A New Day

Ezra Klein remarked yesterday on an interesting contrast between the 2000 and 2008 campaigns:

My hunch is that because Obama and McCain keep saying, in speeches, that they disagree, the press will actually report on their disagreements. The media is perfectly happy to be led around. The problem in 2000 was that Bush insisted he was a moderate and the press had no interest in questioning that.

That's true. There were a number of specific issues in 2000, most notably concerning the "patients' bill of rights" and the question of balanced budgets where Bush went out of his way to pretend he and Gore had the same position. The press largely reported Gore's efforts to point out that this was false as a kind of petty hair-splitting. That probably won't happen again this time around.

Unfortunately, however, no force on earth is going to get your average campaign reporter to pay cursory attention to McCain's claims about fiscal policy and realize that his proposal on taxes and spending are nothing but smoke and mirrors. People ought to keep complaining about this sort of thing, but they also ought to recognize that it's part of reality. One thing I never really understood about Paul Krugman's coverage of the Clinton-Obama fight is that he clearly believes that press coverage of candidate personalities is crucial to election outcomes, and that in particular media swooning over Obama's charisma is the key to his political success. But if that's true, then isn't a a good thing that the Democrats went with the charismatic guy? I'm kind of skeptical that press coverage and personae as politically influential as some people think they are, but insofar as they matter they're not going to stop mattering, and smart political movements will pick charismatic leaders.

Comments

1) Why not attack McCain on ..you know.. his RECORD? He's only been a Senator for decades.
That NOT an asset --that's a HUGE fucking liability.

2) Start with today's Senate Intel Report on Bush/Cheney's abuse of pre-war Iraq Intelligence.

Ask McCain why he let Bush/Cheney CON the country
into a disasterous war.

Then ask him why he intends to continue the CON and loss of lives.

Then ask him if he supports the Troops.

Posted by Don Williams | June 5, 2008 2:03 PM

One thing I never really understood about Paul Krugman's coverage of the Clinton-Obama fight is that he clearly believes that press coverage of candidate personalities is crucial to election outcomes, and that in particular media swooning over Obama's charisma is the key to his political success.

Moreover, Krugman's thesis was scientifically proven false. The media swooned for Obama and Hillary almost equally during the main primary season. Of the three big candidates, the only one who the media reacted negatively towards was McCain.

Now, of course, Krugman hates science, so can be expected to ignore the science here. After all, he's a partisan left-winger, and these type of people are faith-based about the media, not science-based. Similarly, Matthew is faith-based about the media, since Matthew is of the opinion that the media write positively about McCain - when the science shows that the media treated McCain negatively and Obama overwhelmingly positively. But, again, this is not a surprise - the faith-based will ignore the science and continue to trust in their faith.

Posted by Al | June 5, 2008 2:06 PM

Actually, the main difference isn't that the press will be forced to examine their contrasting positions because each candidate keeps pointing it out, the main difference is the press likes Obama and hated Al Gore, made shit up about him and constantly editorialized about his troubling character 24/7 for 18 months.

Posted by Andruw | June 5, 2008 2:12 PM

One thing I never really understood about Paul Krugman's coverage of the Clinton-Obama fight is

The thing I've never understood is why he preferred Clinton. Obama's map looks a lot more like the map Krugman--given his Southern thesis--ought to prefer, if not for today, than for all of the tomorrows.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 5, 2008 2:13 PM

I thought Krugman was pretty clear that his problem with Obama was that while the press may swoon, the industry lobbyists and their Republican allies most certainly would not. Obama expecting to charm & compromise his way to success against entrenched opposition would fail. He seemed to think that Hillary would not expect anything but undying opposition and therefore would be less likely to back down before getting everything progressives want. Given the Clinton history of triangulation, I'm not sure _why_ he thinks this, but there is.

Posted by DCreader | June 5, 2008 2:16 PM

I thought Krugman was pretty clear that his problem with Obama was that while the press may swoon, the industry lobbyists and their Republican allies most certainly would not. Obama expecting to charm & compromise his way to success against entrenched opposition would fail. He seemed to think that Hillary would not expect anything but undying opposition and therefore would be less likely to back down before getting everything progressives want. Given the Clinton history of triangulation, I'm not sure _why_ he thinks this, but there is.

Posted by DCreader | June 5, 2008 2:19 PM

Given the central role that racism plays in Krugman's vision of American politics, it is not surprising that he just does not believe a black man could be elected President.

Posted by peep | June 5, 2008 2:27 PM

My hunch is that because Obama and McCain keep saying, in speeches, that they disagree, the press will actually report on their disagreements. The media is perfectly happy to be led around. The problem in 2000 was that Bush insisted he was a moderate and the press had no interest in questioning that.

Yeahbut ... except during the primary when he had to convince conservatives he was one of them, McCain is wont to come off as Mr. Moderate (which pisses off the reactionaries to no end, which then helps McCain's quest to come off as Mr Moderate). Nu? Just as in 2000 with Bush, McCain will insist he's a moderate and the press will show no interest in questioning that.

Meanwhile, the press is happy to be led along by the statements of the candidates that they disagree? Well, then the press will report "McCain is a moderate, he and Obama disagree which makes Obama a scary moonbat, dirty hippy liberal" ... and Joe Sixpack'll say "wow, even the liberal media thinks Obama wants to sell our nation to the Islamo-fascists who'll force us to gay marry" and then vote for that "moderate" McCain.

