Media Tries to Blow Down Straw Poll Paul

Plymouth, NH -

Ron Paul puts his pants on just like the rest of the GOP candidates - one leg at a time. Except, once his pants are on, he wins straw polls. This time he dominated in Virginia. I think this is something like the 12th straw poll he has won now. I know they don't mean much, but at some point they have to mean something.

Paul - 38%
Thompson - 23% (whose surrogate was VA GOP's favorite son George Allen)
Huckabee - 11%
Giuliani - 9%

Which bring me to my other point, why was the MSM afraid to give Ron Paul any propers for his debate performance Wednesday?

Although his speaking time, 7:11, put him in the middle of the pack and very near Mike Huckabee (9:47) and the drawling Fred Thompson (10:25), Paul was widely ignored in most debate reviews.

The New York Times' sole mention of Paul had to do with his quip about fundraising.

And Representative Ron Paul of Texas, whose libertarian, anti-war candidacy has made him a surprise fund-raising sensation on the Internet, allowed that he was “struggling to figure out how to spend the money.”

In The Fix, Chris Cilizza gave Paul only passing mention as the object of a motion by John McCain.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) challenged Rep. Ron Paul over the idea of whether American troops should be removed from Iraq immediately. "That kind of isolationism, sir, is what caused World War II," McCain said to a mixture of cheering and booing from the crowd. "We allowed Hitler to come to power with that kind of attitude and appeasement." Paul responded that he had more campaign donations from active military men and women than any other Republican candidate.

Yet he completely failed to include a key component of that back-and-forth, when Paul told McCain he didn't understand the difference between isolationism and non-interventionism, and furthermore that the crowd wildly cheered Paul as he gave his anti-war answer that led McCain to go after him.

Furthermore, there was absolutely no mention of the exchange that drew McCain's real ire in the first place. The Arizona Senator is fond of repeating a line, which he has been saying for years, about the Republicans going to Washington to change it, but how Washington changed them. Well, Ron Paul went out of his way with his first chance to say "I don't think that applies to me. Washington didn't change me." You could see McCain bristle while Paul exposed McCain's establishment credentials.

There was another tete-a-tete between the two white hairs later on when McCain interrupted once again to point out that America never lost a battle in Vietnam. Paul instantly hit back with the point that the Vietnamese Colonel Tu said in a meeting with the American Colonoel Summers, who made the same point, "yes, but that is irrelevant." Again, the crowd cheered on Ron Paul's sentiment.

Over at First Read, the editorial crew gave Paul some credit for sounding rational in the face of irrationality.

Paul does a pretty good job of sounding rational when posed with somewhat irrational questions. His trilateral commission answer didn't sound conspiratorial even though the whole premise of the question is just that: conspiratorial.

In other words, a backhanded compliment. They're saying he is an articulate coot. It is oddly reminiscent of the Kucinich UFO question.

My initial reaction to the debate was the Huckabee put in a great performance, Romney was all over the place mostly due to his overtly visceral pandering instinct, and Giuliani stunk up the joint. The MSM picked up on this loud and clear. But the thing they didn't notice is that Ron Paul bitch slapped John McCain left and right with sound reasoning in the face of patriotistic jingoism. Its not about the troops winning. Its about life and death, human dignity and Iraqi freedom, and the honor of American values. Ron Paul understands this, and if you watch the video again, so did the voters in the crowd. MSM - don't be afraid.

Pimpin' All Over the World Wide Web

Snow Pond, NH -

We are expanding our audience here at 3Q!

Starting today, you will begin to see some of my work at Huffington Post Off the Bus. I plan on writing one or two articles each week for them, so be sure to check me out on the big stage and tell your friends! Right now they are featuring my latest post on the climate convention from last weekend.

I have also recently collaborated with one of today's most brilliant satirical minds, Noah Berkowitz, to produce a piece about Ron Paul for his Noah Lot More blog. Please check it out, and spread the word! The link to the article is here: Ron Paul Event Leaves Thousands of College Students Confused.


You know how we do, with the fancy cars, the women and the caviar.


