One way DLC may be right about their ''electable'' candidates

[yurbud]

I am kind of haunted by the "Dean Scream," how the media was able to knock Howard down for absolutely nothing. Although the DLC corporate candidates have no natural constituency, their "business friendly" credentials could get them preferential treatments in the media in the primaries and have progressive opponents painted as goofballs or just plain ignored, as happened with Dennis Kucinich after he took Ted Koppel to task in a debate for asking dumb-ass beauty pageant questions.

Am I worrying too much?

If not, what can be done to counteract this?

Or is the public developing an immunity to this asinine shit?

[Fridays Child]

1. I hear what you're saying...

...but, if we are ever going to stop allowing the corporations to run this country, we have to build our party the way Gov. Dean has proposed--from the grassroots up. To do it the DLC way, makes us indistinguishable from Bush and the Republicans.

[rucky]

2. Have you seen the freaks on the right lately?

yeah, they don't get media-assassinated for completely insane ranting. So do we scream louder, or cowtow? I'm for screaming.

[yurbud]

4. I wouldn't advocate kowtowing in any case

[sojourner]

3. just because they are "right" in this sense, doesn't make them right.

[yurbud]

5. I'm not implying surrender--just ruminating on how it will play out

on a congressional level, media is probably less important anyway. Candidates get more mileage out of meet & greet, door to door, etc.

The media could do this in Senate races though.

[sojourner]

7. count on it...but if grass roots is strong it won't be quite so effective

i hope.

[RagingInMiami]

6. I'm tired of playing by their rules

Where has it gotten us?

[yurbud]

9. I don't think we should play by their rules. This is more like watching

the tapes of the opposing team to predict their moves and counter them.

It sounds like the DLC is trying to place their people in the various races even when progressives have run there before. In that case, some of this stuff will likely come up.

[Cascadian]

8. Howard Dean was railroaded. By the Rethugs, the media, and DLC.

That whole scream incident made him out to be a whack job which he certainly isn't. The time of the election still bothers me with Kerry's surge in the primaries and weird business going on at the Washington state caucus. Not too mention the dirty business going on with the primaries. Dean would have won the whole thing. CNN must have played the scream about 700 times. It just stinked. The whole thing!

John

[yurbud]

13. If cheerleading ability made you a good president, Bush would be great

and Trent Lott would be next in line to be president.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

10. Dean in 08.

[TheWraith]

11. To be fair, Dean knocked himself down.

Yes, the scream was grossly overplayed. But that's what happens when you hand the media such a stupid gaffe. And Kucinich WAS a bit of a goofball--this coming from someone who voted for him in the primary. More often than not, it's not media conspiracies that take people down, but their own inability to use the media effectively. You can't count on them actually covering your message, you've got to feed it to them in a way that makes them cover it. Dean's scream, the Confederate flag comment, DK's "Department of Peace," all examples of shooting oneself in the ass with regards to the media.

[yurbud]

14. Dean's comment about South was accurate, but you're right about DK

we will never have a vegetarian president who looks like a gnome.

[6000eliot]

12. Because, after all, the media were so kind to the corporate-friendly

Kerry and Gore.

[yurbud]

15. when it gets down to corporate friendly and corporate OWNED

it's no contest.

[6000eliot]

16. True. Repubs will always have the advantage

as long as they have control of the media. They'll let some Dems sit at the kiddie table, as long as they keep their mouths shut and tow the corporate line (to mix a metaphor), but any candidate, regardless of party affiliation, who actually tells the truth will get the treatment Dean has gotten from the media, marginalization and ridicule.

[yurbud]

17. problem is just having two major parties in congress and ONLY two for prez

I would prefer something like in Europe, where they have more parties that have to put together alliances.

The president thing is hard to get around. Unless a third party catapults ahead of an existing one, they will always be called spoilers in presidential races.