We Said It Here First
We’ve said it here before and now Marc Ambinder asks it:
Does the McCain campaign think that their ticket can win if they go to war with the press 60 days out?
There’s another implication here.
If the McCain campaign does go to war with the press and that’s partly why they win, it’ll be one more election that is won in American politics on a side issue, by demonizing a segment of the population (press=liberal media=smears). And it would mean one more President coming to power with a segment of the population (not just the media but those who opposed the GOP ticket) angry and polarized. If it’s yet another culture war election, one candidate will win and the nation as a unified polity will suffer (yet again).
What’s YOUR view? Discuss in this open thread..
15 Responses to “We Said It Here First”
Wars are popular with the base
As if my view was a secret…..lol..
I'm the one that kindof brought it up in the first place.
The issues will be sacraficed for petty BS. That's the whole point. The GOP knows that if the race is about issues, they'll lose their fannies. That's yet another reason why they chose Palin, to distract us from the real leverage we have over them.
If Obama made this race about nothing but the BigOil monopoly, and how reining it in and forcing alternatives would stimulate the economy, the GOP would wither like corn in the Sahara Desert in July. But just try to rain on their parade and keep dumping fertilizer on their candidates and you'll be up to your ears in ears by November.
I say, pull away the mulch withhold the nutrients and watch them blow away in the sun and wind…metaphor intended..
It seems to be yet another sign of the sway of Schmidt/Rove on the campaign of John “Maverick” McCain, who not long ago accurately called the press “my base.”
But GeorgeSorwell is right. You can't go wrong with a strategy of attacking the news media – at least not with the Republican base. Note also the sudden appearance of cries of sexism from the McCain camp, etc.
But we've all seen this movie too many times before. If you can't run and win on your ideas and policies, you try to reduce the election to God, guns and gays, and going after the “liberal” news media.
It's hard to know. I believe quite a majority of the nation dislikes the MSM, but they don't agree on why. Some conservatives hate the media because they are convinced that it's biased against them. Many liberals distrust the media because almost no strong leftist voices are heard on it (about DLC-level is as crazy leftish as the MSM gets). And everyone says they dislike choices in coverage with sensationalism, it bleeds it leads, governance as just a horse race, etc. The question is whether McCain's attacks on his self-declared base of not long ago energizes anyone other than the people who would already have voted for him. Even if it is only a base rally, however, that could be helpful in getting out the vote.
However, there could be drawbacks as well. Will critiques of McCain become more prominent when being in his favor does no good?
If it’s yet another culture war election, one candidate will win and the nation as a unified polity will suffer (yet again).
The only culture war, lives in the mind(s) of the press and the fringe activists – or do I repeat myself. I have many friends who are very liberal, being uninterested in politics until lately, this was never before apparent. However, my differences of opinion with these longtime friends has not had any affect on our relationships. So, because I believe that a great majority of the rest of the country has the same MO regarding politics and life, I do not believe that the outcome of the election will have much affect on the nation.
The effect will be visible in the press, however. It will be a viscious circle, as the nation becomes more aware of the media's agenda, they will turn less and less to conventional news outlets, thus diminishing their revenues and reducing the amount of investment the media will put into actual reporting. As the conventional media disappears, new media outlets will take up where the former left off, a natural cycle.
The issues are oil, the economy, the housing crises and health care.
Moderately known fact: the Colosseum in Rome was built largely to distract the masses from political woes of the day by stunning them with grizzly bloodletting and senseless mayhem.
We are experiencing “The Colosseum Syndrome”.
The issues to take the win are oil, the economy, the housing crises and healthcare.
Interestingly enough, like bowling pins, if you knock the front one down, the rest usually follow. The BigOil magnates need to put back into our Country what they extracted from it, and they should transfer their activities and resources from fossil fuels to alternatives, creating millions of new jobs, which in turn would spur housing purchases, the banks dependant on the stability of the housing market and boost the economy enough to implement affordable government-subsidized healthcare.
What a “commie” I am, huh? lol.. I just think that monopolies are anti-American. America is about free competition. When some entity gets too big and squeezes out healthy competition, you get what we have at the pumps and with global warming today. There are no checks and balances on a monopoly folks.
Can they be sucessful by going to war with the press? Most certainly, will it be the reason they win the election if they do win? I doubt it. I don't think anyone votes against the press much. What it can do, is have the American people begin to strat questioning what they read in the press and become more informed. That is a good thing. After that its up to the people to make their own choices based on their own conclusions.
Let's see, Joe, I can quickly infer 5 biases in one paragraph of writing from you.
When you can knock it down to just one or two biases, I'll consider joining the discussion.
I only infer 4 biases, I must be going soft.
Dang, Joe didn't pass the casual observer worthiness test. Doh!
Everyone has a bias. I would wager that each poster here is operating under at least one of their own..
The liberal bias for which the media are notorious (along with their dishonest defenders, who lie and say the media are conservative instead) and related attitudes by the media (different than that of the public at large) are among the reasons the public dislikes the media (along with its dumbed-down and often vulgar programming in addition to liberal bias). It was remarkable that despite exposure of this political fact about the media (I got a gripe from someone this morning about this — see transcript of text message below), NPR this afternoon actually described McCain-Palin as a “very conservative ticket” [sic].
[Text message received]
“Speaking of AFU, I broke down and listened to NPR this AM. What a fucking joke. Al-Jazeera is more unbiased than NPR”
Yeah, the media is liberal. Google “CNN and PSYOPS” and get back to me on how “liberal” the media influence is.
PSYOPS goons work for the GOP….and you know who the GOP works for…
[yawn] The politics of journalists and editors and obviously their *** CONTENT *** is hardly the same as those of the owners. Silhouette, you left out the mind control waves emanating from the loci of the Secret Republican Conspiracy — or are they rays of some unidentified nature from the Illuminati?
I'll look for black helicopters overhead when I step outside on my way to my truck and to somewhere where I can see a GOP convention actually worth watching after all, where even liberal reporters talking about a “very conservative GOP ticket” [sic], the same kinds of people who call Obama “visionary” and “magnificent” and all the rest that they “objectively” report [sic] “without liberal bias” [sic] are surprised by the life Palin has injected into the ticket, convention, and party. (It could become worse — what if McCain-Palin actually moves into the lead later this month? Pre-arranged, right, Sil?)
It's the Republicans old standby. When it looks tough call out the unfair media. And they added in the old Clinton playbook of faux sexism as well as McCain's shouting POW all the time.
Ready made identity politics for both.
But, from what i've seen on CNN and MSNBC today the media is not buying it. They are actually being a bit snarky over it. And they keep saying to the public that this is the same old playbook used by republicans for 40 years and old.
The media is pissed off.
They played footsie with McCain for 10 years and now he is attacking them when they have given him a pass all election. And they feel betrayed and are fighting back.
I'm not worried about the gop using Hillary's old playbook of crying faux sexism. they are hoping to keep obama and Biden from going after her due to her woeful resume. Keep her from being asked the hard questions.
But, both ran against this with Hillary last year. they'll be fine.
I think that people, the media, ect. as a whole are tired of the gop mind games. Especially right now with this country in such trouble and people in serious pain. Instead of issues, which they have none to run on, they are using old playbooks and everyone is fed up with it.