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Random Thoughts and Questions

Posted by: John Schroeder at 07:32 am, February 20th 2008 &mdash 5 Comments »

What Responsibility the MSM and Punditry?

Since long before Mitt Romney was officially even a candidate, we were treated to articles “pondering” whether Evangelicals could possibly vote for a Mormon. We have been treated to dozens of articles, most of them wrong in some aspect or another, about what Mormons believe and what Evangelicals think about that. We have seen poll after poll after poll about whether Evangelicals were suspicious of some generic unnamed Mormon.

I have not done the stats, but it is very obvious that there was a narrative established for Mitt Romney concerning his faith. While there has been attention paid to Obama’s race and Clinton’s gender, race has never been established as the narrative of the Obama campaign and Clinton has chosen to use her gender as a positive part of her narrative. The MSM has largely respected the narratives that these candidates chose for their campaigns and have followed the plan. Obama’s Muslim background notwithstanding, the amount of “ink” devoted to that topic pales in comparison to that devoted to Romney’s faith, and it has often been spun to appear as a positive appeal to “diversity.”

How would this Republican primary season have been had the MSM and the punditry chosen to respect the narrative Romney wished to establish for his campaign? Suppose every time Romney said “Americans want a president of faith” it was allowed to stand as a positive statement, rather than challenged with a citation from some poll somewhere - What would have happened then?

Yes there were a few evangelical leaders that said negative things, but largely they were silent. Suppose the press had allowed the Romney-defined narrative to stand in the face of the silence - might not Evangelicals have reacted very differently?

Which Brings Me To . . .

When it is all said and done this primary season, what do you think the over-arching narrative for the primary season is going to be, at least as written by the MSM? Well, let me suggest this - regardless of outcome on the Democratic side, they will have embraced, finally, the totality of diversity. While on the Republican side it will be that they are stuck in the old times, bigoted, short-sighted and close-minded.

This narrative will harm John McCain in the general. This narrative will harm Republican chances in the legislature and in statehouses and governor’s mansions throughout the nation. Republicans have to get control of this narrative and they have to do so now. This is one of the many reasons Mike Huckabee needs to get out and get out now.

John McCain is beginning to look at running against Barack Obama - that is smart given yesterday’s results. But he also need to begin to look at continuing to run against Mitt Romney, in the sense that this narrative is going to haunt him.

There is much at stake for Evangelicals. We are making progress, and we are doing it in those state legislatures and we can still do it federally if we control the House and Senate. We will not be able to do so unless we stand up now and take action against this narrative. Mitt Romney is out. The time for silence is over. We cannot afford to give the MSM and punditry the ammunition they need through our silence.

New media has, finally, given us the tools we need to control our own narrative. It is high time we put them to good use.
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Posted in Candidate Qualifications, Political Strategy, Questions, Religious Bigotry | 5 Comments » | Print this post | Email This Post

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5 Responses to “Random Thoughts and Questions”

JLFuller on 20 Feb 2008 at 10:00 am #

Have you noticed throughout history how ugly organizations and civilizations are who exist largely because they have enemies? It seems the enemies list binds them together almost as though righteous living and genuine concern for others isn’t enough. I think if I was was looking for answers, I would seek out those who don’t maintain and cultivate fear and enmity towards others. It seems to me Christ would want it that way.
CarlH on 20 Feb 2008 at 5:17 pm #

I commented here about my own thoughts in the role the media (both the MSM and some not-so-MSM, including the on-line punditry) played in unrelentingly keeping The Question “out there” to be grasped by someone wishing to make it an issue–either individually, or as part of a strategy.

From an entirely different perspective, here’s a Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist’s view of the media’s “different standard” for McCain. The media–and especially the MSM– has a more powerful effect on public attitudes than they will acknowledge, let alone work to avoid or overcome the effects of their own inherent, unacknowledged, but very real, biases.

In part as a result of the media’s approach to both The Question and McCain, and in part because conservatives consistently insisted on splitting their votes among two conservative candidates, the GOP is faced with a presumptive nominee who managed to pull a majority vote, IIRC, in only one state (New York) prior to Romney’s withdrawal–and amazingly enough, couldn’t garner a majority in yesterday’s Washington State GOP primary, in which Romney still managed to pull almost 20% of the vote (barely behind Huckabee’s almost 22%) even after endorsing McCain!
coltakashi on 20 Feb 2008 at 6:47 pm #

The irony of this primary campaign is that much of the vote against Romney was based on the rationalization that electing Romney would give Mormonism “legitimacy” in American society (as if they had a right to tell six million Americans whether they were “legitimate” or bastard offspring of Christianity). Mike Huckabee claimed to be agnostic about Mormons, rather than endorsing them as good Americans and one of the reliable pillars of the Republican Party.

