January 22, 2004
: Savages!…
ABC News reports that we have become a nation of political wimps. Well, that’s not literally what the article says.
It’s a report about nasty campaign material given by the Edwards’ campaign to precinct captains in Iowa for use in the caucuses. The material included talking points for persuading undecided voters to choose Edwards. Just how nasty was this stuff? Gaze upon the hideous truth:
The document
Posted by acline | January 22, 2004 | Posted in: Uncategorized |
You can always count on an academic to fancy-up “truth” - or “mud-slinging” (take your pick!) with words like enthymemes, ethos and pathos.
But at least the candidates are not yet using the LBJ model. Supposedly, when LBJ was in a tight race in the Texas legislature, he told an aide that they should put the word out that his opponent (bleeped) cows (or chickens, or goats, or pigs, I can’t remember which). The aide objected, saying that nobody would believe it. LBJ said, so what, let’s see him try to deny it. I think I read this is the Doris Kearns biography of LBJ, but then Doris has had her own credibility problems! But all that aside, I hope you will be reviewing the debate tonight.
Maybe I’m bored, or channelling Oliver Stone, but I’m more interested in who gave ABC News the “official precinct captain packet”, and why. I agree with you, this is not exactly earth-shattering stuff, so why does ABC think is it worth mentioning? What’s the agenda here?
Rebecca… Re: LBJ Now that’s nasty!
I agree about the source. I certainly think the origin of the material is news.
ABC of late seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for sludge. That’s too bad. But, then, it’s TV (even if a web site version). Real reporting requires effort and smarts.
Er…with all due respect, bollocks. Edwards has been running as the “boy scout’ who would never, never make a negative attack on anyone (looks at the halo superimposed over his head). That was his master narrative. Just the same as Dean was whacked around on the “angry” meme, Edwards is now stuck with the “boy scout” meme. And when he violates it, even in the slightest, it becomes news to the lazy pathetic excuse for journalists we have in the US.
It may seem unfair, but if we’re going to say it’s acceptable for the media to manufacture the “angry” meme and hammer square pegs into round holes over it, it’s just as equally acceptable for them to do the same with Edwards. Much in the way you advise Dean to adjust to what the media wants, so must Edwards. He set up this meme, now he has to live with it, and either evade anything which smacks of negativity, or prepare to get railroaded over it.
There can’t be two standards on this.
John…I’ve never claimed it was *okay* for the press to create mater narratives. I’ve claimed that creating master narratives is one of the things the press does.
The problem you point out is very real. If a candidate creates a master narrative, then he/she has also created an expectation that will be evaluated and interpreted. To my way of thinking, if the quoted comments in this case are negative, then “negative” has been so loosely applied (i.e. any challenge is negative) as to be politically worthless.
It’s quite impossible to craft a campaign that can resist willful interpretations.
The key however is “in my opinion”. Having met and been around Dean, I know the “angry” bit is totally bollocks. But that is not commented on here.
This is the problem of subjectives. You like Edwards (I’ve heard enough from hill staff to know the common description of him is “a mile wide and an inch deep, and not very nice”) so this is obviously “so loosely applied (i.e. any challenge is negative) as to be politically worthless.”. I have my position on Dean and the “being there” knowledge on the speech, so I find that to be much the same.
Since we can’t kill subjective interpretations, and lazy (with their own biases) “reporters” will willfully make up memes, I therefore feel that _any_ violation or reinforcement of memes must be valid news.
Otherwise, we may as well drop the media criticism entirely. Subjectives will be interpreted according to personal bias, and it will devlove into “you attacked the guy I like…booo, you attacked the guy I hate…yaaaay!”.
John…what constitutes a violation of the meme? How do we know? Who gets to say and why?
Precisely. Which is why I wave consistently argued that we need a clean sweep of the journalistic “profession”, and an effort in the J-schools to to train ethics and work, rather than style. The problem is the “Master Narratives”. If you accept them, and start suggesting rhetorical styles to manipulate them, you leave yourself open to exactly your question.
IMO, Edwards set his meme, and this is a clear violation. In yours, not. Which one of us is right? Really, that doesn’t matter, because the answer to your question is obvious…_the very same lazy “journalists” who set the meme (or narrative) to begin with. They not only set the rules, but also the decide all subjective interpretations of said rules.
And that is truly scary.
