As our civil liberties erode, the most obvious targets for related harassment are going to be Democratic politicians. We already see how the Bush administration is abusing it's abilities to perform domestic spying with the revelation that Elliot Spitzer was client #9, in that hardly anyone in the wingnut camp seems to think it's strange that we have yet to find out the identities of clients 1 through 8. Yesterday's "breaking" "news" of an affair that occurred and (as per the wife of the man in question, was also ended) in 2006 is another fine example of a scandal bomb. Just as a reminder 2006 was two, count 'em, TWO years ago.
Meanwhile, ABC - joining those bulwarks of intelligent and responsible journalism, the National Enquirer (eyeroll) to "break" this stale "news" - is STILL sitting on the client list of the DC madam, but we have yet to learn of any Republicans who might be on that list.
There has been a lot of hyperventilating recently with the new Quinnipiac polls showing McCain gaining strength in several key swing states, including surpassing Obama for the first time in my own state of Colorado.
Breathless MSM outlets have siezed upon this one set of polls to push the false meme that McCain is catching up.
But the MSM reality seems to be an alternate reality. If we take a more holistic look at the situation, another side of the story emerges. Even as the Wall Street Journal tries depserately to zero in on statistically insignificant details of their own new poll to spin reality towards some kind of "good news" for their preferred conservative candidate they can not escape their own poll results.
To begin with, I've gotta send a shout out to Elise for her great post tonight about "The Anatomy of a Smear". And that's the launching point for my thoughts today.
Barack Obama : is he opposed to war (as he was in 2007) or against the war (as he says he is now) or ending the war (as he will be in 2009). For someone is supposed to be able to talk good, he sure seems to be prone to editing.
A simple, straightforward statement by the Obama campaign justifying its decision to forego federal funding for his Presidential campaign could blow his critics out of the water, and actually make John McCain look bad.
Many people have been noting McCain/Anti-Obama talking points and narratives, saying we need to change the narrative. I have a few ideas for how to change the narratives currently at play in MSM, conservative, republican and independent circles. I will post them below in separate responses so they can be responded to individually. But first, a few general comments about narratives in general, and an overall strategy:
I've long held and believed that America, her citizens, are undergoing a dramatic change in their ability to consume and analyze media. It is a natural consequence of the digital age. If we are to be bombarded by media twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, it only makes sense that we would be able to chew up and spit out what we know to be unauthentic, what we know to be lies, and we can no longer be manipulated by the mainstream media, despite their well organized, concerted efforts.
It is amazing the litany of excuses Clinton supporters use for why she lost. Non of them ever have anything to do with the poor campaign she run. The amazingly incompetent strategy. The amazingly incompetent mismanagement.
I want to use this diary to review the The Shorenstein Center and the Project for Excellence in Journalism's new report on press coverage of the primary election.
First... I don't want to be a poor winner. But, I refuse to pander to Clinton supporters and pretend I'm not jubilant in victory. Progressives have been shut out of every national election in my life time. We have for the first time in my life time a progressive as presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. This is a time to celebrate.
I know there are those among Clinton's supporters who are good progressives and good feminists who legitimately don't trust that Obama is a progressive and a feminist.
I think there has to be healing from Clinton's spin. When politicians try and create a false reality and false consciousness out of whole cloth, recovering from those lies means exposing the facts as can best be determined through the best scientific methods available.
While the Obama campaign has planned and executed a brilliant political primary campaign on the 50-state strategy front, his campaign is doing very poorly on the front lines of the media battle.
Every day we see a parade of clowns on TV: republicans, Clintonoids, and pundits, but rarely does an Obama supporter ever seem to appear.
This is eerily reminiscent of Kerry's awful media (non)campaign in '04.
There were countless oppurtunities for Kerry to rip the Bush administration a new one, on every issue, but the Kerry folks shirked at every oppurtunity.
Consequently, the rightwing dominated the news and spin, giving people the impression that Kerry was unable to respond because he either had no effective response to begin with, or he was afraid to...
I'm a pretty simple guy, thinking-wise. Give me nice, neat standards, fair measures of performance. Don't give me somebody spinning like crazy, because I know that person's compensating for a lack of substance.
I like a fighter as much as anybody else. I am a fighter! Anybody who's gotten into a debate with me know this to be true. But in my view, there's a difference between being a fighter, and being a good fighter.
Hillary was never expected to lose West Virginia. She was polled as winning by a two-thirds weeks ago. She didn't come from behind in that state. She's trying to get credit for performing as expected.
