Campaigns like people go through life phases, and nothing can be more distressing to a candidate and his/her supporters as when journalists start reporting a political death rattle. That now seems to be the stage of the campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
You can hear the characterizations in the reports of TV news journalists and read references to it in some news reports. MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that Senator Clinton knows the race is over. But it now seems like that narrative in a campaign’s cycle has kicked in, given a report in the New York Times:
On the day Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was endorsed by the governor of North Carolina, a supporter gave her a three-foot-long balloon replica of herself, complete with blond hair, black pantsuit and wide pink smile, which Mrs. Clinton promptly took on her plane and laughingly showed off to reporters.
On Thursday, little more than two weeks later, the doll lay on the sofa by her seat on the plane, shriveled and deflated.
With her candidacy running out of time — and perhaps air — the Clinton campaign has taken on a distinctly subdued mood.
Mrs. Clinton found herself largely ignored on Friday while a battle raged between Senator Barack Obama on one hand and Senator John McCain and President Bush on the other.
This has been a week of agony and ecstasy for the Clintons - and she could face the same kind of week again. Read the rest of this entry »
When Senator Barack Obama responded to President George Bush and presumptive GOP Presidential nominee Senator John McCain’s suggestion that he would indulge in the “appeasement” of terrorists, it underscored several lessons — and several key changes — in the political, national and media landscapes.
For one thing, the incident revealed Obama’s quick-response style where he turned a defense into media-friendly offense — and is indicative of many Democrats’ determination to not be defined anymore by Republicans on national security issues.
TV talk shows, newscasts and many blogs have been having a field day with the White House’s shifting explanations of what Bush really meant. But there have been enough news reports now to solidify the fact that the remarks were indeed aimed at Obama. And it wasn’t just a Bush oversight that he swiped at the Democratic frontrunner while international news cameras whirred during his address in Israel.
First, it showed that despite the fact that Bush is winding up his second term and battling charges of lameduck-ism, he still an unmatched ability to drive the political dialogue in this country.
Make no mistake: This was a pre-planned strategy by the Bush campaign to re-inject foreign policy into the presidential campaign in a way that many Republicans believe will ultimately be beneficial to McCain. Deride Bush — and his strategic team — if you will, but remember that Team Bush managed to get their man elected president and then reelected in the face of growing concerns about the war in Iraq and declining popularity numbers. Bush’s political judgment since 2004 has proved somewhat suspect, but to dismiss his ability to understand and effectively analyze the political landscape could be a mistake on the part of Democrats.
That’s why it was so fascinating today to watch cable casts, listen to talk radio shows and read comments in blogs where the most lockstep Republican defenders of Mr. Bush insisted Obama and the Democrats were being paranoid. White House officials gave reporters various explanations of about to whom Bush was “really” referering, latest being that he was really referring to Jimmy Carter.
But you can now read Cillizza and any number of seasoned reporters covering this mini-firestorm and they’re not running the spin but calling it as it is. And bluntly.
The second lesson of the Knesset Kerfuffle is that the Democratic presidential nomination race is over. Amid all of the “he said, he said” between Obama and McCain/Bush, the one figure that has been almost entirely absent is Hillary Rodham Clinton. Can you imagine that happening even three months ago?
We’ve written about that since this story broke. It was instructive because (a) a day after former Senator John Edwards endorsed Obama and nearly wiped Clinton’s huge West Virginia win off the media’s stories-to-cover list, Bush made his comments aimed at Obama, (b)Clinton was out of this debate, (c)coverage of this news cycle shoved Clinton out of news coverage almost completely yesterday and today (except for her statement condemning Bush’s comments).
The third, and most important lesson, is that Obama is ready and willing to fight Republicans over foreign policy and national security concerns.
Bush’s remarks at the Knesset provided Obama with an interesting conundrum. Refuse to rise to the bait or engage full force in an attempt to begin to address concerns — voiced privately by some Democratic strategists — that the Illinois senator may not be able to win a general election that is framed as a referendum on which party can keep America safe.
Obama, to our mind, took the smarter course by not simply answering the inherent critique offered by the president but also pivoting to try and make McCain answerable for the foreign policy pursued by the United States over the last eight years.
Obama turned the proverbial lemon (being attacked by Bush and being put on the defensive and having to answer) into lemonade (going after Bush by rattling off specific criticisms, using humor and sarcasm and tethering McCain tightly to Bush one after McCain made a major speech in which the Arizona Senator tried to inch himself away from the most unpopular President in modern polling history).
But the biggest change is in the approach of Obama and the Democrats themselves.
As Cillizza notes, the Democrats usually would try not to aggressively challenge the Republicans on national security issues. They’d respond and quickly try to move onto domestic issues, such as health care, environment, the courts….figuring those were the party’s strength.
Rather than battle the GOP with the Republican’s choice of weapons, they tried to use other ones. But it turned out to be trying to counter a shotgun with a nail file.
Then there came the change, as Cillizza notes:
The 2004 election may well have signaled a sea change in that strategy, as Bush effectively turned the election into a referendum on the threat of terrorism and the importance of national security as Democrats were unable to mount an effective response.
In 2006, the Democrats began to engage the Republicans on what the GOP felt was its own national security turf even more…and saw results. Polls began to show that many Americans did not whoppingly trust the Republicans more than the Democrats.
One of the signs of political savvy is learning from mistakes and adapting. The Democrats seem to have started to adapt in recent years — and if Obama’s response in this controversy is any indication the rules and responses in the game have changed. Cillizza again:
It marks a remarkable change in tactics that speaks to just how much the political landscape has shifted since 2004. McCain and Republicans are certain to work to frame the national security/foreign policy debate in their favor, but Obama’s initial response is a sign that they may have to adjust their tactics in the runup to the November election.
What’s changed are several factors, which can’t be applied to the most lockstep Bush administration supporters, but to many Democrats, Republicans and independent voters.
