First, let me start by saying that I have a great deal of respect for Ted Mann of the Day, who normally does very good work. So it is with some reluctance that I (if only figuratively) take up my pen to express my dismay at the article Ted wrote on the Unity rally (Unity? Some see it as hogwash ) in this morning’s Day. Upon a re-reading, it can be read as coverage of the coverage (and I realize Ted is not responsible for the article’s title), more than the rally, but that’s, unfortunately, too much of a stretch. The story is an example of the worst tendencies of the American press.
According to my sources (see below) 2,500 people were expected, the Obama people estimated 4,000 showed up, and a local NH newspaper estimated that 6,000 people were there. Let’s be conservative and put the figure at 3,000. Now, let’s go to the coverage:
The thousands of people here Friday – volunteers, loyal voters, operatives and acolytes – rode shuttle buses, braved metal-detector queues and staggered under steaming heat just to see Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton standing at a podium, together.
But chances are the voices of a few hardy dissenters will resound a little more prominently in the wall-to-wall coverage of the campaign stop than they did in the grassy field behind this tiny hamlet’s elementary school.
And why is it that a few hardy dissenters are going to be featured so prominently? Here’s why:
With polls showing some supporters of Clinton willing to break party ranks rather than vote for her vanquisher, there would be a search afoot for notes of dissension in the ranks. And the dissenters would try to deliver. (Emphasis added)
That’s right. They would be featured prominently because the press wanted to give them prominence, the facts be damned. Luckily for the lazy press they didn’t have to go look for the facts to fit their favored story line, it came to them:
But eventually Stone-Oks acquired an audience, for herself and for an ally, Sharon Chang, largely because they seemed to realize that Chang was what the vast array of media was looking for: A quotable detractor of the nominee who would say she’d rather vote for Republican John McCain than anyone other than Clinton. (That threat meant less coming from Stone-Oks, who conceded that she was a Republican anyway.) (Emphasis added)
So, let’s step back. The story was not the thousands of people who turned out in the broiling sun, it was the few people (Both the Courant and the Times mention the same people as did Mann. The Courant pushes the same meme as the Day; the Times makes the dissenters more of a footnote) who showed up to represent themselves as former Hillary supporters. If we are generous, and say there were 15 of them (the articles mention three) they would have amounted to .5% of those in attendance, and most likely, all of the Republicans. Those people managed to make their way to the press gaggle (an easy task, everyone else being there to listen to Hillary and Obama) and the press lapped it up. The Day makes it clear: They played the press, the press knew they were being played, and the press wanted to be played. Now the press is playing its readers.
Does it ever occur to the media that these alleged Clintonites, who always seem to be salted with Republicans, may be bit players in a relatively benign (by Republican standards) Republican dirty trick, like the guy who switched registrations to become a Democrat for McCain? (Sorry, you’ll have to take my word on that one, I couldn’t find the article I read some weeks ago). Nary a note of suspicion darkens the coverage. For the press, it is sufficient that they find someone-anyone- who will reinforce their preferred narrative.
Nor is it true, as the Day states, that polls show Clinton supporters willing to break ranks. Don’t take my word for it. The same Newsweek poll that showed people saying that in May, when Hillary and her supporters were still fighting, now show Obama up by huge numbers, with a massive lead among women voters. All of which should elicit a great big “D’uh”, from anyone with any appreciation of human nature. This “fractured Democrats” line has always had an air of unreality about it. Early polls, before things heated up, showed Democrats happy with their choices, and enthusiastic about supporting whoever won. Emotions ran high for a while, and it’s not surprising that some people starting making dogmatic statements to pollsters in the heat of the moment. After all, it was a way to let off steam, and, to a certain extent, they were playing the pollsters. But no one with brains took that stuff seriously. Was it ever really likely, except in the fevered imagination of the press and in John McCain’s wet dreams, that a group of people profoundly disgusted to the depths of their collective souls at the malfeasance, corruption and criminality of the last seven years would vote for someone who promises more of the same? The press has no appreciation for the fact that some people takes this stuff seriously-that it really matters to them that the country is self destructing. If Obama loses, it will be because he will be successfully Swift-boated (aided by the press, of course, which will decline to label lies as lies). People will be voting against him out of fear or stupidity, not because he’s not Hillary.
Nonetheless, we’ll be hearing this stuff, evidence be damned, throughout the campaign. The McCain camp will always be able to produce a few outliers, and the press will lap them up. This is reminiscent of the media’s insistence on giving equal coverage to the half dozen freepers who show up at anti-war rallies attended by thousands of their ideological opponents (assuming the rallies are covered at all). And let’s not even get into the global warming debate and the “intelligent design is science, isn’t it?” issues.
Were this brainless search for the “few hardy dissenters” applied across the board it could be tolerated, but it isn’t. It is applied, almost exclusively, to those of us on the left side of the spectrum. How many people are aware, save us blog junkies, that almost 30% of the Republican faithful voted against McCain in the primaries after he had captured the nomination and his other opponents had withdrawn. We hear nothing about that thirty percent, but the press embraces the .5 percent who show up at a rally, without any inquiry about their true motives or backgrounds.
Finally, a little bit of information from a friend of ours, a resident of the great state of New Hampshire who went to the rally. My wife told her about the Day article, and here was her take:
Anti-Obama people were totally unnoticeable to me. There was a small contingency of presumably anti-Obama people outside the gates, but I went over to talk to them and it turns out they were McCain supporters.
I saw two people inside – after the event – holding two Hillary signs.
..
BTW, they were prepared for about 2500 people. I heard a volunteer say at the end of the day that there were about 4000 people there, but the papers are saying 6000.
Her observations are totally consistent with the actual facts presented in the article in the Day (and its cousin in the Courant). She and those like her were not news, though they represented the reality, not only of the event itself, but of the Democratic party as a whole.
UPDATE: Don’t seek, and sometimes you find anyway. While wandering around on my RSS feeder I came upon one link, which led to another and…
Here’s another quote from the Day article:
”You’re familiar with ‘puma?’ “ Chang asked the veteran reporter David Lightman of McClatchy newspapers, gesturing to the logo of the sneaker company on her shirt, but meaning something very different.
When Lightman raised his eyebrows, Chang spelled it out: “Party unity, my ass.”
Recall that I suggested that these folks might be Republican agents. Well, there is in fact, a PUMA Pac, founded by a person with no discernible connections to Clinton or Democrats, but who is a past supporter of John McCain. More here.
Update 2: Good analysis of the polls here, and some debunking of the “Obama is in trouble with Clinton’s constituency” narrative.
