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Election 2008 McCain Obama The Media The Opinionsphere

How the Media Created Independents

[digg-reddit-me]Many pundits and both campaigns have declared this the year of the independent voter ((It’s also the year of the Hillary voter, Reagan Democrats, and the libertarian voter.)) – and both presidential campaigns are making serious attempts to reach out to these unaffiliated voters. It is often noted that not all of these independent voters are created equal. They can be divided into three roughly described camps:

  • the partisan independent who is a conservative or liberal, in all but name, who generally consumes media appropriate to his or her silent affiliation (e.g., the independent who watches Fox News, listens to Rush Limbaugh, and reads Ann Coulter, and agrees with all these sources or his or her liberal counterpart);
  • the issue independent who has strong positions on particular issues and will vote for whatever candidate supports those issues (e.g. a pro-life independent who is against the death penalty, war, and abortion who doesn’t know who to support this election cycle);
  • the character independent – whom this piece is about.

The character independents (hereinafter, just “independents”) supported McCain over Bush in 2000; and Obama over Clinton in 2008. In this election season, independents supported Obama over Clinton and his opponents and McCain over all of his Republican opponents, and in the polls so far, the independents are breaking evenly between Obama and McCain.

How is it that this group can be so evenly split – see-sawing this way and that – when the differences between the two candidates they are viewing are so stark?

I have a suspicion as to what’s going on here – as I am in many ways a character independent myself. My central idea is this: These independents are media creations – not media creations in the way that soccer moms and security moms were – stereotypes created to give flavor to election coverage – but creations of the media environment itself. Independent voters are individuals who have internalized the media’s approach to issues.

A while ago, I wrote a piece about a fundamental flaw in the mainstream media coverage of virtually every issue, every event, and every policy. While opinion columnists and the partisan press often take a side in reporting these issues – for example, “Global warming is real;” or “Obama is not a Muslim;” or “As far as we can tell, the Swift Boaters are just making stuff up” – the mainstream media will report both sides of each issue or policy or accusation. Within their piece, they might give slightly more credence to one point of view than another – and end the piece on a high note for one side or another – but they are generally careful to avoid taking sides, even when the facts support one side overwhelmingly.

The problem is that the mainstream media has adopted an understanding of fairness that treats competing claims as equally valid, irrespective of the opinion of the reporter, or even of the facts. ((This is demonstrated rather clearly in this piece in the Washington Post from 2004 that asserts that both Kerry’s account and the Swift Boaters’ accounts “contain significant flaws and factual errors” while only providing evidence to back up the flaws and errors in the Swift Boaters’ allegations. The main flaw in Kerry’s information is that he did not provide enough evidence to disprove the Swift Boaters, while the Swift Boaters also provided no evidence to prove their case. Thus, overall the piece portrays it as a wash.))

The mainstream press attempts to adapt every story into their he-said, she-said paradigm – rather than fulfilling their journalistic responsibility to attempt to write the first rough draft of history, however flawed it may be. They avoid the facts at hand and instead merely transcribe the competing allegations, careful not to let their own reporting interfere. This leads – for example – to 53% of stories in the mainstream press about global warming to question the basic premises of this theory, while within peer-reviewed scientific journals, 0% of stories call into question the basic premises. This disconnect between reality as understood by science and the reporting on the science is what has lead to a 15 year interim between the scientific consensus on global warming and the finally emerging political consensus. If the reporters covering this story had done their work properly, they could have called the global warming skeptics what they were – oil industry shills – instead of reporting on their work as independent and nearly as credible as the vast majority of scientists.

Most voters’ only contact with any presidential candidate is through the media – so it is only natural that the media substantially affects their choices. ((This goes for those whose main sources are partisan media as well.)) An independent-minded person viewing or reading media that presents every issue as he-said, she-said has to develop a method of resolving this conflict between  the he’s and she’s. While a partisan will pick a team, and strongly tend to come down on the side of that team, an independent takes pride in seeing both sides of every issue – just as the media does. But while the media can avoid taking a side, an independent must – every two years or so – vote and make a choice. ((I don’t mean to suggest that independents don’t have strong opinions and preferences; rather, once they have resolved how to deal with the media’s framing, they often have very strong opinions.))

