ownership of the media is massively corrupt and tied to the Republican Party. Even MSNBC.
They like suckering progressives and Democrats to supply cash and eyeballs, but they take that cash and donate it to Republicans.
Best approach for progressives is below-the-media GOTV turnout in entrenched incumbent areas in primaries and general elections.
The treatment of Jodi Ernst by the media shows that they will sell out the country for a few million bucks.
The treatment of Jodi Ernst by the media shows that they will sell out the country for a few million bucks.
I basically tweeted just that to Mr. Goldmacher.
Joni Ernst is a Parrot. Everything you quoted comes from the John Birch Society web site (Agenda 21)or the Libertarian Party Platform (see Bernie Sanders site for a distilled version of the LPP}. Joni knows the Kochs have lotsa crackers.
You get it…part of it.
The rest is what I keep telling everybody: never look at the storyteller; always look at the audience.
Ms. Ernst is a politician, which means that there is no reason to suppose that she, personally, believes anything she says. And it doesn’t matter. She says what she thinks her audience wants to hear. Occasionally, mistakes are made in that calculation, but ordinarily it is a pretty well self-correcting process. Ms. Ernst does her job as a candidate, neither more nor less: she reads a script written by a propaganda machine. It can be read with greater or lesser fluency or apparent conviction, but it’s all theater.
So the point — the only point — is that roughly half of Iowans (for that matter, roughly half of Americans) want to hear what she is saying. So nearly half that it doesn’t really matter who has the big 50% and who has the little 50%. Suppose she loses: [roughly] half of Iowa is still irreconcilable.
SIDEBAR: How many irreconcilables can a body-politic survive with? I suspect the answer is much closer to zero than anyone imagines. What’s a superminority? How few do a faction have to be before they can be read out of the national discourse with a clear conscience? Have any of us thought about that question?
Sounds a lot like John C Calhoun’s attempted Constitutional sabotage in the 19th century; no wonder “nullification” still rings a bell these days.
State”s rights are a convenient refuge yet today, if you can’t get your way. Reminds me of medicaid expansion recently.
Another fine candidate in the revered tradition of Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, who still is not a witch.
I think a quick round of “What if a Democrat did this?” is in order. Here’s how to play it in general, adapted to Ms. Ernst: List the lunatic pronouncements of Ms. Ernst (Agenda 21, banning contraception, personhood amendment, eliminating the EPA, IRS and Department of Education, et al), and then make a similar list of lunatic Democratic or Progressive nostrums (it’ll be kind of tough).
Now imagine a Democratic candidate espousing things like (I dunno) cutting the military budget, reining in the intelligence agencies, prosecuting war crimes, filling vacancies of presidential-appointed offices (I said it would be kind of tough – did you believe me?). What would a profile of such a candidate look like in any of the popular periodicals?
Dennis Kucinich?
How about we raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Crazy enough?
Her handlers redid her look so now she resembles Laura Bush – a way to make her look “harmless” and minimize her craziness.