All over the Granite State,
BTB

WWGD? Impeach? Me, Neither

In the most recent issue of Vanity Fair, there is an article that touches on the unfair treatment Al Gore received from the media wayyy back in 2000 in his campaign against then-just-a-Presidential-candidate George W. Bush. The article sheds light on the fact that so-called serial exaggerator Al Gore was in fact a product of serial exaggerations by beat reporters. Gore’s claim to have taken leadership in creating the internet was corroborated by Newt Gingrich of all people, and later morphed into an alleged quote that he ‘invented the internet.’

Same goes for the Love Canal flop. At Concord High in 1999, while trying to impress the likes of students such as Angus Fredenburg, Gore told the story of learning about a superfund site in New York, Love Canal, and holding hearings on it in Tennessee that became the first of what would become a major environmental landmark case. Lazy reporters, at the ready to smear Our Man Al, took him out of context and purely misquoted him as saying that he “discovered Love Canal” and “I was the one that started it all". The list goes on for pages and pages.

True to the game, George Bush was all but given a free pass due to his apparent polarity to Gore. Where Gore was arrogant Bush was folksy. Where Gore was eager, Bush was cool. As the piece states, some of this blame lies with Gore’s media team for failing to define him. Bush was the Compassionate Conservative and ’nuff said.

But Gore never had a sticky slogan, and efforts by his opponents, quite talented at branding, to define him worked like a charm. MSM pundits and reporters, looking for an angle (if not a punching bag), and buying the faulty product coming out of the brains of Karl Rove and Matthew Dowd, found one easily. Well, caveat emptor.

I have heard a number of journalists this time around talk about how they regretted their failure to see Bush for what he was back in 2000 - a scoundrel. As well they should. Anyone who couldn’t see through George W. from the get-go, back when he was getting outclassed by John McCain and the Straight Talk Express back in 1999, and wasn’t disgusted by the South Carolina debacles of mixed-race babies and Bob Jones University deserved a government-subsidized Lasik treatment, or at least a leach to the nuts. Now that is health care reform that I can support.

Which brings me to a concept that has been bubbling up more and more lately in the chattering classes: Impeachment.

Folks like Dennis Kucinich and a number of grassroots activists have begun calls for impeachment of either Cheney (in the case of Dennis) or Bush (in the case of John Conyers, bloggers, and interstate sign-hangers) mostly for their deceit in the run-up to the war in Iraq. WMDs, 9/11 connections, and all the other falsehoods that stood as the paper tigers that scared America into this war, were evidently just that from the beginning.

I believe it was President Bush himself who said back in 2002, “There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.” The actual saying goes like this, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

It is a wise nugget of truth, and I hereby submit it as my own reasoning for why impeachment is not justified. If memory serves me, George Bush has managed to fool America and/or it’s representative congress three times now. By my reckoning, that stands as a big fat Shame on Me, not a shame on you,.

Even if you cede the pre-election sham as a mulligan, the fact remains that our congress was fooled into the Iraq War by the Greatest Story Ever Sold. Sure, the Bush Administration was deceitful, but they sure as hell didn’t fool everyone. Plenty of us opposed the war from the start, not to mention Al Gore. I see it as more of a political victory than a lie. Well, on second thought it is still a lie, but whatever. Given the 23 Senators who opposed, I place a lot of the blame on the rest of the schmucks. But, keeping with the theme, the Iraq war stands as a Shame on You moment for George Bush.

Now here is the clincher, the Shame on Me moment for America was the 2004 election. Peep the time frame - UN speech, beginning or Iraq War, Authorization vote, all of these events happened well before November 2, 2004. By that time, even if it wasn’t as crystal clear as it is today, it was clear enough. Bush was a crook. And what did we do? We re-elected him. Has he improved since ‘04? No. But has he done anything impeachment-worthy since then? No.

As far as I can tell we as Americans had our chance to remove Bush from office. It was a pretty clear choice. Now, if you are one of the 30% of the people who agree with Bush’s world view, I’ll let you off the hook. You’re ready and willing to take the country to Iraq and beyond, on the Fed’s credit card, and so be it. I am not one to tell you that your long term vision is wrong. For all I know you could be our saviors. But for the 20% of people who voted for Bush in either 2000 or 2004, and don’t support him now, you are the reason it is a shame on us. For the 50% of us who stood complacently while the war happened without major protest and full-fledged congressional overhaul, we are the reason it is shame on us. No one bears the entire burden (well, maybe the “swing voters” who chose Bush in 2004) but we are one America, and we take it as it comes whether it is a budget surplus or a class 5 hurricane. And We are why George Bush should not be impeached for offenses committed between 2002 and 2004.

