Interesting article on how the GOP will demonize the Demos running for the Presidency

A good article about the media and the obstacles faced by the Democrats ofr 2004.
******************************
And so it begins, as predictable as clockwork. Just hours after Sen. John Edwards said he is setting up an exploratory committee as the likely start of a presidential run, the right-wing attack machine was already in gear, grinding out a caricature of the North Carolina Democrat, an early glimpse of what's to come not just for Edwards but for all the Democratic hopefuls.

On CNN’s Crossfire the day Edwards announced his plans, Republican consultant Ed Rogers began "defining" Edwards. He was a "parasitic" trial lawyer, a multimillionaire with no gravitas.

"When [Edwards] started this quest four years ago to buy himself a Senate seat and get into the game, he thought there would be a market for a Clinton-lite or for a wannabe wonder boy," Rogers said. "[Edwards’s] background, his qualifications, make it a farce that he would run for president of the United States." [Crossfire, Jan. 2, 2003]

On the same day, talk show host Rush Limbaugh clipped together an attack montage for his radio audience belittling Edwards’s desire to be a "champion for regular people." Limbaugh devoted a chunk of his three-hour radio show to explain to his millions of listeners that Edwards was really just using "code for you’re a helpless little ninny who can’t do anything without me helping you."

The next day, the Republican National Committee published a 5,100-word, two-part report on its Web site calling Edwards "an unaccomplished liberal" who is "not ready for prime time" -- although Edwards has the same number of years experience in government as Texas Gov. George W. Bush had when he ran for president in 2000.

The immediate lambasting of Edwards – like early attacks on Sen. John Kerry – is only the start of a coordinated campaign by the RNC and its allies in the powerful right-wing media to tear down any Democrat who may pose a threat to Bush. ****

If the past is any guide, Democrats should expect that:

-- The attacks will be personal, not issue-based. Personality quirks or flaws will be used to "define" the Democrats so these traits can be easily transformed into laugh lines for the pundit programs and the late-night comedy shows.

-- The attacks will be thematic, rather than specific. For instance, the Democratic challenger will be described as "Clintonian" -- or in Edwards's case an "ambulance chasing trial lawyer" -- rather than someone who supported or opposed a specific policy initiative.

-- The attack machine will be relentless. Every utterance by the eventual Democratic nominee will be examined to see if it fits one of the thematic patterns that have been chosen as effective attack lines.

-- Statements or issues that fit a "theme" will be repeated again and again in every media venue, from Web sites to radio to TV pundit shows to newspaper columns. Every right-wing pundit – and many mainstream commentators – will use nearly identical language until the "theme" becomes "conventional wisdom."

-- The mainstream press will incorporate the attack lines into regular news stories by using the objective-sounding criticism that the Democrat has failed to counter the attack and committed the political sin of letting his enemy define him.

-- Most importantly, it will not matter who the Democratic nominee is. No one is immune. The attack machine will find a thematic pattern for each potential nominee and will pound the Democratic candidate into the ground with it
*****************
The "fresh face" argument for jettisoning Gore also inexplicably misses the point that no matter whom the Democrats nominate, the existing media structure will highlight and exaggerate the candidate's flaws, as the Edwards example makes clear.****

South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle, for example, has been pilloried as an obstructionist, even a traitor, for his role as Senate majority leader. The assault on Daschle, who served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command from 1969 to 1972, was based primarily on the legislative battle over the Homeland Security Department, which ironically was first proposed by Democrats. The bill was introduced by Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, supported by Daschle from the outset, and initially opposed by Bush.

Pundits also have begun painting a bull's eye on the back of Sen. Kerry of Massachusetts. A decorated Vietnam veteran with three terms in the U.S. Senate, Kerry has amassed a record of taking on issues as challenging as the Reagan administration's illegal support for the Nicaraguan contras, international drug trafficking and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International money-laundering scandal.