I wandered over to Redstate to see how they are coping with this evening. You know, the whole losing a R+10 house seat they really should have easily won. (They were in denial for a while, but now are going to not threaten to leave the country, or something. Yeah, they're in denial.) Anyway, I happened upon their Dem primary coverage. It seems that Hillary is now the stronger candidate and
When the sun sets on this election we might have to realize that the media's efforts to set up Obama as the Democrat nominee has been the greatest gift they've ever given to the GOP.
Now, that's quite interesting, considering I remember not too long ago that they were afraid of Obama and wanted to face Clinton. That with her high unapproval ratings and Bill ties she'd be easy. That Republicans of many stripes were voting for her, because she'd be easier to beat. Wasn't that the case in, oh, say, Indiana a week ago?
Who recalls the zeitgeist around the time of the 2006 mid-term elections? It was all but a foregone conclusion that regardless of who the Democrats ran in '08 or who the Republicans ran in '08, it was going to be a damning indictment on the Bush Administration and Democratic victory was just a given. Fast forward a few years and what do we have before us now? A real nail biter of a presidential battle building between McCain and the Dems nominee. Whaaaaa????? How did this happen in such a short time? Did McCain suddenly find his populist message that most of mainstream America embraces and yearns for? Did some or all of the Democratic candidates jump the shark? Was there a huge scandal, a major revelation or an act of God? Not hardly.
My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball, but
tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward,
and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.
This is the first of what I plan to make a recurring feature - (hopefully) effective talking points to address the issues of the moment. I am writing this because of what I see as a gap between the few talking points coming from the campaign itself, and the immensity of supporter advocates for the Democratic nominee. This often leads to really bad spin, and sometimes outright harmful spin. So this is just me doing my part - disagreements, corrections (this is supposed to be spin, not blatant lying) or refinements welcome.
Follow me below the fold and twirl into the future!
Now, there are a lot of Hillary supporters out there calling the exclusion of Florida and Michigan from the Democratic primary "disenfranchisement." These Hillary supporters are saying they won’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s disenfranchising millions of voters. They say their opposition has nothing to do with what’s best for Hillary Clinton, that they're taking a principled stand against voter disenfranchisement.
Alright, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say you are taking a principled stand against voter disenfranchisement. Let’s say this has nothing to do with your support for Hillary. Then I have some questions for you, like...
In literature, a red herring is a narrative element intended to distract the reader from a more important event in the plot, usually a twist ending.
The term "red herring" originates from the tradition whereby young hunting dogs in Britain were trained to follow a scent with the use of a "red" (salted and smoked) herring (see kipper). This pungent fish would be dragged across a trail until the puppy learned to follow the scent. Later, when the dog was being trained to follow the faint odor of a fox or a badger, the trainer would drag a red herring (which has a much stronger odor) across the animal's trail at right angles. The dog would eventually learn to follow the original scent rather than the stronger scent.
(wikipedia)
Ever since Hillary lost 11 contests in a row, the states of Florida and Michigan have become an almost daily topic for her, a former president, even a former first daughter. Aping their points were Mark Penn, Howie Wolfson (almost daily, in the mornings), McCauliffe, Davis, Gurin, and countless others, pretending to wear the white hat, demanding equality for "Everyone", and somehow claiming that imposing rules that everyone agreed to was just plain unfair.
Today, mainstream media made a much ballyhooed fuss about the latest AP-Ipsos poll, taken 4/23 - 4/27, where Clinton's numbers versus McCain were stronger than Obama's numbers versus McCain.
Sure, they were right about that. But why didn't they say anything about the REST of the poll? Why didn't they compare it with the SAME POLL TAKEN 2 WEEKS AGO??
One of the things that both Dem campaigns are always nervous about is defectors. In particular, Clinton is more vulnerable to this problem since she's the candidate that is trailing. Well, NBC News has learned that a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, former Amb. to Chile Gabriel Guerra-Mondragon is leaving the campaign to join up Barack Obama's campaign. Officially dubbed a "Hillraiser," Guerra-Mondragon raised nearly $500,000 for Clinton's campaign, according to some estimates. He has been informing people inside Clintonworld this week in what's been described as some tough conversations. A formal announcement of a role for Guerra-Mondragon on Obama's national finance committee will be made next week. Guerra-Mondragon was appointed Amb. to Chile by Pres. Clinton in '94 and served until '98.
I repeat do not focus on the above it isn't important. Focus on this.
David LaMotte is a truly fine songwriter friend from the great city of Asheville, North Carolina. I was overhearing some audio from the HuffPo this morning, and thought "that voice sounds familiar."
It was. It was David's.
Basically, he got a "push poll" call from the Clinton campaign at his home in North Carolina. I'll let him explain it:
