An acquaintance of mine, a Texan by the name of John Morris, offered the following gem on the subject of the major media’s Presidential campaign narrative. Sounds about right to me.
When W ran for President, the Texas AFL/CIO sent out a bus load of teachers, union people, business people and ordinary citizens traveling the country trying to warn y’all what you were getting into. Additionally, Jim Hightower had a rock band and a dozen activists doing the same thing. None of it made the News. Rudy’s reputation in NY will never be mentioned in a major media outlet. The pictures in a dress will disappear. The Times will forget how to spell Kerik, and Broder will opine that personal lives, except Bill Clinton’s, should play no part in politics. The script is set. Rudy’s a moderate Republican, Hillary is a castrating bitch, Obama is an inexperienced child, Edwards is a phony class warrior. If we’re lucky we’ll nominate Chris Dodd before they figure out a caricature for him.
I remember being in Mass. in 1988, and hearing that sort of stuff about Dukakis; that he was a tank-driving doofus…I remember being in Arkansas in 1992 and hearing the same sort of things about Bill; that he was a hillbilly (and incidentally what a bitch Hillary would be as First Lady).
I thought Hillary was a ‘progressive’, not a castrating bitch. …and I thought what they call me is out of line!
I swear, a strong woman who owns her own power (or better yet a GROUP of strong women) sure do scare the old boys and their status quo.
I have a feeling all of the candidates will get a public media colonoscopy before we cast ballots next November, despite predictions to the contrary.
Clinton already has an advantage because she has been through all of the scandals of the 1990s, so people will have to find something new on her. Obama has also inoculated himself by making all of those admissions in his book.
Rudy has an advantage since people always like to cast the GOP candidates as being agents of the Saudi Morality Police. Since he isn’t hard core right wing and has been seen wearing a dress, he’ll have an advantage because he isn’t likely to been seen as one of those humorless folks who wants to protect us from everything, including ourselves.
Perhaps you are reading a different version of the NYT than I am. They seem to be recycling Rudy stories with regularity and they certainly haven’t forgotten how to spell Kerik.
How are these things playing out on the TeeVee? Lots of Giuliani-Kerik stories and stories about Giuliani moving emergency communications into the WTC?
Well it will all change after Huckabee wins Iowa, it starts to look like a Huckabee, Rudy, Hillary, Obama race to the finish..
How many Americans are dead because Rudy had to have an adulterous crash-pad in the WTC rather than somewhere safer? Hint: Probably more people than are the “Clintoon Body Count”.
Yet, I predict we hear more about Vince Foster and Kathleen Willey than we’ll hear about Rudy’s penis endangering peoples’ lives in NYC.