Simple spin won’t do anymore. Spin is a lot more to be countered by a press singed by duly reporting official Bush administration statements over the years and in some cases being accused of doing more stenography than journalism. The Bush administration now has a massive — and profusely documented — credibility gap. McCain has enjoyed much credibility but if Bush keeps roping him in, McCain will begin to morph into Bush Lite among more voters than just progressive Democrats, who never liked him to begin with.
2008 ain’t 2006 which wasn’t 2004 which wasn’t 2000 in terms of the mega-quick response time of the Internet, the growth and popularity of cable news talk shows, talk radio, and a mainstream news media that is trying to respond quicker and more decisively to breaking news stories in order to compete with the new media. Many newspapers now have excellent political weblogs.
So the Democrats are responding faster, they have a presumptive candidate who turned a trap into media and political gain, and the Democrats will find more rapid coverage from the new media and also be dealing with a mainstream media that has been burned by Bush and the Republicans over the past few years.
Obama may be no John Kennedy, but in this instance he proved he was no Michael Dukakis or John Kerry.
And Democratic leaders’ super-quick responses falling in line behind him also suggested that the Democrats of 2008 are….so far at least (and the campaign is still young)…not the Democrats of 2004.
Cartoon by Huffaker, Cagle Cartoons
May 16th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
It’s worth putting up the last half of the Washington Times article referenced in my previous post. McCain’s choice of bloggers is intense and interesting. Many of the bloggers are hard workers who have given over a significant part of their lives to feeding the maw. No small thing. For sure, it’s never been for the pay.
And, AHEM, Senator McCain, The Moderate Voice would like to be invited to be in on your blogger phone calls too. Feel free to contact us. Joe Gandelman is our Editor in Chief. For that matter, we’re interested in being in on any candidate’s blogger phone call/ news inquires. And we also have a number of thoughtful and passionate male and female bloggers here. (End of ‘Squeaky Wheel Appeal’ for now.)
And, here below, from Stephen Dinan’s writing at the Washington Times:
“The plan is to take the work we’ve already built on with conservative bloggers and to open up a dialogue with non-conservative bloggers and even nonpolitical bloggers,” said Patrick Hynes, Mr. McCain’s point man for blog outreach.
“We hope to be the most accessible and transparent campaign in history, to take advantage of what we think is one of the campaign’s strongest assets, which is Senator McCain himself, and frankly to empower voters who are also bloggers to get the answers they need to decide who to vote for.”
A call last week focused on Mr. McCain’s health care plans. Top McCain advisers talked with health-care-specific bloggers and sites that cater to mothers, a demographic that the campaign figured would be interested in health care issues. The campaign also deployed adviser Carly Fiorina, former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, to talk with major health site WebMD’s reporter.
Democrats have had success with online fundraising, but conservative and liberal bloggers said Mr. McCain’s outreach to them puts the Republican presidential nominee far ahead of his Democratic counterparts in getting out information.
David All, a blogger who also runs Slatecard.com, a site that channels online contributions to Republican candidates, said reaching bloggers is not about mass communication, but about reaching opinion leaders who are likely to help shape others’ opinions. By taking that beyond the political and into the policy areas, Mr. McCain is tapping a wide-open market.
“They are the experts in understanding health care policy, and they are the ones who will get beyond the first two bullet points of a health care debate,” Mr. All said. “Everyone who’s reading the health care blogs, the first sentence they’re going to see is something to the effect of, look, I don’t agree with everything in this plan, but I just got off the phone with John McCain, and now here are my more-informed thoughts on the plan.”
Those who follow blogging said the McCain campaign will have to pick and choose whom to invite to conference calls, arguing that some sites won’t treat Mr. McCain fairly.
May 16th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
this, from the Washington Times regarding John McCain inviting bloggers who normally would not be considered ‘political’ and also non-conservative bloggers (presumably from the far left? Can that be it?) to ‘tell the real story’ about him and his campaign.
Also, I just caught on Fox News, that several female conservative bloggers were tapped by Senator McCain also.
Not sure about ‘the war’ mentioned below.
Stay tuned.
McCain widens dialogue on blogs
By Stephen Dinan
May 16, 2008
Sen. John McCain answers questions from reporters today on his bus prior to visiting the St. Albans Gun and Archery store in Charleston, W.Va. Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign is trying to tap a new audience of potential voters by taking his campaign message straight to liberal and nonpolitical issues-based blogs, which reach millions of readers but don’t often delve into conservative politics.
The strategy was in full swing yesterday when Mr. McCain invited non-conservative bloggers to join his regular blogger conference call, just hours after he delivered a major speech previewing his war strategy and other priorities for a first presidential term.
It already has started a war among liberal bloggers over how to react to Mr. McCain’s overture.
This Guest Voice post is by journalism professor and author Walter Brasch who is also a syndicated newspaper columnist and radio commentator, and president of the Pennsylvania Press Club. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice or its writers.
The Media and the Bush Wedding
OR
All the News That Fits—In 500 words or a Graphic
by Walter Brasch
The editors of USA Today, as they do every day, had to decide what to make its “Cover Story.”
The death toll from the cyclone in Myanmar was approaching 25,000, with about almost a million homeless, and the ruling military junta was still refusing to accept foreign assistance.
A Pentagon report revealed that about 43,000 medically unfit troops were sent into combat.
In Philadelphia, six police officers were under investigation for beating suspects. And, in Russia a new president was inaugurated.
What the editors chose to dominate the front page was a three-column head photo of presidential daughter Jenna Bush and a story about her forthcoming non-public private wedding. The only reason USA Today didn’t run the story on its front pages Saturday and Sunday is because it doesn’t publish on weekends. But, just about every other news medium gave the wedding heavy play.