Then we agree! Well, except for the meme violation
Hey, John, are you “on the campaign trail”? If so, as one of your readers, I’d really like to hear more about what you’re experiencing.
Perhaps you’d like to write something for Rhetorica. One of the things that most interested my class yesterday was your comment about the difference/frustration between experiencing the “scream” live and experiencing on TV.
If you have time, and would like to do it, please do so and I’ll post it.
Andrew…I’m volunteering on parts of the trail. I was in IA Fri-Tues, and I’ll be in NH starting tomorrow through the primary. I might do AZ, depending on start date (I’m shifting jobs). Plus, I’m working the DC/VA/MD area where I live. I’ll be happy to pass something along when I get a few moments to write (my own blog has been woefully ignored).
I’m getting a wireles card for my lap, so maybe I’ll kick something along this weekend.
John…fantastic! I’ll be looking forward to it. And thanks!
Allow me to throw my 2 cents in here. Living as I do in suburban Iowa (aka IL), the presidential politics never cease. A journal entry of mine from December 2002 notes that my local IL paper had a front page, full color, above the fold photo of Tom Daschle holding a baby and I noted that this was the beginning of serious 2004 presidential politics. Yes, December 2002. This means that Iowa, and probably NH are two of the states that actually get to know the candidates personally. The locals expect and demand serious face time with all contenders. People in most of the rest of the country will only know the candidates from TV ads (ACK!) or TV appearances (MTP, etc.). Every presidential election cycle, the press complains that IA & NH are not representative (yeah, like NY & DC are!), and the caucus doesn’t mean anything, blah, blah,but it does mean something, because Iowans are basic people, not easily impressed, and they have seen, spoken with, and evaluated the candidates over a period of years - literally. How many of the reporters,or press elite can make that claim? Certainly voters of other states will not have near the personal contact Iowans do. So Dean supporters can talk about memes, narratives, the idiocy of the press (with which I agree!), but the the press and it’s narratives was not the reason Howard Dean came in a poor third in Iowa - for all the time and money he spent, Iowans found him lacking. Personally, I think it is unfortunate that this personal contact is afforded to only a few states, but for a variety of reasons, this is what we have. While it is true that the winners of IA & NH don’t always go on to win the nominations, IA & NH do provide reality checks for all the players - including the press. When you think about it, it’s no wonder the J-Schools are packed - what other career could you have where you can be so consistently wrong, and still keep your job?
Right and wrong. The campaign in IA certainly made serious mistakes (can anyone say “overkill”?). But you skip the horse trading effect and other caucus manipulation. For example, that paragon of principle, Dennis Kusinich, ordered all his non-viable delegates to shift to Edwards (this has caused a major hit on Dennis elesewhere, as people have walked away in disgust). So much for that “against the war vote”.
Also, the slime move from Geppy accusing us (the volunteers) of faking IA citizenship and crashing the caucus made us pull back from attending…while the other big three larded up each location w/supporters. So we had lousy organization…in most precincts no one was there to coordinate caucus goer moves, so when Geppy went non-viable, no one went to them to try and pull them in.
The screw ups meant we still would have lost, but the unique caucus items I mentioned made the difference between a close loss and the larger one we saw.
John - so in your view Dr. Dean was done in by bad organization at the caucus sites and basic “politics”. Let me know if this is incorrect, as I am interested in your insights, and want to know if I have read them correctly.
A combo of events. Bad organization, the unique factors of caucusing vs a primary, and a highly biased media deluge. It’s impossible to nail out just one, as everything feeds on each other. There’s also the fact that caucuses bias against younger voters, who simply don’t want to waste hours hanging around. Caucuses bias old, and older folks tend to be very conservative in the choices. The caucus population would be tossed by Zogby as an unrepresentative sample (too old, too upscale).
I’m not making excuses, just pointing out that your perception of the IA caucus isn’t quite there. It has extremely unique qualities that bias the sample towards nice establishment candidates who pander to higher incomes and older folks, and rally the flag.
As to “done in”…we’ll have to see. Word on the ground is the numbers are resetting in NH.
It’s not just the “young” that are put off by the caucusing process. If I could simply go to the polls and cast my vote, I would make time for that. But I don’t have the option of spending all day caucusing. I haven’t had a non-working weekend in quite some time, and my workload doesn’t evaporate just because Sat is the day.
A little frustrating.