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December 17, 2007

Writing Political Columns is Fun

Being a political journalist in America is fun because you get to hang out with powerful people and pretend that you're one of them. You get to feel like you're on the inside, in-the-know, and hip to how things really work.

But the most fun of all for a political journalist is writing a political column because you get to dish out all the good stuff you know because you are on the inside, in-the-know, and hip to how things really work.

Let's examine just how much fun this is by taking a look at Adam Nagourney's column in The New York Times yesterday. [My comments in brackets and bold face type.]

For Republicans, Falling in Love Is Hard to Do

HERE’S another way Republican voters tend to be different from Democratic voters: They like--no, love--their presidential candidates. [How do you know this? How will you prove it?] Not always, of course. But from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush to Dwight Eisenhower, Republicans voters have displayed a zeal for their candidates that Democrats could only envy. [Again: How do you know this? How will you prove it?] 

Which is what makes this Republican presidential contest so striking. [If you manage to answer the questions above.] It is hard to think of another campaign when Republicans have seemed less excited about their choices. [Hard for you, perhaps. Upon what do you base this contention in regard to the rest of the voting public?] That was the unmistakable lesson of the rapid ascension in recent polls of Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, the latest in a line of Republican flavors of the month. A New York Times/CBS News poll last week found that none of the Republican candidates--not even the suddenly hot Mr. Huckabee--was viewed favorably by even half of Republican voters. [Unmistakable? Let's see the data from earlier campaigns? Or are we supposed to just take your word for this?]

To some extent, this may be a one-year anomaly, a harsh judgment on a cast of candidates with each hobbled by some failing of character, ideology or record. [Don't use a $5 word if you're not going to back it up. An "anomaly" suggests you have data. I suspect you have only an opinion.] It is also, no doubt, the latest sign of just how weary rank-and-file Republicans have become of their party. ["No doubt" nearly always makes me do so.] And several Republicans said this could change once the Republicans settle on a nominee, and particularly if the Democrats nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

But what is worrying Republicans these days is that this tepid rank-and-file reception to the best the party has to offer suggests that the Republican Party is hitting a wall after dominating American politics for most of the last 35 years. [How do you know it's "tepid'? To what are you comparing the current polls.] Republican voters are reacting to--or rather, not reacting to--a field of presidential candidates who have defined their candidacies with familiar, even musty, Republican promises, slogans and policies. [How do you know this?]

“Our party generally has grown stale in its message and we’re not as tuned in as we once were,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who sought his party’s presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000. “We’re repeating words and phrases that were from the 1980s, rather than looking ahead to 2008. We haven’t been as original and fresh in our presentation as we ought to be. We have been applying our old principles to new circumstances. The world is new.” [Wow. Killer source. How long did it take you find this guy?]

Richard Lowry, the editor of the conservative magazine National Review, said the field “has been less than the sum of its parts.” [What does this mean?]

“The debate among these guys has been so unedifying and so backward looking,” he said. “It’s all, ‘who did what wrong seven years ago.’ They are also not talking about the future, which is a sign of a deeper Republican malaise. The Republican Party has run out of intellectual steam and good ideas.” [A media source? How does he know any of this?]

This is an inverse of the way things normally are in presidential campaigns. George H. Nash, a conservative historian, said there had not been an election since 1940 --the year Republicans ultimately nominated Wendell Willkie of New York to take on Roosevelt--when the party seemed so uninspired by the field. [Better source...maybe.]

“It seems like there’s a broader amount of concern and a greater degree of reservation about this field than I can recall,” Mr. Nash said. “The only year that in some ways parallels this is 1940.” [How does he know this?]

President Bush was nothing short of a rock star for Republican audiences when he ran in 2000 and 2004. [Proof?] That really hasn’t changed, even today: 71 percent of Republican voters said in the Times/CBS News poll last week that they approved of Mr. Bush’s performance, an endorsement those Republicans coveting his job could only envy. [Isn't this an apples-and-oranges comparison? Is it reasonable to expect a candidate to poll as well as a president before a single vote has been cast?] (This compared with the 28 percent of the general public who approves of the job he is doing.)

Ronald Reagan stirred Republicans in 1980 with a charismatic presence and clear vision--his fierce anti-Soviet stance, his call for rolling back government and cutting welfare--that has continued to define conservative Republican Party policies since he left. [This is mythology. How about some journalism? What's your proof?] “There was no feeling in 1980 that Republicans needed another Ike,” said Peter Robinson, a fellow at the Hoover Institute who served as a speech writer for Mr. Reagan. “There is something very unusual going on here.” [Huh?]

