Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Shlock the Vote
The experts advising Kerry, Edwards and Gephardt to attack Howard Dean for saying, "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks" are making a big blunder.
No one believes Dean is a racist or that the remark "condoned" the Confederate flag, and everyone knows that, strategically speaking, Dean is right: The GOP had divided and conquered working and middle-class southerners by race, and the Democratic Party needs to do something about it besides writing those votes off. So the attacks sound like nothing more than campaign grandstanding.
Bottom line: the accusations won't stick; the story just has no legs.
On a personal note, we have given generously to one of the three candidates who are making this mistake, and we shook our heads at the ineffectual and bogus-sounding assaults. All they accomplished was to 1) distract all the candidates from getting their messages out clearly, and 2) make the accusers look like shallow pols.
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Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler will undoubtedly get a kick out of remarks by CNN's Candy Crowley immediately following last night's Democratic debate. The words of the candidates were still echoing in Faneuil Hall when Crowley said that General Wesley Clark's answer to a question on gays in the military left "confusion".
As Somerby has been pointing out, that is the script the media have been ceaselessly jamming into every comment on Clark no matter how clearly he expresses himself. The Howler archives have a dozen or so examples of this top-down media approach to submarining Clark with voters, but until last night we'd never seen it happen in real time. Crowley literally could not get the words out fast enough.
Needless to say, there was no confusion in Clark's answer, and fortunately he was able to set the record straight with CNN anchor Paula Zahn shortly after Crowley implausibly squeezed the GOP script into her 15 seconds of air-time.
It was obvious from his answer that General Clark clearly sees the trap that's been set for him; the way he pounced on and demolished the notion that his position was "confusing" suggested he was ready for it.
No one believes Dean is a racist or that the remark "condoned" the Confederate flag, and everyone knows that, strategically speaking, Dean is right: The GOP had divided and conquered working and middle-class southerners by race, and the Democratic Party needs to do something about it besides writing those votes off. So the attacks sound like nothing more than campaign grandstanding.
Bottom line: the accusations won't stick; the story just has no legs.
On a personal note, we have given generously to one of the three candidates who are making this mistake, and we shook our heads at the ineffectual and bogus-sounding assaults. All they accomplished was to 1) distract all the candidates from getting their messages out clearly, and 2) make the accusers look like shallow pols.
¥ ¥ ¥
Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler will undoubtedly get a kick out of remarks by CNN's Candy Crowley immediately following last night's Democratic debate. The words of the candidates were still echoing in Faneuil Hall when Crowley said that General Wesley Clark's answer to a question on gays in the military left "confusion".
As Somerby has been pointing out, that is the script the media have been ceaselessly jamming into every comment on Clark no matter how clearly he expresses himself. The Howler archives have a dozen or so examples of this top-down media approach to submarining Clark with voters, but until last night we'd never seen it happen in real time. Crowley literally could not get the words out fast enough.
Needless to say, there was no confusion in Clark's answer, and fortunately he was able to set the record straight with CNN anchor Paula Zahn shortly after Crowley implausibly squeezed the GOP script into her 15 seconds of air-time.
It was obvious from his answer that General Clark clearly sees the trap that's been set for him; the way he pounced on and demolished the notion that his position was "confusing" suggested he was ready for it.
