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FEBRUARY 10,
2004 –
It is
always amazing to stop and think that so many people are unaware of
the blatant bias in the media. Even many people who are now M/I
readers were unaware until they started reading us, and even
questioned the idea when first encountering our articles.
But once you
take a simple look at the reality – and the realities behind the
reality – it is crystal clear and undeniable.
As is the
absolutely dominating power of the media. Take two states Michigan
and Tennessee, for example.
Senator John
Kerry had not visited either state in months. About a month ago, he
was nowhere near contention in polls in either place. He won both
easily.
Or how about
Virginia. As one Virginia http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=65933&ran=93355
paper reported today:
"Massachusetts
Sen. John F. Kerry, whose liberal views and New England roots seemed
a tough sell in Virginia just weeks ago, appears positioned for a
victory that would help him quiet doubts about his appeal in the
South."
Now,
ridiculous Botox rumors aside, John Kerry is not a changed man. He
is the same candidate he was back then.
But even more
telling is the massive number of voters in each state who are truly
undecided. As angry as they may be about President Bush and his
policies, they haven’t spent any time looking into his potential
replacements. But they are simply lining up behind Kerry because
they have gotten the sense from things like Newsweek polls that, as
another
Virginia
paper http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031773602344
covering the election today reported:
"As the primary
approached, Linda Sandquist said she weighed the candidacies of
former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Kerry. Sandquist said she voted
for Kerry because of his momentum, which she thinks could carry him
to the White House. "I feel like he's got a better chance in
November," said Sandquist, who described herself as an independent."
There are two
notes on this: one, this would not be the case in places like New
York and California, where people are much more attentive to and
active in following politics.
Two, this
will be the case in the general election as well, that the media
will be the number one issue – but during that campaign, it will
tilt heavily against Kerry and toward Bush.
The Kerry
campaign deserves to be commended for one thing, its brilliant
realization of what would be important this campaign season. While
Deaniacs by the tens of thousands invented the Presidential Meetup
format, while they sat writing thousands and thousands of letters,
while they strutted around in Dean shirts and attended Dean parties
and gave Howard Dean every penny they had, and while some other
campaigns, like General Wesley Clark’s, followed suit and put in
endless hours of tabling and letter writing, the Kerry camp brazenly
and plainly said, "Thanks, would-be volunteers, but no thanks. Go
away. Leave us alone. We don’t need you."
Again and
again we would hear the stories from angered, frustrated Kerry
supporters worried because the Deaniacs had their act so together
while the Kerry campaign constantly slighted, ignored, and indeed
explicitly said it had no use for them.
Kerry
campaign insiders would tell supporters, "We’re not going to
campaign in your state." Why? Well, it all came down to a very
simple strategy.
As we
reported in an earlier article, the Kerry camp was under the
impression that all they had to do was focus on Iowa and New
Hampshire. The idea was simply to win those states, or at least do
decently in Iowa and win New Hampshire, and then simply ride the
wave of media momentum they explicitly predicted would come from
that.
To us at M/I
that sounded absurd, since the media had been ignoring and smearing
Kerry in favor of Dean all along. To sit around wasting all your
time in two states and two states only, shunning the building of a
grassroots volunteer base, all in hopes that the media will suddenly
flip around and give you endless positive press if you simply win
one or two small states seemed entirely unrealistic.
And indeed,
we still believe it was. Had General Wesley Clark not entered the
race, and subsequently the Bush/Limbaughians and their machine not
decided to push Kerry and Edwards in order to stop
Clark,
we still think any early Kerry victories would have been downplayed
in the press.
But, all we
have is reality, and the current reality is that, for whatever
reasons, Kerry strategy is playing out perfectly. Being the seasoned
political veteran, he knew it wasn’t about getting a message across
to people, it wasn’t about having fervent grassroots supporters, it
was simply about getting the press to help you out. Don’t worry if
you don’t exist in the polls and haven’t even visited a state, get
the media "momentum" going and that will take care of all.
They
expressly said this, they entirely banked on it, and, so far, it is
paying off likely beyond even their best expectations. People in
other camps are now complaining about the very real problem the
condensed format of this year’s primaries poses – that there is so
little time between states that candidates don’t have a chance to
get back on their feet after losing, yet again, to Kerry.
But it was
this that the Kerry camp foresaw.
The Dean camp
foresaw it as well and had half-banked on the same strategy, putting
all the energy of their massive grassroots force into action for the
sake of winning the first two states and riding the momentum wave
from there on in. Unfortunately for them, Clark entered the race,
and so the media went from pushing the hapless Dean as an inevitable
frontrunner to trying to prop up Kerry and Edwards in order to knock
out the one they really feared, General Clark.
Which brings
us right up to today.