While the media is always able to find opposing sets of competing allegations, reality is not so simple. The media shouldn’t give equal time to claims by McCain that offshore drilling will reduce oil prices significantly and by Obama that it will not. They know one side is wrong and the other right. The media shouldn’t give equal time to scientists and skeptics about global warming. One side has evidence – the other side only has money. Since the right learned to manipulate the media by directly contradicting their opponents’ positions, no matter the facts, they have won election after election.

By distorting the news to fit into their paradigm, the media has created a class of voters who see both sides of every issue – even when the facts clearly favor one side. For the past ten years, as the media has been manipulated, so have they. And obvious policy choices and elections suddenly become competitive. This same pattern is emerging this year as the media treats Obama’s policies and McCain’s policies equally – even when one is reality-based and the other defined by political expediency. And so, independents are split equally so far in a year that should favor the Democrats.

But you can see that the Republicans are getting nervous – as the media finally began to cover the McCain campaign with the same intensity it has been using to cover Obama’s because of the Palin pick. Yesterday – all night – the Republicans attacked the media. They want to raise doubts in the minds of independents in case the media finally turns on them. In the end, it’s clear how the media will cover these attacks. They will get McCain operatives to give quotes bashing their reporting, and then they will get some reporters to comment on how they’re trying to be fair. And independents will see both sides.

Categories
Election 2008 McCain Politics

Palin’s Speech

Having watched Palin’s speech, I must say, Sarah Palin is quite a speech maker. But my instant reaction – is that it will not have the effect the Republicans hope it will. After every speaker attacked the media for being sexist and unfair to Palin, Palin was gratuitiously and obviously unfair to Barack Obama. In the hall, it played well. Among partisans, it played well. Among most independents and other voters, I’m sure it played well. But she had no vision for America, not sense of what comes next. She refused to acknowlege the tough times we are in.

She only did two things: defend herself and attack Obama – and she did both well. But this election will not be decided based on smears and whining. It will be decided on policy, if only a candidate can make the case. And Obama can.

My prediction is that polls taken that include tonight will show a McCain bounce. Polls taken that do no include tonight will not. Barack Obama will enter the second week of September with the same 8 point lead he entered the first week.

There is still more to come – and Palin can rally the Republican base like few others. But tonight, for all it’s electricity, was disappointing – because if Palin is the future of the Republican party, she has nothing to offer but fear – primarily of Obama, secondarilty of Islamic extremism, and tertiarilty, of taxes.

Categories
Humor

Frak!

CNN reports on the most popular new invented word not invented by Stephen Colbert:

The word is insinuating its way into popular vocabulary for a simple reason.

You can’t get in trouble. It’s a made-up word.

“It may have been the great George Carlin who talked about these things so cleverly,” Larson said. “He’d say, ‘Mother would say shoot, but she meant … when she reached in and burned her fingers on the crocker.’ And the child says, ‘I know what you meant, Mom.’ ”

The word has slipped the bonds that tethered other pretenders like Mork’s “shazbot” in “Mork & Mindy” or Col. Sherman T. Potter’s “horse hockey” in “M*A*S*H.” Its usage has moved from the small but fervent group of “Galactica” fans into everyday language. It’s shown up in very mainstream shows like “The Office,” “Gossip Girl” and “Scrubs.” One YouTube posting has 2 minutes of sound bites that cover the gamut.

Categories
Election 2008 Humor Politics Scandal-mongering The Opinionsphere

The Stages of Rumordom

From Mickey Kaus via Andrew Sullivan, a very astute observation of the life of a political rumor:

1) Too horrible and shocking; it can’t possibly be true.
2) It’s not true.
3) You can’t prove it’s true.
4) Why are you trying to prove it’s true?
5) It’s disgusting that you’ve proved it’s true.
6) What’s the big deal anyway?

Categories
Election 2008 Obama Politics The Clintons The Opinionsphere

Unhinged

Too much ink has been spilled discussing the bitter, clingy, and disgruntled supporters of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. I should call them former supporters – as those supporters who are now the focus of attention are now spurning Hillary’s requests that they back the candidate who represents the same agenda as her.

But – once again – the extent of one particular disgruntled supporter’s unhinging has amazed me.

katiebird over at RiverDaughter – formerly a progressive diarist for the Daily Kos – posted this incoherence on her blog today:

I just thought of a new basis for my vote.

Issues? I don’t trust a word Obama says so his speeches (with their laundry lists) and plans mean nothing to me. He’s already taken Universal Health Care off the table and that’s my “one issue” if there is such a thing. And McCain on the issues (giggle) I know people think I’m a Republican but believe me McCain does not speak for me.