When USA Today debuted in 1982, it was a glitzy full color alternative to the average gray newspaper. Focused upon an audience of travelers, and primarily available at airports and hotels, the five day a week newspaper, then as now, had short, quick looks at the news. “Across the USA” is a series of one paragraph stories from every state, plus the territories, something to let the lonely traveler know his home state still exists. A color weather map informs travelers what to expect when they arrive at an airport a dozen states away. Extensive business stories target middle- and upper-management workers who don’t have the time to read that day’s Wall Street Journal.
With an emphasis on polls, USA Today tells us what we think. And what we think is divided into four equal parts—News, Lifestyle, Sports, and Money. Thus, news is one-fourth of the newspaper.
Ridiculed as McPaper, but read by about two million people a day, most of whom get their daily dose from vendor boxes that look like a TV on a stand, USA Today has set the agenda for almost every newspaper in the country. Following the USA Today model, local newspapers have splashed color and graphics on its pages. The stories are shorter, but not necessarily tighter. And, in an era of downsizing, in which publishers who don’t pull in 20 percent a year profits are often reassigned, there are fewer reporters, fewer in-depth stories, fewer and narrower pages, and a greater reliance upon wire service stories. But, celebrity-based stories and increased fluff—what editors wrongly believe the readers want—have taken over the front pages.
USA Today was never designed to replace the local newspaper, nor should it be a model for local newspapers. It has a niche, and serves that niche well. But, local newspapers have become USA Today clones.
That’s why if USA Today places a celebrity wedding as its most important issue of the day, then it’s reasonable to believe that the clones also believe that 25,000 deaths can be relegated to the inside pages.
May 13th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Recap of BBC Show, as promised to TMV readers earlier.
I was on a BBC radio show today as a blogger from The Moderate Voice.
The issue of the day there was (still), “Should Hillary Clinton quit?”
As a sign of intense international interest in the Obama-Clinton primary race, the BBC has been airing many opinion shows about the elections.
This one segment of one particular show today was just a few minutes of discussion on that topic.
There were, in those few moments on air, lots of emails flying, listener-phone callers… also, about 7 passionate bloggers on the long distance lines too at the same time… and a well-spoken BBC reporter on site at Clinton headquarters in West Virginia.
The BBC show was what I would call ‘a scattershot of opinions,’ wherein as one of the many guests, you sort of get called on by the radio host, as in school, to give your briefest .02 worth… the question itself pressuring for a yes or no response with some details of support.
There’s no time, really, ‘to question the question’… and it would have been bad form on my part, disrespectful of the host and all the planning that went into this segment… but I wanted to ask, “But, is this the right question?” or, “What is behind this question?”
I do hope that’ll be another show though that will cover such ideas. I think we need opinions. But also, like any living entity, we need routes into far larger ideas too.
Quicker vs. Deeper
I note, and certainly not just in this segment at the BBC, that radio guests cannot respond nor interact with one or two other persons, as one would in an actual conversation.
So, the talk-fest is almost like a subliminal/ fast slide-show of opinings, valuable in an instant-snapshot-of-the-culture montage way. Yet, it cannot– as a true conversation in depth would– provoke or catalyze thoughtful grasp and grappling with deeper issues… the latter, I think, adds value to listeners’ shorter-term ‘right/wrong’ and yes/ no/maybe judgments re election issues.
In such important cultural discussions, just to coin a metaphor, I wish for a flowering plant with roots. Rather than just a cutting and gathering of the roses as one may. Both beautiful forms. But, one has far more longevity.
Yet, the radio show was interesting nonetheless, and the male radio host was snappy and energetic. The woman reader of emails on-air was very expressive in tone of voice, lending a theatrical air to listener’s emails. And, the people who are this show’s producers are good-natured, smart, and gentlemanly to the bone.
Though I’ve been on radio many times over these years, at length, and as the sole guest… I’m sincerely appreciative of being asked on today… even though I’m not sure they’ll ever ask me back again… as I interposed Read the rest of this entry »
May 13th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Wait, wait, don’t clobber me for asking this low in vitamins, high in refined sugar question. I’m not qoing to answer it. I question the question… the repeater-rifle question stuck on automatic: “Should Hillary quit?”
Hear me out…
There are several poignant “election times” topics for national discussion that have been mostly ignored. They oughtn’t be. For instance:
How much of the MSM, by their pronouncements about what any candidate ought or ought not do, (such as quit running) seems to be attempting to influence and create behavior in a candidate, rather than reporting on a candidate’s behavior?
This one too: Whether or how powerful media TV and radio show hosts, who daily perseverate on ‘Should Hillary Clinton quit?’ (sometimes with bald exhortations rather than as inquiry) come close –perhaps unwittingly– to subverting the spirit of the election process…
An election process in the USA seems to guarantee that citizens are allowed to place their votes in a nomination contest without having themselves, or the candidates, be unduly pressured to quit by any outside power or force.
In a democracy we are told that our votes count, that voting is the rich marrow of the bones our country is founded on. It seems sensible that each person in America who so chooses, wants to be able to have their one say-so in this nomination contest.
I think, from the people I listen to, just average people who work for a company or who own their own businesses, the voters don’t want their chance to vote in the primary pre-empted by a media surge that contains overt and covert calls for a candidate to quit.
What I hear in my corners of the world is that ‘the people’ don’t want the contest to be shut down by media influence, nor by endless fair-weather polls quoting, nor by pollsters’ choices of what to/ whom to test and what not to test, what to keep in, what to leave out.
I think a majority of people just want what they have been promised, what they have prepared for, given their time to already for many months now. They want their right to cast a vote in the election primary not to be interfered with.
Instead, what continues to seem odd, is the MSM in much of television and radio in particular, but also in many old mainline newspapers, seeming telling/ shouting out what a candidate running for high office ought do to quit…
Some in media remind me of a part of the old ballpark where habitually squatted a group we used to call ‘the loser bruisers.’ These were guys who’d never played the game, drank plenty of spirits, but enjoyed dispiriting the players on the field by shouting out insults… the theme of each being predictable: Go home, You’re no good.
