Dear Friends,

It really is time for all of us to be constantly writing to the New York Times, The Wash Post, and the Associated Press, telling them over and over and over again by the tens of thousands that we demand BETTER REPORTING on early stages of the Presidential races.

No more vague "horse race" analysis based on what some insiders think, no more stupid polls using stupid questions on phone surveys of less than ten thousand people (and for that matter no more using phone polls AT ALL, ON ANYTHING without warnings that the very low response rate may signal that you're getting the response of self-selected subset of the population that may not reflect the population as a whole), no more pack journalism by cub reporters who just re-write candidates press releases and the group wisdom of the journalists pack.

Tell them over and over and over, tell them today and tomorrow and in July and in October and especially in Nov-Dec of '06 and the first months of '07. I have some email addresses if you need them.

I myself am also ready to ban all caucuses and primaries until June 1 of the election year in question, and to never ever ever allow Iowa and New Hampshire to have the privilege, which they have wasted and abused, of getting the only in-depth view (which is not shared with the rest of us) of the candidates and expressing an opinion (which the corporate press then uses to eliminate anyone who might fight for the people)... but that's another fight for another day. First let's all gang up on the corporate press and let know what a bad job they have been doing on the early stages of Presidential campaigns.

It really is time for us to prove that we can fight to keep our republic, which is just 'that far' away from being completely lost to plutocracy and corrupt media.

I was startled to look at a link not long ago in TPM itself, where Josh discusses the problem of handling Rovian smears with reference to an old post of his about the Swift boating of Kerry. To my surprise, the old post was describing the ongoing affair as an example of how a Democrat could do something right. Yet I've assimilated totally the line that he was unable to respond quickl or adequately.

I'm not saying that Josh was right the first time. We can all look at our comments with hindsight. I just want to make one point again: the liberal blogosphere is so obsessed with keeping candidates in line and courageous, often rightlfully so, that we often end up absorbing the media/GOP spin as our reality, too.

Let's not make that mistake again. Gore's been making courageous and vivid speeches on most issues we care about for at least four years now, and only now that the horse race for 2008 has the media interest are we made aware of his speaking up. We may not find him our favorite candidate, but at least let's not let the right dictate what we believe!

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

I have no problem with the New Hampshire primary, because it is an election.  But, the Iowa caucuses are not, by any definition, a voice of the people.  Those caucuses are a political show, managed by the party movers, manipulated to meet whatever goals the movers have, and the antithesis of democracy.  If my point is hard to grasp - I don't like caucuses in general and the Iowa caucuses in particular. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

so what is Hillary suppose to say "I was for the war before I became against it".  That's just handing over amunition to Karl Rove and the media echo machine to turn her into a charicature of herself.

I just hope that we Democrats pick someone whom we are excited about. Then, maybe enough independents will feel the same way to elect him or her. If it's Al Gore, fine. I agree he's shown some insight and guts recently.

In my view, Hillary has disqualified herself by being way too defensive and calculating. I didn't even vote for her for Senator the first time, her campaign was that robotic and risk-averse. I suspect that she voted for the Iraq War mainly because Democrats who voted against the Persian Gulf War in 1991 suffered for it later.

In Iowa in 2004, my sense was that the caucusers chose Kerry not because they personally liked him best, but because they thought he was the most electable. But 50,000 amateur political consultants are probably worse than a few dozen professional ones, who themselves have their limitations.

How can the party get out of the electability rut, and bring enthusiasm back?

Todd

Why didn't Gore become president?

This attack on the article in the Times is silly. It is quite clear, just read many of the posts at the Cafe, that what the article says is true Democrats are very hard on the Party's losers. This was not a particular attack on Gore. Kerry, Dukakis and Mondale seemed to get mentioned almost as much as Gore. The only difference is the idea of a Gore candidancy is now being floated as a more real possibility.

The problem is that Democrats, far more than Republicans, are not unified on what a Democratic candidate should support. More centrist, more leftist, more something else. Often when the question is asked why did a Democratic candidate lose the answer is not that the country does not support the ideas but that the candidate ran a "lousy" campaign. Put another way the country is ready is support liberal, progressive, leftwing ideas if only a Democratic candidate would fight for them.