Personality? I’ve got NO desire to have a beer with Obama. Much less spend the next four years listening to his speeches. I’ve got nothing in common with McCain either. And I’ve no illusions — none of them want to have a beer with me either.

Trust? I don’t trust any politician. Well, except maybe Hillary.

But Spite — Ah: This might be the first time I cast a vote almost wholly based on spite. It sounds absurd; could I really do it? Could I cast an important vote based on my frustration with Barack Obama’s disgusting supporters?

(gagging) At the rate this campaign is going, I’d say it’s a nearly sure bet.

It’s entitled “Up All Night” – so, I have to make room for the possibility that katiebird was clinicly insane at the moment she wrote it. More disturbing are the number of commentors who are supportive of this (giggle) post. Truly unhinged.

I suppose when Hillary Clinton described her agenda and what was wrong with the country and asked her supporters:

Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?

It sounds like katiebird and the other disgruntled PUMAs were only in it for Hillary. And now that she has no chance and challenged them to support Obama, they are becoming unhinged.

Categories
Economics Election 2008 Foreign Policy History McCain Obama Political Philosophy Politics The Opinionsphere

Vision versus Compromise

Sam Tanenhaus, an historian and editor of the New York Times Book Review, had a piece in Saturday’s Week in Review discussing vision and compromise in politics. The byline was: “Vision has its limits. Compromise has its opportunities.” While I agreed with the overall thrust of the piece – that a mediocre man’s compromise is often more effective a great man’s vision – Tannenhaus is setting up a false dichotomy:

Visionary leaders are inclined to create or imagine their own goals and then try to propel others toward them. Sometimes these leaders achieve greatness. Lincoln is the salient example. But he was also a canny and calculating politician, attuned to the nation’s mood, whereas another visionary president, Woodrow Wilson, was stymied precisely because of his imperious disregard of the public will.

I don’t see how an historian who had studied Lincoln can believe that vision and compromise can be mutually exclusive. The genius of Lincoln was that he first saw the world for what it was, saw what was possible and what was not, identified the core challenges ahead, and took what steps were necessary to achieve his objectives. Lincoln did have a vision – but it was a vision anchored in reality, and one that changed as realities changed. For Lincoln, his vision was not an independent idealistic end, but a goal that was based on the best he could do at that moment. He was willing to allow slavery to preserve the Union; he was willing to fight a brutal war to prevent secession; he was willing to let Britain commit acts of agression without retribution in order to keep the nation’s focus; he was willing to contravene the Constitution in order to preserve it. Lincoln cast a cold eye on war and peace and did what he believed was needed. Lincoln was neither an idealist nor a flip-flopper. He did not act as if there was something irreconcilable about having a vision of a better nation and actually accomplishing something. Lincoln believed that through powerful words and determined action, and most important, an understanding of the world and the possible – an individual must strive to do whatever they could, and to make the world a better place. Wilson failed because he was a stubborn idiot (whose stubbornness was exacerbated by medical issues) – not because he was a visionary.

Tanenhaus tries in his piece to treat John McCain and Barack Obama evenhandedly. But clearly, he favors Obama. He treats Obama’s flip-flip on public financing and change in tactics regarding telecom immunity (which Tannenhaus grossly mischaracterizes or misunderstands as a change in position on FISA) with McCain’s radical changes of position on tax cuts and on whether or not to run an honorable campaign. (He doesn’t mention McCain’s other flip-flops on offshore drilling and torture.) In attempting to treat them equally, he does a disservive to both men. But most importantly, by setting up an inherent conflict between being a visionary and a statesmen, he ignores the clear lessons of history. (And by equating partisan politicians with visionaries, his argument verges on the ridiculous.) Statesmen have propped up some of the worst regimes on the planet and protected the worst practices – all in the name of reasonableness and compromise. Visionaries have wreaked the worst violence on the history of the planet, attempting to remake the world to match their visions.

If all we can do is choose to compromise or choose to see a better world, then there are no good choices. But history shows us a better path – one which Lincoln demonstrates above all. Radicals are visionaries who seek to remake the world to match their visions; apologists are statesmen who compromise to protect the status quo at all costs. Lincoln was a pragmatic politician who had a few ideas about how to approach the challenges our country faced, who was willing to compromise to get something done, who saw the world as it was and not as he wished or feared it to be,  but who most of all attempted to push – to nudge – the country in a better direction.