But, the ‘loser bruisers’ forgot that for the game to be fair–and to make a winner really ‘a strong winner’ by having met the challenge, not just ‘a weak winner’ by default– the game had to be played out in a certain form… despite those who thought otherwise.
Exhorting a candidate to drop out, too, appears to be tromping on the form. I think the idea is that we are in a democracy, where as impatient as some of those in the MSM are pressured to rush onto the next big OJ thing… the people, ‘we the people,’ want their say. Everything in its own time. Without shortcuts.
Imagine for a moment, another nation, one that has lived under a dictatorship, but which suddenly was enabled to have their first democratic election. Imagine such a nation where the people are straining toward a new day after years of having been battered about. Imagine there are two or more candidates giving speeches, rallies, visiting parts of the country that no person from high office has EVER been bothered to visit before.
Then imagine a big portion of the big and moneyed media of that nation—rather than the people who have not yet voted—imagine the well-established media of that country, much of it old guard, begins pushing that one candidate or another ought disappear before the contest is done, before all the people can vote on which one they most want….
Senator Barack Obama got mired in the controversy over his former pastor. Senator Hillary Clinton got bogged down on her comments about dodging dangerous fire in Bosnia. And both of them took political hits that lasted a while and did some damage.
Now, Clinton is clearly — and truly — bogged down in her comments about white voters liking her more than Obama, even though her aides now insist that she regrets the comments.
The damage to Clinton’s image seems profound. And what better evidence of THAT then the once-unimaginable development that one of her most ardent African-American supporters Rep. Charles Rangle would bluntly denounce her remark?
One of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most important supporters, Charles Rangel, repudiated her claims she has broader support among “white Americans,” calling the comments “the dumbest thing she could ever have said.”
The Harlem congressman’s criticism of Clinton came as rival Barack Obama Saturday took the lead among superdelegates, the group that will decide the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
Speaking to reporters before introducing Clinton at a Manhattan fundraiser Saturday, Rangel chastised the remarks as “very poorly worded.”
But the barrage doesn’t end just there. On newspaper op-ed pages from the U.S. to Great Britain Clinton is being denounced, usually on several key points: (a) her comments make her a more polarizing figure than ever, (b) her comments are unlikely to help her achieve her goals of winning the nomination and unifying the party and (c) her comments damage the Clinton’s legacy of good ties with black voters — a legacy already greatly strained by some of Bill Clinton’s race-raising comments.
A look at some of articles and recent columns indicates that if getting “good ink” and “good air time” is a goal, the Clinton campaign has been derailed even more than the 2000 original version of Republican Senator John McCain’s Straight Talk Express. Here’s a sampling: Read the rest of this entry »
This Guest Voice post is by journalism professor and author Walter Brasch who is also a syndicated newspaper columnist and radio commentator, and president of the Pennsylvania Press Club. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice or its writers.
People. People Who Don’t Need People
by Walter Brasch
From a pool of about seven billion, those hard-working geniuses at People magazine have managed to find the hundred most beautiful people in the whole wide world. And—get ready for the surprise—almost every one of those beautiful people are rich American celebrities.
For almost two decades, People’s editors believe they have been given the divine right to anoint who they believe to be the most beautiful people on the planet. The ethnocentric celebrity-fawning People editors are so secure in their self-imposed knowledge that they don’t even tell us what criteria they used to make their determinations. Not even an “editor’s note,” common in most magazines.
For the first few years, People etched their version of reality into our minds by attaching cutesy capsulated biographies to full page color pictures of the most beautiful. This year, the writing is minimal, the design is almost to the level that a good college journalism or graphics arts student could create and, except for a few full page and two-page spreads, most pictures are no bigger than thumbnail size.
Leading off the 69-page special section is actress Kate Hudson. Advance stories about her selection appeared in just about every American newspaper and major website, all of which think stories about celebrities are more important than stories about the recession. Also on the list are Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Ashton Kutcher, and Norah Jones. The seven member cast of TV’s “Gossip Girl” made the list. “Onscreen,” People told us, “they are gorgeous, scheming, backstabbing high schoolers.” Just what America needs. More future business executives and politicians.
The first few years, when the magazine editors could find only 50 beautiful people, there was a fairly even split between men and women. This year, about 90 percent are women. Except for six athletes (three men and three women), the rest are actors, singers, dancers, and models.
Three years after the first list came out, People recognized the elderly. Of course, the elderly were Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, and Barbara Babcock. This year, there’s a special two-page spread–it barely got into the magazine, look for it on pages 174-187–for 40 celebrities, 10 in each of the categories of 20s, 30s, 40, and 50s.
People once selected size 5-foot-11 size14 model Emme as a beautiful person. It championed her as representative of the “burgeoning large-size modeling industry.” Of course, these vacuous editors have no idea that a size 14 isn’t large—it is the average size of American women. This year, the only large size models are in full page ads for Jenny Craig diets and Curvation underwear, which declared, “Style starts with the Side Shaper Underwire bra and shaping panty.”
Teachers, social workers, and medical researchers, no matter how beautiful, didn’t make this year’s cut. But, they shouldn’t worry about it. Neither did Miss America, Miss USA, Miss World, Mr. Universe, or, for that matter, Miss Crustacean, Ocean City, New Jersey’s, salty tribute to hermit crabs, and a spoof of the beauty contest that once inhabited next-door Atlantic City.
People magazine may need people to justify its $254,000 full page advertising rate. But, people, even with insatiable curiosity about celebrities, really don’t need People.
It sounds as if this morning’s special Town Meeting format “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC could give ABC’s — and Stephanopoulos’ — critics ammunition to say he and his network gave Senator Hillary Clinton an hour of largely softball interview airtime.
Several reports suggest Stephanopoulos looked awkward, and that the ABC show was not akin to the grilling Clinton rival Senator Barack Obama got on NBC’s competing “Meet The Press” by Tim Russert. At least 10 minutes of Russert’s show was devoted to asking Obama to comment further on the politically-toxic controversy involving Obama’s former pastor (complete with questions about why he didn’t distance himself further sooner).
