Jim Moore’s blog: Innovation, Strategy, Public Policy

If you have TIVO, tune into Nightlline right now. If you are already watching, you will know what I’m talking about.

In an amazing hatchet job on Governor Dean, his “rebel yell” is compared to Clinton/Jennifer Flowers and Gary Hart/Donna Rice. I am in the process of getting a transcript to post for you.

As Dave Winer said to me earlier today on the phone, the media is trying to “delete” the Dean campaign.

Scott Rosenberg deconstructs the notion of “defining moments” in presidential campaigns:

 http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2004/01/2…

What I am more and more experiencing, from the inside of a campaign now, is the extent to which the mass media (1) defines the process of choice for Americans, and (2) trivializes the choices available to folks. The media wants the public to decide what “style” of president they want: folksy, scholarly, patrician, military, rowdy. Now CNN is running a poll on whether or not the media is being “fair” to Dean. Hmmm. I would say this is the Fox running the henhouse–except, of course, this is CNN rather than Fox.

There is almost no discussion in the TV media of other grounds for choice. These might reasonably include (1) the interests that the candidate represents–financial and otherwise, e.g. big oil/oil services and big defense contractors–as expressed in who and how the candidate raises money, (2) the portfolio of issues that the candidate believes are important to work on, (3) the team that the candidate is likely to assemble to address these challenges.

A quick comparison of Bush, Dean and Kerry on two of these three dimensions:

Interests

Bush: oil, manufacturing, religious conservatives

Dean: individuals, progressive labor

Kerry: liberal wealth, financial services

Portfolio of issues:

Bush: war, space travel, family values

Dean: health care, education, civil liberties, anti-war

Kerry: war, foreign policy, financial services reform

Why doesn’t the mainstream press pick this up more systematically: This is the first story in the print edition today of the Wall Street Journal:

Halliburton told the Pentagon that two employees took up to $6 million in kickbacks in return for awarding a Kuwaiti company with lucrative work supplying U.S. troops.

 http://users1.wsj.com/WebIntegration/Web…

The video of the Judy Dean and Howard Dean interview that is available on the Dean for America http://deanforamerica.com website has been viewed by over seventy-five thousand people today. One supporter called to suggest a “Judy Dean for First Lady” campaign. The tag line could be the same as Howard’s: “The doctor is in.”

Traffic isn’t everything, but it is interesting. Here are the latest
numbers from Truth Laid Bear
 ” title=”http://www.dailykos.com/
” target=”_blank”>http://www.dailykos.com/

95534

 ” title=”http://atrios.blogspot.com/
” target=”_blank”>http://atrios.blogspot.com/

52478

 ” title=”http://www.gizmodo.com/
” target=”_blank”>http://www.gizmodo.com/

35243

 Tags: Economics and cybenetics

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January 23rd, 2004 · Comments Off