Now if we can only get Al Gore to run again.

Fight the Power

In my upcoming (seriously, I'm almost done but I have other priorities, too) article on the Obama visit to Keene, it is clear that a major portion of the stump speech touches on the MSM's constant dismissal of Obama as naive and inexperienced. I think it is easy for someone like Obama to harp on that threat as a poor-me pity call for political gain, but the more I witness it the more legitimate it becomes. Especially since the youtube debate, nearly every time the Illinois Senator says something outside of the mold of political convention, it becomes a so-called gaffe due to his inexperience. This clip from a recent Nashua visit made it onto national news and earned a rebuke from the likes of Mitt Romney. Similarly, even harmless discussions with smalltown voters are getting blown up over the pages of the Washington Post and slammed by the Republicans.

I understand that the GOP criticism has much to do with the Fear of a Black Planet, or maybe just a Democratic Candidate, but nevertheless my Fear has more to do with the idea that a candidate's opposition can be so successful at framing their counterpart with the help of the MSM. An establishment media that jumps on the party line, ignores the articulate fringes and vilifies a bold, new approach? Now that is a real Public Enemy.

Informed Consent

Informed Consent.

That is how our host and moderator, Ron Suskind, described our method of democracy. The public, informed with appropriate knowledge about the candidates, will consent to the judgment of their leaders to make the decisions that will govern our nation. Ideally, the founders hoped that the decisions to grant this consent would be made with reason. The best candidate, in possession of strong leadership qualities and in tune with our values, will head our government based upon this hope. But as Suskind notes (and as I am also finding out in Drew Westen's The Political Brain), humans often make their decisions based in emotion and anger. Suskind went on to reiterate that the role of the media is to attempt to present information to the public so that they may make a well-informed decision. This is especially true for the political media.

He then told a few stories about how easily things can be misinterpreted when presented en masse. Notably, he recounted the Dean Scream episode of Iowa, 2004. Calling it “an issue of his microphone,” Suskind talked about how that night, after losing Iowa in an upset, Vermont Governor Howard Dean was addressing supporters in a loud, crowded auditorium. The noise level and excitement live in the gym were unmistakable, yet from watching news clips one would never know. Dean was using a new type of microphone intended to cut out ambient background noise. So for those people who were fifteen rows back from the stage, the so-called “Dean Scream” was almost inaudible. But for those people tuned into the FOX News, it sounded like a crazy man screaming out loud to himself. Last I checked, there must have been tens of millions more people watching on television. As Suskind put it, because of a mostly unreported microphone issue, “from then on it was RIP for Dean…A wildly unrepresented nugget, borne of technology essentially crucified him.”

So can the media represent the true goings-on of the march to the nomination? Suskind mentioned that there are “enormous issues we face now in ‘08: al Qaeda, Iraq. Will we follow reason?” He then posed the following question to the panel:

In your role as an intermediary on informed consent, what do you most hope for? What do you most fear?

The panelists' answers all tended to address the need to portray specialized information without being too sensational, especially when it comes to giving excessive amounts of press to youtube flavors of the week. Walter Shapiro in particular brought up an interesting point about the need for journalists to, in essence, tell readers something about the person who is in line to be the next President that has predictive power about how he will behave in office. He then goes on to take some responsibility for being suckered into believing Bush’s “compassionate conservative” motto on the 863^rd time he heard it. He also mentioned that he feared that, in the future, the primary “calendar will go Iowa, New Hampshire and then bedlam” followed by nine months of buyer’s remorse before the general election due to the lack of access to the candidates and little time to adjust to information post-New Hampshire.