A look at this account of the ABC Show on CBS’s From The Road blog suggests that the Clinton appearance likely helped Clinton and undermined Stephanopoulos’ reputation as an independent journalist who is tough on both sides. A journalist doing his/her job persistently asks follow up questions until the interview subject gives a substantive answer:
Hillary Clinton appeared on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” this morning in an interview filled with awkward moments and strange interactions between the two former colleagues (Stephanopoulos worked under President Bill Clinton for 4 years.)
The interview was billed as a “town hall” where Indiana voters would get a chance to ask Clinton questions. Minutes into the interview, Clinton decided to ditch her chair, preferring to stand and address the audience. What ensued was an awkward interaction between Clinton and Stephanopoulos when the ABC host was forced to ask a few questions from his chair while Clinton loomed over him. (In fairness to Stephanopoulos, oftentimes in seated interview settings the journalist and/or the guest have their microphone cord taped to the chair, restricting one’s movement.)
Stephanopoulos tried to recover by standing alongside Clinton, but was forced to stand in a strange position as he remained tied to his chair.
On most NEWS shows the interviewer is supposed to set the rules about where guests sit and the format. And the interviewer/journalist is supposed to be the one in control of the setting.
After the first commercial break, the two were seated again, but within seconds Clinton decided she had had enough, forcing Stephanopoulos to stand, again.
But it reportedly got worse: Clinton reminded viewers that George S used to work for her and her husband. Just what Stephanopoulos and ABC need after being under fire from progressives who allege (with no proof) the debate in Philadelphia was set up to get tough with Obama and hurl softballs at Clinton (actually it seems to have turned out that way due to judgments involving news values and news story interest):
The interview took another unpleasant turn when Stephanopoulos tried to pin down Clinton over her position on NAFTA, a trade program introduced by her husband during his presidency. Clinton has come out against the plan saying it was not good for American workers. Stephanopoulos said, “The Clinton administration didn’t do enough to address the downside of globalization and therefore failed the workers in Indiana and the workers of the West?”
Clinton clearly took offense to the tone of the question and while answering, decided to take a jab at the host.
“Well I believe, George, in the 1990s we had a booming economy that created nearly 23 million new jobs, more people were lifted out of poverty in any time in our near history. It was an economy that worked for everyone, not just the rich, the wealthy and the well connected, but there were underlying issues that we didn’t understand fully. Now, you remember this, because George did work in that ‘92 campaign - George and I actually were against NAFTA - I’m talking about him in his previous life, before he was an objective journalist,” Clinton said to a visibly annoyed Stephanopoulos.
Some have speculated that Clinton prefers appearing on Stephanopoulos’ show because she can often turn a question around to include him as a former staffer for her husband.
The rest of the program involved questions on issues and questions from voters.
As noted in a previous post here, ABC would have been far better served if a DIFFERENT journalist had done the actual questioning of Clinton during this segment. It isn’t the same as a judge bowing out if he has a conflict of interest but Stephanopoulos and ABC would have come out a lot better with their reputations intact.
Russert finishes today still being perceived as Tim “GOTCHA!” Russert; Stephanopoulos finishes the day being perceived by some as a former Clinton employee still seemingly intimidated by his former boss.
And now it moves to media center stage: the trend of Republicans crossing over to vote in Democratic primaries. But the New York Times reports that many GOPers aren’t doing this because they’re “dittoheads” obeying the wishes of mega-partisan talk show host Rush Limbaugh, but disgruntled Republicans who feel their party has left — or is leaving — them:
INDIANAPOLIS - Until now, Shirley Morgan had always been the kind of voter the Republican Party thought it could count on. She comes from a family of staunch Republicans, has a son in the military and has supported Republican presidential candidates ever since she cast her first ballot, for Richard M. Nixon in 1972.
But this year Mrs. Morgan exemplifies a different breed: the Republican crossing over to vote in the Democratic primary. Not only will she mark her ballot for Senator Barack Obama in the May 6 primary here, but she has also been canvassing for him in the heavily Republican suburbs of Hamilton County, just north of Indianapolis — the first time she has ever actively campaigned for a candidate.
“I used to like John McCain, but he’s aligning himself too closely with what Bush did, and that’s just not what I want for this country,” Mrs. Morgan, who is 56, said when asked to explain her rejection of the presumptive Republican nominee.
This should be a warning flag to John McCain. As I’ve predicted many times on this site, there is a large segment of voters that aren’t going to look at political party at all this year — but want to take a big broom and sweep away the people who are in charge who have brought the United States a war seemingly without end (even if X voter originally supported the war), a decimated economy, a sagging dollar, an epidemic of home foreclosures and plummeting local property values, and an economy peppered by massive corporate cutbacks or failures and employment ills.
Seen from this perspective, the decisions of Democratic rivals Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to ignore Democratic progressives’ demand to boycott Fox News, makes political sense: Republican voters are in play in these primaries and they all can’t be dismissed as participating in Limbaugh’s call to basically sabotage the Democratic primaries.
This suggests that indicates that the potency of the Democratic party’s most progressive wing, is now being offset in some primaries by more conservative and centrist voters who are cross-over Republicans who feel their party has failed them. And they’re shopping around.
The Times confirms this:
Since the start of the primary and caucus season in January, Republican voters have been crossing over in increasing numbers to vote in Democratic contests — supplying up to 10 percent of the vote in states that allow such crossover voting — and they are expected to play a pivotal role in the fiercely contested primary here. What is less clear, however, is the motivation for their behavior: are they genuinely attracted by the two Democratic candidates? Or are they mischief-making spoilers, looking to prolong a divisive Democratic fight or support a candidate Mr. McCain can beat in November?