Clark, who promised as recently as
yesterday not to quit until the March 2 races were over, announced
tonight he will be dropping out of the race. His supporters
likely feel betrayed, having been hoodwinked into donating this past
week based on a promise to fight on. In addition, they had
counted on their candidate to be a fighter and at least give them
their turn to vote for him.
But today they are waking to the
reality that while even the hapless Dean remains in the race, their
man, General Wesley Clark, could no longer stand the heat in the
kitchen. He had almost dropped out after Oklahoma. This
time he did it.
And the Bush/Limbaugh attack machine
has scored a direct victory. They wanted to push Kerry and
Edwards in order to knock Clark out, and they have successfully done
so.
For
anyone who has been watching the media coverage this election, you
can understand why Clark's supporters have been furious and
endlessly frustrated during the course of these primaries. When a
couple of days ago ABC News’ political staff explicitly stated that
there is "extraordinary pressure to begin covering the Bush v. Kerry
general election matchup immediately," the Clark camp simply saw yet
another overt admission of what is occurring. (see
Defining Differences Between The Candidates) The fact that the
very staff of even ABC News admits it is being pressured to be
biased – and that all of its reporters keep that pressure to spin
things as a "dirty little secret," going along against honesty and
integrity – shows that truly no one in the non-Moderate Independent
media is anything but part of one big, coordinated spin machine.
ABC News has
the admission above, NBC uses the clearly dishonest, right-wing
puppet Zogby polls to push the Bush/Limbaughians agenda. We all know
about FOX News’ bias, but did you know about this: that FOX News’
COO has pledged to raise $50,000 in cash for the Kerry camp?
Yep. Now,
from the UK, we get a bit of information that might help to make
things a little clearer.
According to
a report in The Guardian http://media.guardian.co.uk/city/story/0,7497,1144464,00.html
, FOX News’ COO has pledged to raise between $50,000 and $100,000
for Senator John Kerry’s campaign. It reports:
"Mr Chernin, one
of Mr Murdoch's most trusted lieutenants, is among several media
chiefs who have pledged to raise between $50,000 and $100,000 to
support the Vietnam war veteran’s campaign for the White House."
Umm, well,
maybe CBS is at least useful.
Maybe not.
According to the same report, the CEO at Viacom – which owns CBS,
MTV, and many radio stations - has pledged to raise $50,000 for
Kerry. From the Guardian:
"Others who have
pledged to raise more than $50,000 include the Viacom chief
executive, Sumner Redstone, and Sony chairman Howard Stringer."
Well, what
about CNN. CNN’s coverage has seemed about the most biased this
election cycle, even making FOX look like a liberal network at
times. But is that accurate? Isn’t CNN owned by liberal Ted Turner,
or at least controlled by him?
Nope.
Remember, a short while ago Ted Turner was run out of the last bits
of power he had over CNN, the network he had created. He now has
zero say and zero control.
Who ran him
out? The company that had bought CNN, Time Warner.
Oops, this
from the Guardian article. Wonder where Time Warner’s heart lies?
It’s CEO gave some cash to President Bush.
And just in
case the above quote from ABC, and its hiring this year of Rush
Limbaugh on its ESPN Network, and its use of its radio stations in
certain areas as flat out right-wing lie-and-smear stations hasn’t
made it clear to you where ABC stands on things:
"Michael Eisner,
who gave $5,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee."
Eisner is the
CEO of Disney, who owns ABC, ESPN, and lots of other things useful
to the Bush/Limbaughians. Yes, when you take your kids to Disney
Land or buy a videotape of Bambi, you are funding the
Bush/Limbaughians hold on power.
Funny, who
would have thought the movie Bambi could turn out to be such
a bad thing for the things like wildlife preserves.
But all else
aside, one has to hand it to the Kerry camp. They saw the number one
issue this election and made control of it their top priority. Iraq,
the economy, healthcare, those things are irrelevant. The issue that
will decide this election is the media, and so far Kerry, through a
combination of good fortune and clearly experienced savvy, has been
able to use the spin machine greatly to his advantage.
However, this
won’t last. Just as the press never used to mention Kerry without
the words "aloof" or "liberal" before they decided to push his
campaign, they will start to do again. The smears will come, the
ignoring, the twisting. And now that Clark is out, the all out
assault on Kerry will begin.
The
Republicans plan to make what appears to be Kerry’s strength, his
Vietnam Veteran status, into his weakness, talking about how he
sewed the American flag to the bottom of his pants while protesting,
how he betrayed true veterans by protesting against them while they
were still overseas.
However, just
as Kerry was aware that dealing with the media was the top priority
in the primaries, he is keenly aware that the media and this type of
Bush/Limbaugh-brand smear will be the top issue in the upcoming
election. He constantly laces his speeches with pre-emptive warnings
about how the right-wing will break out all the "same old attacks,"
and indeed, challenges them, ad nauseum, to, "Bring it on."