The result of the lack of unity but certainty that the country is ready to support Democratic Party ideas is to blame losing candidates. It it need not mean they are forever banned from running again but the Times was right that they start out facing a lot more skepticism from within the party than a Republican loser might.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

There's an article by Jan Frel on Alternet citing a recent New York Times poll which states that Kerry and Gore's approval ratings currently are below Bush's. As low as Bush is, and even given all the horrible things he's done, Kerry and Gore are lower. Take that for what you will, but I don't think it can be spun as a positive.

Frel's point is that widespread disapproval of Bush is not translating into good feelings about Democrats. The polls also show that the public is not approving much of any politican right now, no matter what the party affiliation. There's a big gap in public opinion right now that a skilled politician or party could use to rally people, who seem to be ready to hear something upbeat, pragmatic and positive. But no one's doing it.

Since every aspect of life and politics will be affected by climate change, it must be considered the most important policy issue.

If we are for clear-eyed government informed by actual facts Gore is the only pol addressing this dominant issue with both experience and credibility. He has a track record of caring about the environment that is unnassailable, and his long experience studying it gives him standing that no one else has.

I'll vote for intelligence over cunning.

Let us recognize the problem for which it really is. You can argue back and fourth about the virtues of supporting party-candidates versus supporting party-winners, but the cause of this issue is a slow failure of our two-party system. The problem we have is that our system is has increasingly removed party nominations from the general election. As a result, campaigns have become longer, more expensive, and increasingly irrelevant to anyone else but the rapidly shrinking pool of "swing voters" who determine their vote in the final weeks before an election and in actuality determine the outcomes of modern elections.

Regarding the two thirds of eligible voters don’t vote, its not that they don’t do it because they are lazy. They don’t do it because what little electoral power they once enjoyed has been thoroughly neutered by the careful mapping of voter habits and successive rounds of gerrymandering. Shamefully, for the vast majority of Americans, voting has become a waste of time.

Our electoral system has been waylaid by the elites of BOTH parties, and I suspect that many Americans have little sympathy for those who argue over which person should accept the party crown.

Another horror in the same paper is an article by Juan Forero (and who the hell is he!)

He is the main reporter for the NYT on the entire Latin American beat and has been for quite some time. Is incredibly prolific, bounces around the whole continent all the time, filing sometimes more than once a day and ending up with articles allover the paper from Section A to Business Section to Arts.

He's controversial, gets in trouble with governments and often aggravates both righties and lefties.

Because of the anger I have seen thrown at him both from left and right in the international blogosphere and things like Letters to the Editor, and judging from those few pieces of reporting he has done in my areas of expertise, and from his clear cross-Latin-American perspective, I have grown to value his work a great deal.

demonizing Chavez

I didn't read the piece that way, I read it as him trying to give a synopsis of the tension he sees between Chavez and other leaders down there. But who cares what I think, you're entitled to take away your own interpretation, of course.

Same as this guy at Washington Times in 2003 is entitled to paint Forero as a strong Chavez supporter:

The sympathies of Miss Thompson's colleague, Juan Forero, are revealed by Larry Birns, director of the Council for Hemispheric Affairs. In late December, Mr. Birns, a refreshingly sincere D.C. activist who acts as a Chavez cheerleader and apologist, told a Venezuelan government official the names of the four reporters he believed were most amicable to the Chavez government. This Times scribe made the top of his list: "He is committed to the revolution," Mr. Birns said of Mr. Forero. Reuters and the Associated Press were also praised for their "strong support" of Mr. Chavez.

And same as this anti-Chavez blogger is free to see Forero as not tough enough on Chavez.

You know, you really hurt the credibility of your complaints about the New York Times in general by saying "who the hell is he?" It's clear from that your opinion of the paper comes from somewhere else than reading it, or only reading those pieces that are flagged by bloggers.

Gee, I've been a subscriber to the Times (and reader, I assure you) for 22 years and have yet to respect Forero. I'm really troubled by what I'd have to call a Nixon/Reagan imperialist attitude towards Latin America. The Times has some really good reporters. Forero isn't one of them. Perhaps the underlying problem is their "gatekeepers."