Local Republican Party leaders in Indiana concede the attraction of the Democratic candidates to some of their party members. And interviews with roughly a dozen Republican voters in central Indiana suggest that they are driven mainly by concerns about the economy, with discontent over Bush administration policies driving their involvement in the Democratic race.
What’s now happening between Obama and Clinton is competition for some of these Republicans — Republicans probably dismissed as “well-they-must-be-Rinos” by lockstep Republican partisans who will adjust their positions or jettison previous principles according to the latest pronouncements from the White House or EIB Radio Network. The Times again: Read the rest of this entry »
We don’t usually link to Drudge Report because so many of his original news items have later proven to be inaccurate. But this Drudge item is backed up with info from elsewhere — and it could mean ABC News will be thrust into Democratic primary controversy once again.
Here’s his lead:
Just hours before the Indiana and North Carolina presidential primaries, ABC NEWS has offered to air a ‘town hall’ meeting with Hillary Clinton — to be hosted by former Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos!
Embracing and racing through a brave new era of journalism, it is not clear if ABCNEWS will inform viewers of Stephanopoulos’s past employment.
Stephanopoulos helped run Mr. Clinton’s first presidential election campaign and acted as his press secretary and advisor on policy and strategy before joining ABC NEWS.
An executive at a rival network mocked, “We look forward to ABC holding the next town hall meeting with President Bush, hosted by Karl Rove!”
ABC will air the hour-long Hillary forum live from Indianapolis on Sunday.
There’s a lot more so go the link and read it all.
Drudge also notes that Clinton’s prime rival Senator Barack Obama will appear on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” where he will be grilled by Tim Russert.
Some websites have called this the dueling Sunday showdown between the two — but these two events and the issues raised by them are NOT the same.
1. Clinton has paid for televised Town Hall type events in the past. ABC is basically giving her a chunk of time to take questions from voters. Did ABC offer Obama the same thing? If not, the event is setting up the network — rightfully or wrongfully — to charges that it is doing the show to bolster Clinton. If these charges are made, they are most likely “wrongfully,” since despite what partisans on all sides think, most news directors don’t rub their hands with glee and try to figure out ways to undermine one candidate and promote another.
2. Stephanopoulos was bitterly criticized by many progressives and by some mainstream media staffers for co-moderating a Clinton-Obama Pennsylvania debate where the first half seemed to be focused largely on putting Obama on the spot about political and process questions and talk radio subjects. Stephanopoulos was accused of using a question proposed by conservative talker Sean Hannity. Progressives also pointed to his past employment with Clinton and suggested he was working with her to undermine Obama. Again, rightfully or wrongfully, this will further undermine perceptions of him, particularly if he doesn’t throw unquestionable hardball questions at Clinton as tough, persistent and assertive as the ones he threw at Obama.
3. ABC News as a network could come off OK if Stephanopoulos conducts an event that isn’t the equivalent of giving Clinton a free Town Hall meeting that she would have otherwise paid for. This will be a difficult task: a) Obama partisans will want to see Stephanopoulos giving Clinton the same treatment he gave Obama or they’ll say it was biased (and they will use a very tough standard — in some cases wanting blatant bias against Clinton), b) unless Obama was offered the same format to be televised before the closely-fought primaries, some progressives will say the omission proved ABC was favoring one candidate.
4. Meet The Press is not the same as a Town Hall. That show is a traditional TV talking heads Sunday morning interview program. The guest is in a studio — not interacting with members of the public. Russert has the reputation of taking politicians apart on his show and while many (including Clinton) have survived and thrived, and few except Vice President Dick Cheney have viewed Russert and his show as a p.r. or easy-spin vehicle.
The Bottom Line: After the debate, Stephanopoulos was highly controversial, suspect in Obama quarters and basically-damaged goods. ABC would have been better served if it had arranged for another ABC reporter to conduct its Town Hall.
By its choice of a controversial host who many believe is not above the Democratic primary fray, ABC’s Town Hall will be closely watched — but perhaps in ways ABC and Stephanopoulos did not originally have in mind.
For months it has been a “given” that Senator Barack Obama was way ahead in North Carolina — in some cases by double-digits in the polls — and that rival Senator Hillary Clinton didn’t have much of a chance to win the state’s Democratic Presidential primary, and create eleventh hour “Big Mo” in their battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. New polls suggest it may now be time to retire that “given.”
What’s going on among the Democrats now clearly is on two levels: the votes and the primaries on one level and the appeal to decision-solidifying Superdelegates on another. The political context is changing rapidly for Obama and not to his advantage.
Obama has a big problem: the latest Rasmussen Poll gives Clinton a two point lead — but indicates a TEN POINT DROP in Obama’s polling since Obama’s former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright’s press conference.
In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, the Wright impact is especially evident. Clinton now has a statistically insignificant two-point edge over Obama, 46% to 44%. However, that represents a ten-point swing since Wright’s press conference. Before Pastor Wright appeared at the National Press Club, Obama led Clinton by eight points.
In Indiana, Clinton leads Obama by five points. In North Carolina Obama leads. Rasmussen Markets data shows Obama continues to be the favorite for the Democratic nomination, but expectations have slipped significantly in recent days. Currently, the frontrunner is given a 74.4% chance of winning.
A bevy of new national polls, plus surveys in Indiana and North Carolina — which hold key primaries on Tuesday — suggest that Hillary Clinton is closing the gap since her campaign-saving victory in Pennsylvania last week, and that the controversies dogging Barack Obama are having an impact.
In a national Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, Clinton leads Obama 44 percent to 41 percent. The Illinois senator is viewed unfavorably by 42 percent of all voters, up 9 percentage points since February. Clinton’s unfavorable rating is still slightly higher than Obama’s, but it has dropped slightly. And by 10 percentage points, Democrats now view Clinton as likelier than Obama to beat presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. Democrats gave Obama a 4-point edge last month.