The contrast with Democrats is only accentuating the problem Republicans have. [Formula #1 for modern punditry: Assert opinion as fact or facts without proof, then draw conclusions based on your unsupported assertions.] Democrats may be on the brink of making history by nominating either an African-American or woman. Their party’s contenders have been stumbling over one another in promising to change the direction the country is heading in. And the Democratic rank and file likes what it has: in the Times/CBS News survey last week, Mrs. Clinton had the highest favorability rating of all the Democratic candidates with 68 percent. By contrast, just 41 percent of Republicans said they viewed Rudolph W. Giuliani favorably--and he lead the Republicans on that score. [Now this is somewhat interesting. I'm not at all sure it supports the thesis of this column, but at least it proves Nagourney bothered to look at some data before he began typing.]

In past elections, Republicans have also fielded, and indeed nominated, candidates who did not inspire the troops, like Bob Dole of Kansas in 1996 and Mr. Bush’s father, when he lost in 1992 (although, Mr. Bush won in 1988 by diligently presenting himself as the third term of Reagan). But over all, Republicans have regularly found candidates that their voters could love. Democrats probably have to look back 47 years, to Kennedy, to find a candidate who really roused their troops. [And these assertions are based on what?]

The reversal this year is striking. Richard N. Bond, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said that after 40 years in Republican politics, he could not recall a situation where Democrats were so much more enthusiastic about their candidates. [Why report when you can "stenograph" some handy spin?]

“When you look at partisan intensity--the question of, ‘Thinking ahead, how interested are you in participating in the election of ’08?’--there is a 17-point gap between the Republicans and the Democrats,” Mr. Bond said. “That is a monster number. It shows that the Republicans are not fired up and it’s going to take a nominee who can clearly articulate a post-Bush vision for the country.” [It shows there's a difference of some sort. What that difference means is not so easily discerned unless you're peddling spin and/or punditry.]

But should this really be surprising? [Rhetorical question cements the the punditry formula I mentioned above.]

For one thing, none of these 2008 candidates is particularly identified with “movement” conservatism and isn’t trusted by conservatives who form the Republican base. Thus a big part of this campaign has been the effort by the candidates to establish--or burnish--their credentials with these voters. [Oh, goody. Let's now peddle stereotypes of the conservative base. Question: If true, how could this happen? Now that would be an interesting article.] “There has been more frustration with them with conservatives than with the party as a whole,” said Gary L. Bauer, a leading social conservative who ran for president himself in 2000. “Many of them claim they are conservative but have inconsistencies in their previous records.” [Oh, so you mean the Republican Party is complex and certain of its bloviators are simplistic? Did this thought occur to you: Perhaps the reason none of these candidates are getting high favorable numbers at this point is because a complex Republican party has many difficult choices?]

This also explains why the Republican candidates spend so much time arguing not about the future but about the past: Mitt Romney’s changing positions on abortion; scandals that shadowed the Giuliani years as mayor, or Mr. Huckabee’s support, as governor of Arkansas, for granting state tuitions to the children of illegal immigrants. [If true, I'll bet there are many complex reasons, but that situation doesn't make for "good" punditry.]

This scrambling for ideological legitimacy has another result: they all seem to be reading from the same campaign book. [i.e. a typical pre-primary campaign] They all talk about cutting taxes. They all talk about reducing the size of government and appointing “strict constructionist” judges. They all support the war in Iraq and promise to be tough on illegal immigrants. In many ways, at a time when the country--and even many Republicans--are hungry for change, this field of candidates is promising more of the same: to do just what Mr. Bush did, but only better. [Wait a minute-- didn't you say the problem was "none of these 2008 candidates is particularly identified with 'movement' conservatism and isn’t trusted by conservatives who form the Republican base."]

“The reason why everyone does the flaw thing is because all these candidates are generically Reagan-like in their worldview,” said Grover G. Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “The ideologies are all settled issues. Every one of them wants to cut your taxes. Every one will give you good judges. Every one of them will let you keep your guns.” [Hmmmmmm... sounds to me like Republicans have lots of interesting choices.]

This all could change, several Republicans said, once Republicans realize who they are running against. “I think Hillary Clinton and Senator Obama--when more is found out about his views--could create a reverse enthusiasm for our candidate,” Mr. Bauer said. “Then I do not think it will be hard to get out the Republican vote.” [So, in other words, this column is pre-mature?]

It says something about the state of affairs of the Republican Party today that three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Republicans are looking to Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama to save them. [Spell it out and prove it. Oooops... out of space.]

See how much fun that is! You don't have to actually prove anything. You don't have to actually report (hard work). All you have to do is understand yourself to be on the inside, in-the-know, and hip to how things really work. Oh, and you need a Rollodex filled with sources always ready and willing to spout off about the topic du jour. And you must have the ability to stenograph (and still look at yourself in the mirror each morning).

Further, it helps to know the standard punditry formulas (as opposed to the reporting-argument structure of good opinion journalism). To review, the one we see demonstrated here with such competence is: Assert opinion as fact or facts without proof, then draw conclusions based on your unsupported assertions. It helps to find sources willing to use the same formula.



Posted by acline at December 17, 2007 10:50 AM | | Spotlight