GO TAKE A HYPE

GO TAKE A HYPE

Campaign Season is in full swing. Unless one is hibernating, one has been exposed to a deluge of campaign coverage.

Everything youíve heard is incorrect.

With all due respect to Firesign Theatre [1], if you believe ñand believe it so much as to know it is trueó any of the pronouncements of the press and the media, then face it: everything you know is wrong.

It has been headlines and hype from the get-go. Welcome to the Hype to November.

Headlines and hype sell. They pose as the truth (or sometimes as reportage), but they mislead. And it is a long rewarded practice of misleading and deception. It not only supplies fodder for headlines and cover photos, it is reproductive, exponential, and self serving. Read it once, it seems likely. Read it twice, see it on a few magazine covers, hear it on the radio and see it a few times on the tubeÖ and, by golly, it must be the truth!

Next thing you know, the hype becomes granted. Stipulated, accepted as fact as truth, and is held as such in common discussion.

For example, ìDemocratic Presidential candidate front-runner Howard Dean.î Remember when General Clark threw his hat into the ring? Within two days he became the front runner, the man with the plan, the leader, the upstart who shook up the whole process.

Yes, Dr. Deanís early campaign was the first to seize the net as a powerful platform. Communicative and able to raise money. A major new tool and component in campaigning.

That is a lesson that will remain, and turn into a fact of campaign life to come. But that it is The Doctor whose campaign was the maiden voyage to this territory is something that will become an historic footnote in years to come. The Doctor paved the way. But it is not likely this road on the trail will be named after him. Naming it after Joe Trippi would be just, but that, too, although it makes sense, will be an even more obscure a footnote as time goes by.

Funny thing about this: Dr. Dean has the hearts, the ears, and the minds of a very passionate group of supporters. And he ran a net-savvy money machine that supported and energized them. Clark also had done a great deal of homework, and assembled a team of some incredibly savvy webmasters and internet professionals. But he was neither first, nor as successful or as early to employ this strategy.

For the short run, Dr. Dean was the star of Internet Campaign Strategy. It made front page news. It gave him the power of the hype.

What it didn't do was deliver the early primary states. The money states, so to speak. The first of the crucial, influential dominoes on the path to the Convention.

The General and The Doctor shared certain qualities, keenest of which is this: the press and the media were captivated by them. The same cannot be said for Edwards or the other Democratic hopefuls. The press and the media all but ignored Gephart, leaving him among the press and media's pre-ordained pack of the also-rans.

Gephart was always given an obligatory "duly noted" miniscule bit of press. But the media and the press chose to write him off. When the voters followed suit, Gephart actually became a more newsworthy story.

As The Doctor and The General got headline coverage, the misfortunate "media designated" also-rans became sidebars. The most one could hope for in coverage of Leiberman, Mosely-Braun, Edwards, was human interest or irony-laden story. Side shows. Not deemed worthy of coverage, thus consideration.

Then of course there is still Sharpton and Kucinich. Sharpton is good for a kicker story, a laugh. Heís the Checkers of this campaign. And Kucinich? He's the comic relief of news coverage, the Harold Stassen of the season. Or perhaps he is at best the afterthought, so universally dismissed as not even worthy of press and media coverage.

Kucinich and Leiberman both seemed completely written off by the press and the media, with only cursory and seemingly obligatory coverage, at best. In retrospect, this may, actually, have given them coverage in direct proportion to their impact, their newsworthiness. But it also begs the question: would they have fared better, touched more voters, been given greater consideration, had they been the darlings of the media, a la Dr. Dean and The General?

The latest polls show that Kerry would beat Bush were an election held today. Is this relevant? Is this the truth? Is this the case? Consider this: at the same juncture in the 1988 campaign, Michael Dukakis was the odds-on winner.