As Sam Tanenhaus knows, and as I know – John McCain is not that type of politician. He has a set view of the world – and he believes that America can demand everything it wants and get it. He does not realize that we live in a nonpolar world in which states have great power, but not all power. He does not realize that if we kick Russia out of the G-8 as he was threatening to do before their invasion of Georgia – then we will pay a price in less cooperation on other fronts. He has accepted the failed orthodoxy of the far right-wing on economic policy – an orthodoxy that has led us to Enron, to a shrinking and less stable middle class, to a destabilizing dependence on oil, to an ossification of American society into classes, ((Except that those in the middle have no safety net to prevent them from falling into poverty while those as the top have various safety nets to prevent them from becoming middle class.)) and to the perfect storm of crises we are in the midst of now.

As Sam Tanenhaus knows, and as I know – Barack Obama could be that politician. He might fail – but there is no doubting that he is a pragmatist who sees that we are the single most powerful force in in a nonpolar world; but who also sees that unless we invest in our infrastructure, in new industries, and take steps to prevent us from becoming a stratified society, we will not be able to maintain our power. He has a vision of a better America, still unseen, around the corner – and his policies are all attempts to nudge our society in the right direction.

Categories
Humor Videos

Cats are Deceitful: The Sequel

[digg-reddit-me]This Saturday night video is brought to you by the same guy who brought you “Cats are deceitful…” although he calls it “Let me in.”

Categories
Election 2008 McCain Politics Scandal-mongering

The Crimes Behind Cindy McCain’s Fortune

[digg-reddit-me]
[Photo courtesy of PaisleyPitbull licensed under Creative Commons.]

Cindy McCain – who was among the first people in the country to question Michelle Obama’s patriotism after Michelle’s poorly phrased comments in Wisconsin early this year – is now incredibly offended by Barack Obama’s suggestion that it is her husband’s fabulous wealth and opulent lifestyle that has made him less sensitive to the vast majority of Americans with only one home whose incomes have fallen despite the economy’s growth under the Bush administration. No – she apparently wants Obama to come up with another reason to explain away her husband’s doubling down on the economic policies of the Bush administration and calling for massive tax cuts for the biggest companies and the richest individuals while cutting taxes far less than Barack Obama would for 90% of Americans. ((Would she prefer Obama infer actual malice, placing ideology above country, or class warfare to explain away McCain’s insistence on screwing the middle class?))

To counter the suggestions that her fortune left her and John McCain out of touch, she defended her family’s fortune:

My father had nothing. He and my mother sold everything they had to raise $10,000. I’m proud of what my dad and my mother did and what they built and left me.  And I intend to carry their legacy as long as I can.
(Added after watching the complete interview): My father is the American dream!

She really makes it sound like there must be an inspiring story behind how James Hensley’s net worth went from $10,000.00 to over $200,000,000.00. It brings to mind Richard O’Connor, who, in writing how the oil barons created their vast fortunes, paraphrased the great storyteller Balzac:

Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime.

The corollary would be that behind a large fortune is a decent amount of crime.

The story of Cindy McCain’s father, James Hensley, begins when he ditched his first wife for a younger woman after returning from World War II a hero (Sound familiar?). He got involved with a character named Kemper Marley who is variously described as a rancher, a businessman, a murder suspect, and a top figure in organized crime in Arizona. While working for Marley, James Hensley and his brother were convicted of the felony offenses of concealing black market liquor sales and conspiracy. Later Cindy’s father was charged with falsifying records to evade taxes – although these charges were dismissed, no doubt due to the diligent work of one of Arizona’s top defense lawyers, William Rehnquist.

After getting through these legal difficulties in the early 1950s, the brothers Hensley bought a horse track – with several mobsters as silent partners. Cindy’s father, though, was yearning for a measure of respectability, and sold his stake in the track in the mid-1950s. Luckily for James Hensley, he got out just a few months before a statewide scandal focused on the track, making life difficult for his brother and all of the other owners. Hensley’s brother continued at the track and eventually was sent to prison in the late 1960s after he sold his portion of the track to Marley and a mob-connected front.