Yet by making Romney’s Mormonism a focus of news stories, those who opposed him actually gave the story legs, resulting in more coverage of Mormonism and more public interest. The Boston Globe ran on its front page a story about Harvard Divinity School hosting a course about Mormonism and its history, described as part of a trend toward more general scholarly interest in the Mormons and their place in modern society.

So instead of keeping the Mormon tiger locked away in a cage made of misrepresentations and exaggerations, the taunting by the “illegitimi” has actually helped the beast to escape its cage, and it is now strolling around the zoo, meeting the public, who are discovering that, contrary to its reputation, it is actually a good tiger (though not necessarily a tame one).
4thnephite on 21 Feb 2008 at 5:58 am #

This election cycle is full of rogues and each one of them claim to represent the majority of the people they claim to represent. That is not the truth, watch the audiences as they speak, there reaction. Obama, mostly college kids, radical, reminds me of the crowds from Woodstock, with no experience and knowing even less, the Jane Fonda types, they love to complain but cannot figure out how to improve the lot of others.
Hillary, seem to be meeting all of the people she and Bill upset going up the ladder of their “success” going downhill fast. Yes, I pray the Clinton dynasty is over, but I’m sure they have a few more dirty tricks in there bag.
John McCain, a war hero, yes, suffered inhuman treatment as a POW, he knows the enemy, he will be the Republican choice, but not the conservative most Americans want and need.
With the Internet we can pull him back from oblivion, remember we the people did it with the amnesty he wanted.
Mike Huckabee, a known spoiler to any party, nice guy but like a relative who wishes to impose his ideas on others, it they want them or not does not matter to him. He is always right, in his mind.
We the people of the United States, seekers of freedom throughout the world must choose wisely. Change is good, we have given at least 50 million of our brothers and sisters the right to vote for their own destiny, I speak of Afghanistan and Iraq.
If we let the Democrates take over this nation, those 50 million will lose their voice, and I’m afaid we to will lose ours.

We can all nit-pick through all of the articles, and Iim afraid we are all letting others speak for us.
texan on 23 Feb 2008 at 12:06 am #

Mike Huckabee needs to get out and get out now

At this point, I think it’s healthier to let the voters deliver their verdict to Huckabee, rather than pressuring him to step out. The point at which Huckabee choosing to withdraw could have significantly altered the race is long past. If Huckabee continues campaigning until McCain actually clinches the nomination, he may end up competing in many more states than Romnney did, while still struggling to surpass Romney’s delegate count.

After I attended a Huckabee rally here in Texas this week, it was clear that he is quite determined to press on. He mentioned that, on the night before the rally, one of the talking heads on network television had said that the reason Huckabee was still in the race must be that he likes to fly on airplanes. After relating this comment, Huckabee said “It’s a good thing I wasn’t close to him. I’m afraid I might have committed a criminal act.”

Huckabee told the audience, “Go vote early, and then vote often. That’s how we do it in Arkansas. People ask me why I’m a Christian, why I believe in the resurrection. Folks, I see dead people go vote every election day in Arkansas. Easy for me to believe in life after death.”

Stressing the importance of the local audience, Huckabee said, “It ain’t over until Texas says it’s over,” to which the audience, tightly packed in the Collin County Community College conference center, responded enthusiastically. Huckabee continued, “I’ve nothing but great respect for Senator McCain. I think it’s in fact noteworthy that the two most civil campaigns in the entire Republican primary are the only two still on their feet…. But I believe voters, not just in Texas, but in the rest of the country, ought to have a choice. ”

He promised a fair tax that would include pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, and gamblers, “you know the folks you sit in church with every Sunday, those folks. Your pastor doesn’t care as long as they tithe.”

In his closing comments, Huckabee said: “We had a guy in Wisconsin who made 1000 telephone calls to get people to go vote … maybe you’d do 100…. And if you find somebody, and they’ll agree to go vote for me, don’t let them stay home…. Now, if you find somebody that’s not going to vote for me, you tell them the election has been cancelled, they don’t need to go out. We don’t want those people out there. They’re dangerous.”

I received a free DVD from my favorite remaining candidate as I was leaving the rally, but it wasn’t a Huckabee supporter who gave me the DVD. So, if you want to give Huckabee a chance to convey his message better than I can, or if you just want to learn about mule eggs, you’ll have to watch his speech on-line.

Huckabee appears to be energized and determined, and I doubt encouraging him to quit would have much of an effect. On the other hand, I don’t think his continued campaigning will have much of an effect on his delegate count or on the way the primary is perceived. Perhaps the only consequence of Huckabee remaining in the campaign will be to reduce his political future to the same level of irrelevancy that mathematics has already bestowed on his current campaign.