Electoral Politics in America:
Campaigning And Presidential Debate - American-Style
Politics
03 March 2012
By Stephen Lendman
He said, she said, who's ahead, who's behind discourse
dominates political reporting. As a result, issues go
unaddressed. People are left uninformed in the dark.
Media scoundrels focus on popularity, not competence,
and what readers and viewers most need to know.
Horse race journalism describes the process. It tells
people everything except what's vital to their
interests and welfare. Thomas Patterson called it a
"quiet revolution" in election reporting. It developed
over decades.
"(G)ame schema" framing elections in terms of strategy
and political success rose from 45% in 1960 to over
80% in 1992. In contrast, coverage of policy and
leadership dropped from 50% in 1960 to 10% in 1992.
In 2000, other analyses confirmed horse race
reporting. Strategy accounted for over 70% of stories.
In 2007's first five months, it dominated 63% of print
and TV stories, compared to 15% on issues and
proposals, and only 1% on candidates' past public
performance.
Major media news and opinion are managed. Vital
information's suppressed. A truth emergency leaves
people uninformed on major issues and candidates'
positions on them.
Tracking polls proliferate. They focus on electability.
It's easier covering popularity than issues and why
they matter.
Scholars fear horse race coverage undermines real
issues, leaving voters unable to make informed
choices. Moreover, reporting becomes self-reinforcing.
It influences candidates' standing compared to
opponents.
It also lets media scoundrels influence outcomes,
favoring one or more candidates over others. In
addition, it undermines public trust in an
increasingly corrupt process.
American-Style Politics
Electoral fraud's not new. However, as technology
improves, outcomes are easier to control. It's simple
now with considerable resources backing it. As a
result, elections and their run-up are kabuki theater.
Major media and PR scoundrels play lead roles.
Everything's pre-scripted.
Secrecy and back room deals substitute for a free,
fair and open process. Candidates are pre-selected.
Big money owns them. Key outcomes are predetermined.
Duopoly power runs everything. Democrats are
interchangeable with Republicans. Differences between
them are minor. Not a dime's worth to matter.
Both sides support corporate interests, imperial wars,
and the divine right of capital to exploit workers,
gain new markets, control the world's resources, and
rule it unchallenged. Beneficial social change,
independent voices, and electoral democracy lose out
under a rigged system against them.
The entire process was constitutionally flawed by
design. Over time, things got worse, despite ending
slavery and enfranchising women.
Partisan politics serves serves wealth and power,
while popular interests go begging. People get the
best democracy money can buy. Elections provide cover.
Media scoundrels suppress the scam. Voter
disenfranchisement's still rife.
Numerous techniques and harmful laws exclude millions.
Things are so bad, half the electorate often abstains.
Why not when elections are privatized. Easily
manipulated corporate run touchscreen electronic
machines vote, not citizens.
As a result, losers are declared winners, and not just
for president. Democracy American-style's shear
fantasy. Major media scoundrels suppress the scandal.
Public outrage grows. What if one day a national
election's held and few people show up? Why bother
without real choices!
Campaigning and Presidential Debates
On the stump, candidates deliver pre-packaged,
pre-scripted slogans, sound bites, and other rehearsed
rhetoric to win votes. Focus-tested commercials
proliferate. Candidate virtues and opponents'
shortcomings are stressed, exaggerated for maximum
effect.
Debates are worse. Avoiding issues, they're
duplicitous charades leaving voters entirely
uninformed. Until 1988, the nonpartisan League of
Women Voters ran them. Thereafter, both major parties
usurped control through their Commission on
Presidential Debates (CPD).
Excluded are independent candidates and opinions. In
2000, not only was Green Party candidate Ralph Nader
shut out, he was threatened with arrest for showing up
on October 3 for the first debate, despite having a
valid auxiliary viewing room ticket.
Nonetheless, Massachusetts state police accosted him,
forcing him to leave under threat of arrest. CPD
officials left instructions to exclude him even in a
separate viewing area sponsored by the University of
Massachusetts. Others without tickets got in
unopposed.
Nader sued and achieved partial vindication. CPD
co-chairs Paul Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf apologized.
Nader calls CPD's agenda "a deplorable, exclusionary
tool of the two-party duopoly, performing an
antidemocratic screening function in our system, and
forcing excluded candidates to the sidelines in media
attention and public appraisal."
As a result, independent voices are marginalized or
silenced. CPD power politics excludes them. Why else
would millions of voters opt out. Why bother when
their concerns go unaddressed.
Nonetheless, a January 30, 2012 New York Times
editorial headlined "Don't stop the Debates," saying:
"The value of debates is to put the candidates on
stage to air their views." Voters can make their own
choices, despite no options on issues mattering most.
Showing clear pro-Obama bias, The Times wants failed
Republican politics aired to smooth his reelection.
Undressed is how he's more right-wing than Bush and
promises worse in a second term. Don't expect debates
or NYT editorials to explain.
In September 2011, Washington Examiner contributor
Star Parker headlined, "Why the presidential debates
aren't serious," saying:
They look more like symptoms than solutions to major
problems. They feature "(m)aximum style, minimum
substance. (They) focus on sizzle, forget about the
steak."
They're entertainment and deceptive, not substantive.
They treat voters like mushrooms - well watered, in
the dark and uninformed. Media scoundrels perpetuate
the scam. As a result, duopoly power runs unopposed.
Change won't come until public pressure rejects it.
Representative democracy failed. It's too corrupted to
fix. Presidents and Congress serve serve monied, not
popular interests. Only direct democracy works,
letting people decide freely on their own.
Victor Hugo said, "There is one thing stronger than
all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose
time has come."
The time is now with enough people committed for
change. It's the only way possible to achieve it. What
better incentive than knowing the alternative's too
grim to tolerate.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached
at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog
site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to
cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on
the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive
Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and
Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are
archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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