Tumulty noted the increase in now-style journalism, creating a need for journalists to finish stories under overwhelmingly short deadlines. Instead of chewing on a story for a week and really checking facts, too often the media is forced to slam out a story in one night just to beat everyone else to the scoop. In my brief time here at 3Q, I can vouch for the difficulty of putting out something of high quality versus the strain of wanting to put it out instantly for all the laptop quick-click combatants in the blogosphere who are constantly waiting for some new chunk of news to satisfy their political dopamine requirements. Lucky for me, no one reads my blog. But I still act like they do. Dammit, I always will!

Suskind then discussed the weakened role of the press these days. Weakened as a result of one big, fat, ugly word: Message. He called the use of spin, message and marketing “the dark arts” and told a story relayed to him by fabled political reporter Walter Pincus about how, long ago, corporations didn’t distribute message until after their products were examined. Same went for politicians. Now it is fed to us as the standard before we have a clue what to think. Pincus also told him that, “back in 1974 we didn’t have a slug everyday called POTUS. Most days he didn’t do anything interesting.” This apparently changed with President Reagan (no surprise) who did something every day just to get out message about himself, whether it was to cut a ribbon at an opening or make a brief statement to the press to get his mug on the nightly news.

Suskind went on to say, half seriously, that a “journalist’s goal is to fight message. Their (the campaign staff) goal is to kill them.” He continued with the Bush example, “compassionate conservative. What a line, ingenious. In fact, a lie!” He went on to say that message intends to provoke a question. “The challenge of these people,” Suskind then said as he pointed to the panel, “is to punch through message.”

Question two asked the members to give some rules of the game to punch through message.

The panel all had interesting things to say about this question, and really how could they not? Busting through message is the true joy of reporting. People become journalists, I imagine, because they want to tell people the truth, and nothing is more gratifying about truth than when it doubles as calling people on their bullshit. David Chalian established the importance of really dissecting the message to figure out what it is, and matching it with the facts. Unfortunately, he notes due to the importance of timeliness in today’s media world, “we’ve basically outsourced our research to the campaigns.” David Mark added insightfully that a crucial way to break down message is to repeatedly ask questions about their message. Even if you can’t make them answer questions, he pointed out, you can show that they won’t answer, especially if you are specific. Tumulty and Walker continued on Chalian’s theme that “truth spotting” was key in fighting message, and again expressed worry that such an integral journalistic pillars as fact checking is slowly going the way of the buffalo.

Finally, Suskind presented the scary idea that, “the leadership of this great nation will be determined by a 3am half truth.” This is the implication that a half-asleep, overworked, message conscious politician will ultimately be derailed not by his or her policy stances, but instead by a misconstrued or exaggerated story told to a reporter late in the night on a cross-country campaign flight. Imagine Al Gore and the internet. Suskind then said how a campaign aide once told him that when it comes to negative attacks, “we look for things that are a little bit false, but hard to prove false. These things move, and we can get 3-4 days of making opponent defend himself.” Imagine Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Suskind, whose voice sounds like a calm version of Lewis Black, then stated, “I can say with almost 100% surety that there will be at least one Swift Boat type thing this time around.”

Question three: How do we avoid being manipulated? Avoid the little salacious truths?
What feeds informed consent? Will it be the little things that we bicker about, or the bigger truths? How do we guide to the bigger truths?

In this instance, the panel made a strong shift toward the John Edwards haircut flap. Was it just manipulation by rival campaigns and Republicans to show the guy as a reckless fop? Or is it a harbinger of something more serious. The journalists theorized that even in instances like this, a bigger truth may come out. Mark notes that how candidates manage their campaigns can be a sign of how they will run the oval office, and can give a sense of how careful things are scrutinized. Shapiro reiterated this notion when he said, “in further defense of Edwards on the haircut, what clearly happened was a muchkin paid for it with the wrong credit card. The bigger thing is that the people who scrutinized didn’t catch it and undo it.” Unfortunately, everyone got caught up in Haircutgate for this question, and nothing much was said outside of the discussion that a good Presidential candidate will run a good campaign, and not allow the little things to take over, ironically, their message.