The Clinton campaign’s strategy to raise doubts about Obama’s electability is clearly succeeding, but not only due to the two Clintons’ at-times-Rovian-style negative campaigning. Three other contributing factors are Obama’s political bungles, his former Pastor’s insistence on a controversial high profile that sucks the air out of Obama’s daily media coverage, and Clinton’s increasing enthusiasm as a campaigner (which many analysts are noting). The Globe continues:
In a national NBC/Wall Street Journal survey, Obama’s lead has narrowed to 46 percent to 43 percent, and his unfavorable ratings have also risen. In March, 51 percent of voters viewed him positively and 28 percent saw him negatively, but in the new poll 46 percent view him favorably, but 37 percent negatively.
In a national New York Times/CBS poll, Obama leads 46 percent to 38 percent among Democrats, but 51 percent say they believe he will be the eventual nominee, down from 69 percent a month ago. And 48 percent of Democratic primary voters said they believe he would be the strongest candidate against McCain, down from 56 percent a month ago.
And in a Quinnipiac University poll, Clinton runs stronger than Obama in match-ups against McCain in the general election swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. Clinton would get 49 percent to McCain’s 41 percent in Florida, leads 48 percent to 38 percent in Ohio, and 51 percent to 37 percent in Pennsylvania.
It’s clear that Obama knows he has a problem.
This morning he went on the Today Show (VIDEO HERE) with his wife Michelle — a husband-wife damage control appearance that was reminiscent of when then-Governor Bill Clinton went on 60 Minutes with Hillary Clinton in 1992 to be grilled by Steve Kroft amid allegations of (pre-Oval office) infidelity.
Last night Michelle Obama went on CNN. And on Sunday Obama will enter the Lion’s Den and be on “Meet The Press” with gotcha! journalist Tim Russert.
But Obama’s immediate concern is likely North Carolina. The vibes coming from polls aren’t good ones. And, if he loses there, the ugly and divisive Democratic party race will likely get uglier and more divisive as Clinton moves in for the political kill and Obama pulls out all stops to stabilize his campaign.
A survey of 571 registered likely voters in North Carolina’s May 6 Democratic primary shows Sen. Hillary Clinton having moved from a double digit deficit in an InsiderAdvantage poll taken in mid-April to a two point lead over Sen. Barack Obama in this telephone survey, conducted April 29. The survey was weighted for age, race, gender, and political affiliation. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8%
Prior to his appearance on Fox News Network’s “Hannity & Colmes,” on which the poll was released, InsiderAdvantage’s Matt Towery noted: “The shift has come almost entirely from white voters age 45 and over. There was a small drift of African-Americans back towards Clinton, but not so significant as to establish any trend.
“I believe when all is said and done, Obama will likely carry North Carolina; or if he loses the race, it will be by just a few points.
“Our polling generally does not indicate the eventual compression of black voters that Obama usually enjoys just before Election Day. If that happens, my guess is that he will pull this out. However, this poll is clearly an indication of reaction to the latest statements by his former pastor; and it forces Sen. Obama to split resources between Indiana and North Carolina.”
Even with the pollster’s hedge, the bottom line is that this is awful news for the Obama campaign. Narrowing polls are one thing in NC; Clinton pulling ahead is another. Perception helps sculpt reality. And news stories down the line show an Obama campaign that is on the defensive and a Clinton campaign that is taking advantage of it…and the polls show some results. A WRAL news poll doesn’t show Clinton ahead — but, once again, the TRENDING in the polls is clear:
A WRAL news poll released Wednesday shows Barack Obama’s double-digit lead over Hillary Clinton among Tar heel Democrats is eroding.
Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. surveyed 400 likely Democratic voters Monday and Tuesday. The results show Obama with a 7 point lead over Clinton, with 9 percent undecided. The poll has a margin of error of 5 percentage points.
“Right or wrong, it’s the Wright phenomenon for Obama,” said David McLennan, a political science professor at Peace College.
McLennan said Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is dragging down the Illinois senator. Wright has made comments such as suggesting that the AIDS virus was invented by the government to destroy “people of color.”
“It is a media-driven story. Wright is very controversial. He makes controversial statements. He gets people fired up, but it’s not one of the top issues in the polls,” McLennan said.
Note again that polls are all over the place — and for confirmation of this, GO HERE to Pollster.com and see the graph of various polls. Obama partisans will say “Well, those polls are flawed because others show him well ahead!” Clinton partisans will pooh-pooh polls showing Obama in the lead, say they don’t count and point to the one showing Clinton ahead. But it is the trending of recent polls that needs to be watched — even though the graph that charts various polls shows Obama ahead.
THE BOTTOM LINE FACT: Both campaigns will have to pull-out-all-stops for the political ground war. An Obama win in NC would give him a cushion against his broken momentum and Clinton’s likely win in Indiana. A Clinton win in North Carolina would be considered an upset and ensure a tooth-and-nail battle right up to the convention and bolster Clinton’s argument that Obama has some electability problems, even though she has some of her own.
In reality, both Democratic candidates increasingly seem to be damaged political goods, but McCain is burdened with his anchor-like tie to President George W. Bush — a tie that could become increasingly toxic once the Democrats stop politically disemboweling each other and turn their focus instead on the Republican candidate. McCain’s Bush ties are a bigger sticking point with voters than Obama’s relationship with his pastor.
HERE’S A CROSS SECTION OF WEBLOG OPINION ON THE POLLS:
April 29th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Past political campaigns have had their share of people associated with candidates who are placed on the defensive — but seldom has one in any year had one as proactively insistent on keeping himself alive and injected into an excruciatingly close race as the political albatross now dangling around Democratic Senator Barack Obama named Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Aside from the eager nodding of heads and the unspoken “Keep it up!” you can almost feel coming from the campaign of rival Democratic Presidential wannabe Senator Hillary Clinton, conservative Republicans are ecstatic. Jonah Goldberg, writing in The Los Angeles Times:
God bless the Rev. Jeremiah Wright!
