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

Joe Costello, former speechwriter for Howard Dean, responds to my post on should political libel and fraud be crimes:

The question of political libel is extremely problematic. Simply, one cannot
have the government be the judge of political speech.

The biggest reason negative campaigning and innuendo works so well in this age
is the complete decimation of old political structures or associations. Modern
politics has become a despicable alliance of big money, powerful corporate
media, and a mercenary professional political caste.

There are no longer party organizations or any political associations that vet
candidates and create strong allegiances that would hold up to negative
attacks.

In the old days, candidates at local and state levels were promoted through
party and other political structures. They were given endorsements by these
organizations and thus gained legitimacy. In most cases, the organizations had
more legitimacy than any specific candidate. When attacks came, the
organizations could vouch for the candidate and they could better withstand the
blows.

Also, when there were actual party organizations, which stood for something,
once you had the party’s backing, people could better look past the human
foibles because they believed the candidate stood for a larger political
agenda. For example, the political association created by the Dean campaign
held up against the onslaught and amazingly collected another 9 million dollars
at the height of the attacks.

Today, the only initial vetting process to running for office is whether the
candidate can fund their campaign. In modern campaigns, if the money can be
had, a candidate can rise from relative obscurity and gain recognition.
However, this recognition can be relatively thin and thus when attacked and
muddied, a new candidate can quickly fall, because there is no underlying
political associations to defend them or provide greater legitimacy.

Understand that John Kerry faces the same problem right now and will be open to
a tremendous onslaught by Bush. This will be from both sides one of the
dirtiest and foulest campaigns in American history.

Having been through the Dean campaign, everyone has also witnessed the abysmal
role of the national corporate media. They believe it is their role to pick a
candidate. They focus on process and scandal but not on issues. They’re own
vested power interests go unchecked and unbalanced.

The rotted and corrupt political process we now have has evolved over the last
forty years. Its technological foundation is broadcast television. The net and
other technologies allow us the opportunity to restore a healthy politics not
through libel laws, but by building new information channels and creating new
vibrant political associations – that’s the hope, that’s the challenge.