January 29, 2004
Drumming a candidate out of the race.
Over at CJR's Campaign Desk, Susan Stranahan has a great post on the relationship between the media declaring that a candidate doesn't have a chance, and whether that candidate actually doesn't have a chance. The candidate in question is, of course, Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Lieberman.
Posted by Magpie at January 29, 2004 08:51 PM | TrackBackSomebody's gotta be the next to go, and increasingly the media is looking to Joe. Despite Lieberman's vow to stay in the race, and his claim that the South and Southwest may be more hospitable to his message than New Hampshire, we're hearing some of those early tap, tap, tapping sounds that eventually turn into a drumbeat. Yesterday's Washington Post used the word "flagging" to describe Lieberman's campaign. Today's New York Times describes the senator's colleagues as wondering how long he'll continue. Accurate coverage? Probably. Loaded message? Yeah. We don't see any similar characterizations of the Kucinich or Sharpton efforts.
If they haven't seen the push on to make Kucinich and Sharpton withdraw, they haven't been looking very hard. Ridiculous!
Posted by: Al-Muhajabah on January 29, 2004 10:19 PMSharpton and Kucinich seem to have earned the niche of "protest candidates" who do not need to win anything, so there is less pressure on them to drop out. Lieberman at least started with the reputation as a serious candidate (he was leading in various national and state polls), and therefore was presumed to be running to get elected. The less likely he appears to get elected, the more pressure on him to get out, unless, he, too, enters the niche of "protest candidates." Precedents for switching from serious candidate to protest candidate include Harold Stassen, Eugene McCarthy, Ted Kennedy, and Jerry Brown; of these, only Ted Kennedy made the switch during a single election year.
Posted by: on January 29, 2004 10:23 PMI am the author of the previous post on protest candidates, which appears unsigned.
Posted by: Rep. Mark B. Cohen on January 29, 2004 10:26 PMAnyone who's been following news coverage of Kucinich and Sharpton has seen repeated calls from people in the mainstream media for them to drop out or for them to be excluded from the debates. They and not Lieberman were targeted by Ted Koppel in the infamous debate the other month.
Thoughtful commentators and/or progressives may agree that Kucinich and Sharpton are "protest candidates" and deserve to stay in the race in order to keep spreading their message (I don't disagree with that); however, somebody needs to tell the mainstream media that.
I've actually been wondering why there isn't more pressure on Lieberman to withdraw since he isn't trying to be a "protest candidate". But his candidacy has always been considered "serious" even when he doesn't poll any better than the so-called "fringe candidates" like Kucinich and Sharpton.
The author of the original article appears to be totally out of touch.
Posted by: Al-Muhajabah on January 30, 2004 05:51 PMHas anyone noticed that there is a direct inverse correlation of the innovativeness of a candidate's ideas and their "electability" quotient as given us by the media? A candidate supports an income ceiling, as did Fred Harris in 1976--boom, he's "unelectable" A candidate is a strong supporter of a single payer medical system, as is Kucinich--boom, he's "unelectable!" Anyone who advocates measures that upset the applecart are deemed unelectable--the presumption being that the american people fear change and cling to the status quo. That latter observation is totally false. By those lights, the New Deal would never have gotten off the ground.
They didn't have the "unelectable" meme in their arsenal when FDR showed up. They do now and we may, as a consequence, never see another FDR elected to the presidency. Our very great loss.
I reject the concept entirely.
Posted by: michael the wanderer on February 2, 2004 12:12 AM