At this point, the audience took over the duty of asking questions from Ron Suskind. This group of mostly older, highly in-tune voters, really only wanted to know about second tier candidates, with the exception of the seersucker man I mentioned earlier, who only wanted to excoriate Dick Cheney. This lack of faith in the media by the truly hardcore mostly made for a defensive stance by the journalists, imploring the audience to believe that they, too care to present the possibility of a 5% poller becoming better known to the electorate en route to victory, but that the frontrunners and such for a reason, and therefore need the spotlight, too. With time running out, and presumably a cocktail hour to attend, the moderator closed off debate with a closing statement that rehashed the themes of the afternoon, and ultimately asked the question: “Can truth triumph?”

I shut off my computer, hoping to save at least twenty minutes of battery in the event of an outlet-free coffee shop, and meandered up to the stage to listen in as a few stragglers asked the journalists more detailed questions about specific candidates, and they told a few more war stories and gave their insider opinion. After a while, I became too confused as I challenged myself to listen to three conversations at once. Why was the Biden supporter talking about Mike Huckabee’s chances? Or was someone telling a Joe Liebermann story from 2004, and if so why did Ron Paul’s name come up? So many stories, so much truth, so little time. Can truth triumph? I don’t know, but I think the best person to ask is a guy who lives somewhere above your legs and below your shoulders. He’s called your gut.

The quasi-transcript that is my notes from the event can be seen in the post below.

Reporting on Reporting: Ruff Cut

I should have posted this much earlier, but here are my notes from the political media forum at Dartmouth last week. If you are a poli-dork, you may find this useful, otherwise please don't read. Note: the words below are some mixture of paraphrase, summary and direct quotation. Do not take as pure fact.

---------------------------------

In your role as an intermediary on informed consent. What do you most hope for? What do you most fear? Read below for my notes on the respondents answers.

DC:

Hope: take these 17 candidates, try to show audience who they are, what makes them tick, where they want to take the country, stance on issues

Fear: youtube videos can get in the way (can add) fears the balance will shift toward

DW: illuminate what happens behind the scenes that candidates don’t want people to see, try to explain it

Fear – the trend where campaigns create ads to leak to media but not run on tv free buzz & media. Be careful and discerning about what is a legit ad.

WS – trying to bring old media values to internet. Simple goals – tell readers something about the person who is next president that has predictive power about how he will behave in office. Useful info to predict who will win. Press fails terribly in that. Takes some responsibility for not showing how conservative Bush would be in 2000. Fell for Compassionite Conservatism on the 863^rd time he said it.

Fear – loves the NH primary, “fears the calendar will go Iowa, NH, and then bedlam” People will Choose a candidate with no thought, no deliberation, no time to adjust to info post-NH. Followed by 9 months of buyers remorse with little or no access to the candidates. Bad for democracy

KT – economic reality of the business. Time is half the size it was in 2000. Cites lack of bureaus both there and at the Globe. Recently wrote a story about Obama telling constituencies things they didn’t like to hear. Used to have a week for it, now needs to do it in one day sometimes.

RW – able to compile a lot of information about each candidate, all the votes, all the money, all the ads. Internet can offer those goodies as well as long form reporting.

Fear – the pack journalism and intensity to get a story can create bad judgment by writers. Cites the Hilary ’84 video, says all the energy who went into that could have been better used doing actual reporting.

Suskind – the enemy (politicians) knows that we (the press) are weakened. The giant word “message” is debilitating to the press. Back in the day, Walter Pincus said, corporate didn’t give message until after. (Now they do it before). Calls it the dark arts.

Pincus - In 1974 we didn’t have a slug everyday called POTUS. Most days he didn’t do anyting interesting.

This changed in the 80s with Reagan. Did something silly every day just to get out message like cutting a ribbon or saying something on the lawn. President off message can be criticism.

Journalists goal is to fight message. Their goal is to kill them.

Compassionate conservative. What a line, ingenious. “In fact, a lie!”

Message tries to start the seedbed of a question. I call it a discipline punishment curve. Don’t talk to reporters without permission. Stay on message.

The challenge of these people (points to panel) is to punch through message.

Rules of the game to punch through message:

DC – start with message, useful to dissect what it is. What it is they are selling. Often we buy what we shouldn’t but mostly we pick it apart. Truth spotting – taking the rhetoric and matching it up with facts. Research shops have been gutted. “We’ve basically outsourced our research to the campaigns” There used to be robust orgs for truth spotting. Truth squadron

DM – following andidates repeatedly. Putting it on record that you are asking the questions. You can’t make them answer questions, but you can show that they won’t answer. Ask what their messages mean. Be specifici in questions.