Michael who, you ask? And, oh, by the way: can you recall the name of the person who ran Dukakisí campaign? Trivia question, a footnote at best. But Lee Atwater remains more than a footnote, and he was the dirty trickster, the negative campaigner, the victorious campaign manager in the long run. Atwater may be remembered as much for dying young as he is for the Willie Horton commercials,

In what seem to be realities of the moment, Kerry is running a powerful campaign machine, gathering delegates and besting his opponents, state by state. Edwards is showing that as a public speaker and dogged campaigner, he is by all means the up-and-comer in the party.

The pundits had not done their homework on Edwards. His website is comprehensive, with a position paper or statement on everything. This was preparation. Not sexy, not front page news, not lead story fodder on the nightly telecast. So Edwards was ignored, and then when he did the job with some degree of success, the media and the press adopted him as the child theyíd left behind.

Clark, it appears, despite a strong workmanlike staff, seems not to be connecting (or sufficiently funded to do so) with enough of the party members who vote in primaries to make a lasting run. Funding might help, but funding is often tied into media coverage, and as Clarkís media flame dims, so does his coverage, and his chances.

Dr. Dean, with that early passion and drive, actually remains strong in the delegate race. Yet his flame seems to be dimming for numerous reasons. The biggest, it would seem, is that the media coverage of The Doctor went from ìfan favoriteî to ìgoat/bum/has-been.î And, with that fateful yell in Iowa, there are those who now consider The Doctor a lunatic.

The Doctor lacks some campaign and stump savvy. He speaks before thinking. Supporters and Deaniacs love this, they say WYSIWYG. Others fear this, citing this as the opposite of what one wants representing the country or leading the country when negotiating with world leaders and dealing with life-death issues of global import.

The Doctor speaks too soon, shoots himself in the foot (is he qualified as a Podiatrist, and can he treat himself?), and becomes less and less realistic as a party -or nation- leader. In Iowa he gives a rah-rah speech, telling his supporters that they are down but not out, and they will carry the campaignís message through to the end, and do so victoriously.

Then the Doctor has another round of Tuesday losses, and announces that he is pinning all his hopes on WisconsinÖ.but watch out for him in the weekend activity in the State of Washington.

Washington is a wash, and he declares Wisconsin the be-all, end-all state for him. Win Wisconsin and go forward. Lose Wisconsin and throw in the towel (the towel being the opposite of the hat, in politics); no more race for the nomination.

And then he says no, he didnít really mean that. Even if he loses Wisconsin, heís still in it for the duration.

This, sadly, begins to sound somewhat like those Weapons of Mass Destruction that Dubya spoke about. Dubya is still going to find them. Yep. And he will look for them until they are found. Heíll even appoint a commission to see why they werenít found, even though he knows, and assures us we, too, should know in our hearts, that they are there.

And the Doctor will amass those delegates of commitment. Or he wonít, even if he said he would, but then said he wouldnít, but then said even if he did or he didnít, he still will.

Obfuscation is not what sells in campaign times. This is fuel for the opponent: said one thing, did another .... or said one thing, then said no, something else. Obfuscation is not only a weakness, it is exposure and vulnerability.

Exit polls --as in after the fact polling, not predictive punditry-- found electability to be a major issue on the minds of Democratic voters in the primaries thus far. Obfuscating, exposed, vulnerable candidates do not win the hearts, minds, or votes of those in search of an electable candidate.

Maybe it is time for the Doctor to do a mea culpa on Meet The Press.

And it is certainly time to ignore the polls, the pundits, and everything youíve been told is the truth as of this moment.

Dubya and his people will run a savage campaign. Willie Horton will seem like fluff compared to what the RNC has in store. Whoever is the eventual Democratic nominee will be subjected to a brutal offense from the Republicans. They have amassed an enormous war chest and will take no prisoners in their campaign.

It is all about the money. The Shrub-Cheney-burton cabal and their cronies are not about to lose their Iraqi oilfields, their pipeline to that government money, and the power they enjoy . . .not without a bloody fight. They have already sent American (et al)soldiers to fight and to die in their battle for economic gain. These avaricious and imperial players on the world stage intend to keep their position.

A no-holds-barred dirty campaign is but a few months away. That is not hype. That is the situation, with no sexiness or headline grab.

You read it here.