Still, the emerging anti-Kerry media themes are that he's a boring, humorless, aloof elitist, a Massachusetts liberal who gets expensive hair cuts and lets his fingernails grow longer on one hand for playing the guitar. To boot, he's a phony who fancies himself another John F. Kennedy

Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri is being defined as an insider politician in the pocket of big labor bosses and a guy whose light-colored hair leaves the impression that he lacks eyebrows. The Rev. Al Sharpton already is a favorite punch line for conservative commentators belittling the entire Democratic field of "wannabes."

Finally, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida presents an intriguing example of how negative themes work. As soon as he announced his interest in a possible run for president, his habit of taking meticulous notes on his daily life became a subject of ridicule.

During Campaign 2000 when Graham emerged as one of the finalists for Al Gore’s running mate, Time magazine published an excerpt from Graham’s diary, which detailed the events of a September day in 1994. The entry included such trivial entries as rewinding a video and what Graham wore that day.

On Dec. 23, 2002, the day Graham announced that he was considering a run for president, CNN Crossfire’s Tucker Carlson flashed a portion of the diary entry on the screen and joked, "Now, those are actual entries in Sen. Graham's diary. My question to you is, 'Don't you think running for the president, meeting all those people, going all those places would just blow his circuits completely'?"

The common denominator in all these cases is that the right-wing attack machine can exploit personality quirks or character flaws of anyone, not just Bill Clinton and Al Gore.


A long article but in conclusion

The Media Gap

It should be obvious by now to even casual political observers that the U.S. political process is driven disproportionately by the strident content at conservative press outlets and talk shows, from Rush Limbaugh to Fox News to the Washington Times to the Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

As much as conservatives continue to complain about a "liberal" bias in mainstream newspapers and television networks, the reality is that the Democrats have nothing comparable in ideological commitment or tone to what the Republicans have at the conservative news outlets built up over the past quarter century****

In the 2002 midterm election cycle, Republicans out-raised Democrats $511 million to $327 million. Making the situation even graver for Democrats, 61 percent of their funds came from so-called "soft money" contributions, which would be banned under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform standards. By comparison, only 43 percent of the funds raised by Republicans were from "soft money" contributions. ****

Nineteen of the 34 Senate seats up for grabs in 2004 are currently held by Democrats, eight of which were won with less than 60 percent of the vote six years ago. Of the 15 seats now held by Republicans up in 2004, only four were won with less than 60 percent of the vote six years ago.

This means that Democrats will have to spread their more limited campaign resources among more battleground races,........

Therefore, in the short term, a Democratic challenger may find the only feasible route to victory is a high-risk populist campaign that takes on both Bush and the national media.

Democrats will have no choice but to challenge Bush head on. To start, the American people will have to be engaged in a sophisticated but vital discussion about "national security." Instead of acquiescing to Bush's unilateralist and belligerent foreign policy, Democrats will have to explain how that policy is making the world less safe for Americans.

Bush's bellicose talk may appeal to the angry white male voter, but Democrats will have to make the case to the broader American public that the tough rhetoric is depleting goodwill toward America, a dangerous development in an increasingly interdependent world.

"Negative opinions of the U.S. have increased in most of the nations where trend benchmarks are available," reported the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press in a recent study
*****
Also, the Democrats will have to stop cowering before sneering media pundits. Instead the Democrats will have to challenge the media to stop fawning over Bush and his policies. Rather than cozying up to the likes of NBC's Tim Russert, the Democrats will have to paint Russert and his cohorts as part of the problem.

As the Republicans have learned, it's much easier to deal with the national news media when your allies have their own media infrastructure to help set the agenda and soften up the press. But lacking that, the Democrats will have to figure out some creative ways to neutralize the media's pro-Bush tendencies.

In short, Democrats will have to learn in the next few months some critical lessons that have escaped them since the rise of the right-wing media machine a generation ago. Whether they like it or not, against this well-financed and aggressive operation, the Democrats will find they have little left to finesse.



demo dlilemna