WS – you have to remember how disciplined the candidates are. I talked to someone saying how galling it is to have only one minute, staffer said one minute answers keep the answers from being a bunch of soundbytes. Will not use material from a campaign about another candidate without being able to source it.

KM –truth squatting tends to go after little truths. She was the reporter to whom Gore claimed Love Story was about him. Less than one sentence in a 9-page story. More true than not true. Said in passing in a 3.5 hour interview But still created a media frenzy and marked his character. So horrified to see what can happen. Truth squatting another way of saying “gotcha”. Easy to get, anyone can get. If there are 4-5 journalists, it is useless for her to be there.

RW – a lot of campaigns run on leaking oppo research. News doesn’t do a good enough job of citing the sources. Swift Boat examples, thefact that there was a media storm to check facts only made the ads that much more important. Be careful not to be manipulated.

Suskind – the leadership of this great nation will be determined by a 3am half truth.

Campaign aide – we look for things that are a little bit false, but hard to prove false. These things move, can get 3-4 days of making opponent defend.

I can say with almost 100% surety that there will be at least one Swift Boat type thing this time around.

Sounds like Lewis Black.

How do we avoid being manipulated. Avoid the little salacious truths.

What feeds informed consent? The little things that we bicker about. Or the bigger truths.

How do we guide to the bigger truths?

DM – how candidates manage their campaigns can be a sign of how they will run the oval office. Can give a sense of how careful things are scrutinized.

WS – in further defense of Edwards on the haircut. What clearly happened was a muchkin paid for it with the wrong credit card. The bigger thing is that the people who scrutinized didn’t catch it and undo it.

Questions from the audience:

Where is the coverage of the 2^nd tier?

DC - The process is driven by polling and money. I don’t think anyone has been uncovered to the point they would be invisible.

Geffen said Bill Clinton is reckless, won’t support Hillary. Is Bill as First Man a legitimate story?

KT – whenever I talke to democrats it doesn’t take long to get from Hillary to Bill.

DM – she is making Bill the centerpiece of her campaign. The coverage isn’t what he would do as first man, but rather how he is affecting the way her campaign is being run.

Back to the first question.

KT – Kuci is the only one advocating a single payer system, wants all the troops out immediately. Wants him there even though he can’t win.

WS – ranking candidates based on polls even though voters are saying they aren’t firm. Many things can happen. 6 months is a long time. Anyone who runs once and doesn’t come close renders himself a vanity candidate when he runs a second time.

DC – web and digital products drive broadcast themes, not vice versa.

KT - 2 things that drive up voter turnout – knowing it is a close race, or knowing that the two candidates are different and the vote makes a difference.

DM – responsibility lies with voters for being too lazy. Voting is relatively easy these days.

How often have you failed to report something because you feared something was too out of mainstream?

WS – more of a problem is people thinking I am not left enough, example giving the same coverage to Liebermann as Lamont. Danger these days to write something that doesn’t fit talking points.

DM – too often people think journalists have an agenda, really they just want to put out the best product.

Suskind

Can truth triumph?

Reporting on Reporting

Hanover, NH -

We are live blogging from Dartmouth College's Silsby Hall here in the upper Connecticut Valley on a dark, wet afternoon. Apparently they have wireless internet in college classrooms these days. I feel so old. I didn't even have a cell phone in college, and correct me if I am wrong but I don't believe wireless internet had been invented.

Today's panel discussion, Reporting on the Primaries: There Has to Be a Better Way to Pick a President, is hosted by Ron Suskind and Linda Fowler and features the following panelists: David Chalian, ABC News; David Mark, The Politico; Walter Shapiro, Salon; Karen Tumulty, Time; and Russ Walker, washingtonpost.com.

It is scheduled to start in about five minutes. Back with more as the talking heads show up to their seats.

In the meantime, a fellow in a seersucker jacket behind me is bemoaning the lack of student presence in spite of some of the greatest journalists in the country. He counted one student - me. Looking around, there are a few more, but not even ten.