After Barack Obama gave his big race speech in mid-March, many critics noted that the Illinois senator had thrown his own grandmother under the bus to defend his controversial pastor. Well, Wright proved over the last few days that he would not be outdone. He not only threw Obama under the bus, he chucked much of the liberal and mainstream media under there with him. If this keeps up, to paraphrase Roy Scheider in “Jaws,” he’s gonna need a bigger bus.
For six weeks, Obama’s biggest supporters have diligently argued that to so much as mention Wright is in effect racist. When Hillary Rodham Clinton said that Wright wouldn’t have been her pastor, Andrew Sullivan gasped on his Atlantic blog that this was “a new low” in the election. When Lanny J. Davis, Clinton’s consummate spinner, defended her on CNN by describing what Wright actually said, CNN’s Anderson Cooper lambasted Davis for daring to even repeat Wright’s comments. Newsweek’s Joe Klein chimed in, “You’re spreading the poison right now.”
What Wright has done the past few days by (over)exposure is to leave himself in the eyes of many indefensible in terms of the center — and converted himself into an unrelenting albatross also chained to a 1,000 lb. anchor dangling around Obama’s neck:
Obama and his defenders have repeatedly insisted that the bits from Wright’s sermons that got wide circulation last month had been taken “out of context.” His infamous sound bites were grounded in concrete theological or factual foundations, they claim. He was quoting other people. He’s done good things. Nothing to see here, folks.
And so God bless Wright because he’s left all of these folks holding a giant, steaming bag of … well, let’s just call it a bag of “context.”
His positions and the context of his remarks, some could argue, are still explainable, but the problem is that those making that argument right now veer into a nuanced area of nuance — the kind of argument that usually does not work in elections where candidates oversimplify, generalize and try to link up their opponents with broad-brush imagery of stances, events or individuals that will be seen unfavorably by key chunks of an attention-span-challenged electorate.
All this comes at a time when Obama’s campaign is reportedly battening down the hatches for what is expected to be a brutal campaign lasting well into the summer, the New York Times reports:
Mr. Obama’s aides said that they remained confident he would win the nomination. “We feel very good about the position that we are in,” said David Axelrod, his chief strategist. “But we have gotten to the position we are in by taking every week and every contest seriously.”
Still, they said they were no longer as hopeful as they once were that the contest could be resolved before June 3, the day of the last primaries. As a result, they were girding for six weeks of attacks by Mrs. Clinton and potential election defeats that could raise further questions among superdelegates — the elected Democrats and party leaders who will ultimately determine the nominee — about Mr. Obama’s strength as a general election candidate.
And Wright’s double-whammy of appearances came at a time of introspection and private disappointment:
In discussions with donors and supporters last week, Mr. Obama’s advisers played down the loss in Pennsylvania, noting that both sides had expected Mrs. Clinton to win there.
Still, the message belied private frustration and disappointment that Mr. Obama shared with a few associates and advisers, particularly over the hardening narrative that he could not appeal to working-class voters, and a personal frustration for comments he made about some small-town voters being “bitter” at their economic conditions. (Mrs. Clinton seized on those remarks, which have shadowed his campaign.)
“Everyone’s got a real calmness about where we are,” said David Plouffe, who is Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, “but a real sense of urgency that we have eight contests coming up in pretty rapid succession.”
But now it’s clear from the amount of space Wright has gotten on blogs, on serious cable talk shows, on screaming head cable and radio talk shows and in the opinion columns:
Wright is proactively making it tough for Obama to right his campaign.
Will he have to make a statement to distance himself even more from him? And what if Wright’s love affair with national media coverage continues? In essence, Wright himself has been putting the muscle, meat and flesh on the skeletal stereotypical imagery critics have tried to sculpt about Obama. And he won’t stay out of the spotlight to let the issue defuse itself.
Candidates’ associates have seldom totally sank a national political campaign.
But perhaps we are about to see an example of what happens when an association does.
April 26th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
There are signs of what could be a shift in the news media conventional wisdom: for the first time in months, some key pundits are hinting and even saying that Senator Barack Obama could lose the Democratic nomination to what has long been described as a seemingly-impossibly behind Senator Hillary Clinton.
These kinds of cracks in the conventional wisdom often signal the beginning of a major shift, totally negating what earlier conventional wisdom steadfastly suggested “had” to be true.
The catalyst: Clinton’s win over Obama in Pennsylvania. Even though it was expected, the recent bad publicity surrounding Obama on several fronts, his campaign being on the defensive, the unrelenting push by Clinton on several fronts, and the realities of how American politics works in the 21st century have started to change some media thinking.
I’m beginning to think Hillary Clinton might pull this off and wrestle the nomination away from Barack Obama. If she does, a lot of folks—including a huge chunk of the media—will join Bill Richardson (a.k.a. Judas) in the Deep Freeze. If the Clintons get back into the White House, it will be retribution time, like the Corleone family consolidating power in “The Godfather,” where the watchword is, “It’s business, not personal.”
Not that anyone will be sleeping with the fishes with Hillary in the White House, but with the Clintons it’s business and it’s personal. Just think of all the scores to settle, the grievances to indulge.
Clift details how the Clintons were often at odds with Washington officialdom, which never liked them anyway. She notes how now some conservatives are cheering for her…and not only because they think they can defeat her. She is winning some fans due to her all-encompassing push to win no matter what. She writes:
Now the burden is on Obama to win the next round of primaries on May 6. He has said publicly that Indiana could be the tiebreaker, a prediction he could come to regret. If Clinton can win Indiana, hold Obama to single digits in North Carolina, and then run up a big margin in Kentucky on May 20, where she’s leading in the polls, she could overtake Obama in the popular vote. “We have to win big and lose small,” says an aide. Obama may yet discover his inner Rocky and recast himself now that the media is turning on him. It’s hard to be the next new thing for 15 months, which is how long he’s been running. And it’s time enough for Hillary to win ugly, if that’s what winning takes.