Meanwhile, Cindy’s father had decided to start a beer distributorship:

According to the official founding myth, Jim launched his own beer distributorship, Hensley & Company, in 1955, with the help of a $10,000 loan. (Unaccounted for is how a cash-strapped ex-convict would have secured the exclusive right to distribute Budweiser in Phoenix.) The distributorship became Hensley’s first step in a long march to respectability.

By most accounts, Cindy’s father worked hard to make his distributorship a success. And as Arizona began to grow in the sixties boom with millions of people moving to the southwest, Hensley’s beer distributorship grew with it – leading to the fortune now estimated in the hundreds of millions which financed John McCain’s start in politics and the McCain’s opulent lifestyle.

To wrap up this story, Cindy McCain says her father had nothing; and through hard work, his fortune is now worth hundreds of millions. But untold is that this fortune is based on gambling and liquor, mobsters and political connections, working hard and cutting corners, and always staying one step ahead of scandal and conviction. Because of his crimes, his connections and his hard work, he was able to provide Cindy McCain with a life of luxury. When the young Cindy wrecked her Porsche, her father bought her a Mercedes Benz. When she became a teacher and was criticized for driving a car that was too flashy, her father bought her a second car to drive to school. And of course, Cindy can’t imagine, even now, how anyone can get around Arizona without a private plane.

It’s easy to see how someone who has led the life that Cindy McCain has can believe that a little bit of hard work will get you a few hundred million – and how someone who’s father bought her a second car to keep the other teachers from making fun of her luxury car could fail to sympathize with the average American having trouble paying all of their bills. It’s not impossible for someone living such an opulent lifestyle to understand and advocate for the middle class and the poor – look at Franklin Delano Roosevelt – but if you are instead are insisting on economic policies that benefit the richest individuals and the biggest corporations – it’s hard not to see a connection.

It’s a bit rich ((Referring to the 4th and 5th defintiions in the link.)) of Cindy McCain to defend herself and her husband by invoking how hard her father worked for his fortune. And it’s yet another demonstration of how “in touch” she is with the concerns of most Americans.

N.B. This post was written in the midst of an obviously contentious election campaign – one in which I had strongly considered supporting Senator John McCain – as I’ve detailed elsewhere – but after careful evaluation, had come to the conclusion that Barack Obama was the only candidate suited to our current challenges. While I stand by the content of the post, in retrospect, the tone is a bit overheated. I don’t especially care where her fortune came from. The Kennedy fortune is widely rumored to have come from similarly shady sources – and I don’t hold it against them. But in the context of a campaign in which Obama’s every contact with a questionable individual was the subject of advertisements and smears by the McCain campaign, I found it astounding that this rather close contact with unsavory characters was mentioned in passing but not explored.

Continue reading “The Crimes Behind Cindy McCain’s Fortune”
Categories
Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics The Clintons

She was born with ovaries! I was born with ovaries!

Michelle Cottle over at The New Republic suggests what the Hillary supporters’ response to McCain’s pick of Palin should be:

How insulting, how condescending, how downright patronizing of Senator McCain to attempt such ham-fisted identity politics. Does he really think women are so pathetic, so irrational, so weak-minded that a former supporter of the proudly pro-choice, feminist, progressive, grand and glorious Senator Clinton will now look at this staunchly conservative, possibly promising but currently totally unqualified woman from Alaska and think, She was born with ovaries! I was born with ovaries! Hell yeah! You go girl!

Categories
Election 2008 McCain Obama

The Single (Compound) Sentence That Describes Why I Support Obama

[digg-reddit-me]Why I Support Obama

Obama is a liberal pragmatist, with a conservative temperament, who seeks to understand the world as it is, to identify our long-term challenges, and to push (to nudge it) in a positive direction by tinkering with processes and institutions and creating tools to get people more involved in the government.

The sentence was buried in this post.

Why I Oppose McCain

He’s an excitable guy, reputed to be so unstable you can’t wear a tie around him, with an economic policy identical to Bush’s, benefiting the biggest corporations and the richest individuals – after Bush’s policies have been proven disastrous, shrinking the middle class, and leaving our economy less stable – coupled with a foreign policy more hawkish and more determined to undermine the international order than Bush’s, but based on the same misconceptions and moral cowardice – after Bush’s foreign policy has made our country weaker in nearly every region in the world.

Why I Support Obama Over McCain

Enough. We need Change, Before It’s Too Late.

And I’m confident Obama can pull this off.

Continue reading “The Single (Compound) Sentence That Describes Why I Support Obama”