Working to
Kerry’s advantage are three things.
One, a sense
for the media savvy one-liners that get attention, like yesterday
when he suggested that the people who prepared the President’s
glowing economic report must have been the same people who prepared
the intelligence estimates that told us Iraq had so many WMD’s.
Two, money.
Three, Bush’s
war credentials are still suspect. Indeed, call Kerry a disloyal
veteran, he is still a veteran, and the chickenhawks of the Bush
administration will have nowhere to hide against John, which is
indeed among his main appeals to voters.
And there is
another angle to this. You see, the Limbaugh-brand spinsters have to
keep ratings in mind above all else. And if the President keeps
slipping in popularity like he has been, you will see a lot more of
them starting to distance themselves from him, like Bill O'Reilly
did today.
As Reuters
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040210/people_nm/campaign_bush_oreilly_dc_3
reported:
"O'Reilly said
he was "much more skeptical about the Bush administration now" since
former weapons inspector David Kay said he did not think Saddam had
any weapons of mass destruction."
But make no
mistake, though, the right-wing will hedge a bit, it will only be
cover for falling right back in line, as Bill indeed did,
reinforcing his useless puppet status by asserting that it was
Clinton appointee Tenet who was really responsible.
O’Reilly had
nice words about Kerry as well, according to the report, saying he
would "make a formidable opponent" against President Bush.
Enjoy it now,
John, it won’t last. Do you think the corporate execs are going to
sit around and let you take back their tax cuts without a fight?
Actually, no,
he doesn’t. He knows it will come, and he wants them to, "Bring it
on." And in hard times, when so many people are so in need,
the word liberal doesn’t seem so harsh a word to many as cold
conservative does.
As for Dean
and Edwards, we will have to wait and see what the media machine
decides to do next. Edwards has never had anything but the momentum
he got from Iowa. Kerry may, however consider him as a VP candidate
if he wins – him, Gephardt, or it will be someone who didn’t run for
President. As a consolation prize that might make Clark
supporters feel better, and perhaps a Democratic dream team which
would bring together the three top candidates thus far in the
Democratic contest, Kerry could end up choosing Edwards as as his
Vice Presidential runningmate and Clark to campaign with him as
potential Secretary of State or Defense, as Colin Powell did with
Bush.
Such an
arrangement would give Kerry a needed boost in the South - though in
all honesty he is unlikely to win there - and make the foreign
policy credentials of his team that much more solid. In
addition, Wes Clark would have a chance to have the last laugh at
those Generals who decided to mock him once he ran for office, as he
would go from being whipping boy to being their boss.
Dean will still have a nice showing some places, but as his
supporters have been all along, they will say what the above
Virginia voter did, and what Dean’s supporters have said all along –
they, in end, want someone more electable.
For
General Clark, while his outsider status would have been good in
other elections, this time the American people want comfort food.
They want a sure thing. And most importantly, they want someone the
media will be kind to. They saw the drubbing Gore took, and
Democrats want someone who can figure out how to not let that
happen. With Clark all they knew is that they didn’t know him, the
media is ignoring him (when they’re not smearing him,) and so they
went for the military man with the media on his side – and who they
believe has more experience with economic matters on top of military
status. Where people had time to meet Clark he did well.
But in the end, sitting out Iowa may have proved to be the ultimate
in miscalculations. Kerry and Edwards were dead in the water,
Clark had moved near the front in fundraising and the polls, and
then he took himself out of it all, making the media hit on him that
much easier to implement.
It always seems
odd that the most powerful, active Democratic strongholds, New York
and California, never get to play a role in choosing their party's
candidate. Instead, people who don't pay much attention - by
their own admission - get to decide the race before the others have
their say. We will see this year if any of the candidates
actually makes it to March 2. Dean still can make a little bit
of a show of it. Edwards can not, and is likely on the verge
of a full nosedive as the race moved away from friendlier ground to
March 2 states. However, Clark's withdrawal from the race
directly benefits him, leaving him the lone Southerner.
For now, Clark
supporters can only wonder how he could be out of the race while
Dean, Kucinich, Sharpton, and Edwards still remain to fight.
Maybe the General wasn't the one prepared for battle after all.
Or maybe Kerry talked to him about cabinet possibilities.
Or maybe he just
read M/I and agreed with my analysis that if Kerry won both states
that his run was essentially over.
In any case, we
have great respect for General Clark and hate to lose him - as we
did McCain last time. Now we remain as impartial observer to
see if Kerry, or whoever becomes the Democrats nominee, can act with
true integrity, honesty, and with what is truly best for America in
mind, or if we'll have a race between two of the same, with good
Americans lost in the mix.
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