I fail to see, then, how this is different than in 2000 in any substantiative way.

Posted by DAS | June 5, 2008 2:57 PM

I think that's roughly true, DCreader, though I think it goes farther than that. He really does think that the Clinton proposal on health care would have been better than the Obama proposal. And I agree when I think he's concerned that Obama's "no Dems or goopers" rhetoric indicates someone who would roll over for the Republicans.

(Not that Clinton was ever better on that score--she's a paradigmatic triangulator--but you have to chalk that up to personal preference.)

That said, Matthew, I think it's also that he just thought that Obama was more vulnerable than Clinton. If you take as given the idea that even a charismatic candidate is going to get dragged through the mud, to the point where the charisma is almost totally gone, then why not go with someone who seems like they can handle it?

Posted by Demosthenes | June 5, 2008 2:58 PM

al makes much of the journalism.org report that says that mccain's coverage was negative.

the interesting thing is that the negative coverage didn't revolve around liberal complaints, [too pro war, flip-flopper, unserious about domestic issues, etc, etc] but rather that mcain wasn't conservative ENOUGH. that's kind of an odd thing for the so called "liberal" press to find a negative. the study also looked at extra articles about mccain in 2007 while they didn't do that for obama or clinton. i would think that another negative thread being covered during 2007 would be about how much trouble his campaign was in for much of that period. he wasn't the frontrunner back then.

--------------------------------------
From the report:
On the Republican side, John McCain, the candidate who quickly clinched his party’s nomination, has had a harder time controlling his message in the press. Fully 57% of the narratives studied about him were critical in nature, though a look back through 2007 reveals the storyline about the Republican nominee has steadily improved with time.

For McCain, one master narrative stands out above all in the coverage—that he is not a true or reliable conservative. More than five in 10 of all the assertions studied about McCain conveyed that idea, about six times as many as the number of assertions rebutting it.

As late as April 2008, more than a month after McCain has secured the party’s nomination, likely Republican voters were split in our surveys over whether he really is a true conservative.

Footnote
1. A total of 5,374 assertions across 23 different themes were identified between January 1 and March 9. For John McCain, the study also examined his major narrative themes throughout all of the 2007, another 199 assertions.

Posted by dj spellchecka | June 5, 2008 3:05 PM

I agree the national media is likely to keep framing things in ways less than helpful to Obama, but the good news is that the national media has been proving its impotence in this cycle, and indeed dating back to at least the 2006 cycle. And really all this "straightalker" stuff is a sideshow. McCain has nothing to say on the war or the economy that people want to hear. So, "straightalker" or not, he is in a lot of trouble.

Posted by DTM | June 5, 2008 3:17 PM

If you take as given the idea that even a charismatic candidate is going to get dragged through the mud, to the point where the charisma is almost totally gone, then why not go with someone who seems like they can handle it?

I seriously disagree with the premise. Everybody gets dragged through the mud, but charisma is actually the last quality that evaporates. However many blowjobs he got, Bill Clinton was always The Man from Hope to a lot of people. (The quality Clinton lost in the public's imagination was that of the forthright wonky guy . . . he became the glib charismatic deceiver, but a lot of people still found him mesmerizing.) Similarly, no matter how badly he's failed or how patrician his background has turned out to be, George W. Bush hasn't lost the sheen of the Shit-kickin' Cowboy. (Not as many people have his back, but that persona lives on with supporters and antagonists alike.) I think you'll be surprised at how well the Obama brand survives a little race-baiting and mud-slinging.

Posted by southpaw | June 5, 2008 3:17 PM

He seemed to think that Hillary would not expect anything but undying opposition and therefore would be less likely to back down before getting everything progressives want. Given the Clinton history of triangulation, I'm not sure _why_ he thinks this, but there is.

Yeah, I never got why exactly Krugman or anyone thinks Hillary was somehow some big improvement on that front. Maybe Obama would compromise too soon in an effort to be nice, but it’s just bizarre to act as if Hillary’s a good bet to fight tooth and nail for everything liberals want to get accomplished.

Posted by Christopher Colaninno | June 5, 2008 4:12 PM

People keep thinking because Obama is gracious and has good manners that he's a wus. After his deft handling of Hillary Clinton (being firm but not nasty about her not being VP, without anybody noticing or commenting on how smooth it was).I think people have over and over again underestimated Obama's toughness. Because he makes it go down smoothly without bluster and bombast. He doesn't talk tough so people take that for weakness, but meanwhile, he gets what he wants. Anybody who could go against the Clintons and win is one TOUGH cookie.

Posted by cnnr | June 5, 2008 5:50 PM

southpaw has it exactly right. Charisma is what allows a candidate to be made of teflon, which is why Reagan and Clinton survived the scandals around them. Part of the reason why Clinton could still be popular even as people became disgusted with his personal behavior was that "Slick Willy" was also the charismatic skamp (sp?) who you still wanted to like you. Instead of coming off as charismatic, hopeful and empathetic this time around, Clinton was instead coming off as mean, combative and tired. Instead of coasting on his charisma, Clinton changed his MO as he had to be part of the background instead of the candidate.

Posted by Reality Man | June 6, 2008 4:20 AM

cnnr, ironically apparently Obama made Lieberman his bitch today on the Senate floor.

Posted by Reality Man | June 6, 2008 5:07 AM