That's an astute point. I imagine that disaffection is the hole someone like Mark Warner could run right through to daylight.

There are an enormous number of voters in this country.  If someone wants to believe that the country is sitting with bated breath for their vote, that's fine, but juvenile.  Voting always is a team game.  No one person's vote is significant, but just as in other team games, each player has to do his job or the team loses.  That is an accurate way to view voting, even voting for neighborhood block captain or whatever other neighborhood office is at stake.  Another accurate way to view voting is that it is an obligation of every citizen in a democracy.  I have never once felt I  had the option of not voting - my obligation is to vote, so I do it.

The time span between primary elections and the general election is an unfortunate byproduct of the insistence of Iowa and New Hampshire that they always be the first to vote - it makes me wonder if there is any other reason to be proud to be a resident of one of those states.  When any other state tries to hold their primary closer to the New Hampshire or Iowa voting, those states just move theirs to an earlier date.  Ultimately this is a byproduct of our having a republic form of government, instead of a federal democracy.

I know many people who don't vote, and none of them express the reasons you gave as theirs.  Most refuse because they believe they will have to be on a jury if they ever register to vote.  Others just don't give a damn. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

Thanks for the link. Checked it out; inarguable points.

We should be howling them down. On that note, I'm hopeful the DNC will hammer Drudge for the New Orleans story.

Well, if you lead off with a primary in CA you'd get whatever billionaire can buy the air time or whatever Hollywood star can get it for free. That doesn't exactly work for new faces either. I don't think any candidate would have a shot against Hillary in major markets. At least the small states make it possible for a maverick to get his foot in the door now and then.

My dim recollection is that she said in
Oct 2002 that Bill's administration adopted Iraq regime change as it's policy
and she continued to support it. I took that to mean , not that she was trying to avoid a flip flop but that she thought the same thing in 2002 as she had in 1999. Despite having marched against the War I understood , tho I regretted , her position.
I'd like to think , in fact I do , that while Bill endorsed regime change in principle he would have adjusted his views to the situation -and information available-in March 03 .

In short I can live with her position in
2002/03. Of more interest is her position
now on unsticking ourselves from this tar baby.

I have real concern that she lacks Bill's
ability to rise above a "foolish consistency." Surely she'd be better than
any possible Republican .Not at all sure whether that applies versus the other
possible 2008 Dems.

 Voters vote.  Therefore, voters do give a damn.  It is the large number of people eligible to vote, but who won't do so, who are those who don't give a damn.

 "Team" refers to a lot more than sports.  A team is a group of people who are working towards a common goal.  Team members all  have a role to play, and achieving the team goal happens when all members play their roles.

Politics, which is the mechanism by which democracy functions, is about winning or losing.  In 2000 those who voted for Gore lost.  Those who voted for Bush won.  There wasn't a consensus reached, nor is there ever a consensus in a heated election.  In some past years the losing voters did not feel left out by losiing - they could support the winner in most things and accepted him as their president.  Bush has been the most divisive president of my lifetime, and the losers in 2000 definitly lost and that fact was rubbed into their face daily for four years.  In 2008 we who feel this way want to win this time.  Consensus is not an option.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Prof. Gitlin,

I really don't want to be accused of telling you your business, so I mention this humbly, but aren't you the least bit suspicious about how the cover of this week's New York Magazine (May 29 issue) happens to be:

The Un-Hillary/President Al Gore? The amazing comeback of the political pariah who might be the one person to stop Clinton in his tracks PLUS Why the Hillary juggernaut makes everybody so nervous

which arrived in my mailbox the same day as a gossip piece on the Clinton marriage was front-paged on The NYT? (I think it's important somehow to point out that, despite all the blogosphere angst over it being another example of the downfall of the NYT, the latter is an article that my mother in the Midwest--a good bleeding-heart dem her whole life--would love to read precisely because it's not written "Enquirer style.")

I am hoping that this particular buzz machine (or is it competing buzz machines?)will all be decoded on Thursday when The New York Observer comes out....somehow I just sense some Hollywood type folk at work here...well, actually I don't have to intuit it, as The New York Magazine article starts out talking about Gore "at screenings to gin up buzz."