The Price of Applause

Corporate America has seen and heard enough. The presence of dissenting voices and the possibility of their leading to an informed public is viewed as a threat and must be eliminated. Enter the mainstream media.

It seems the succes of certain "fringe" candidates in the presidenatial debates has not gone unnoticed and the typical MSM modus operandi of gloss over and ignore has been coupled with direct confrontation and cheap ridicule. The attack is underway, only to get more aggressive soon.

You might trace it back to Ron Paul getting big applause for pointing out our foreign policy was instrumental in our current problems. Or you might trace it back to Kucinich in New Hampshire gaining huge rounds of clapping and cheers, challenging the other candidates allegiance to the Corporate Healthcare Industry and NAFTA. Or Gravel's railing about the war. But, it was the recent PBS forum, on June 28th, that has really set things in motion.

The forum, stressing equality in domestic issues, applied the same values to the candidates and the format. Candidates were positioned in random order on stage, each given the same question and allowed the same amount of time to answer. As you may have guessed, the more level playing field lead to a much different outcome.

Kucinich, again and again, drew huge applause for his stance on the war, the economy, racial equality, and crime. In fact, PBS ran a pre-forum/post-forum poll. Kucinich's support jumped by 5x! The next highest was Edwards at a 2x increase. Amazingly based on forum performance, Kucinich finished 3rd among the candidates behind Obama and Edwards! That is, he beat Clinton:

http://www.covenantwithblackamerica.com/

The MSM didn't run that story, but they did run something. The very next day, on June 29th, MSNBC runs this story about Kucinich:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19505871/

The ridiculousness of this is apparent. It immediately draws attention to concern that he is "neglecting his constituents" and then patiently spends 11 paragraphs considering the problem of his missing votes. Then in the next to last paragraph, the article blurts out "it's worth noting that of the ten presidential contenders — Democrat and Republican — who currently serve in Congress, Kucinich has the highest voting record so far this year".

So why didn't they run an article on any of the other candidates missing votes? Kucinich has missed only 2.3%, while Obama has missed 10.5%, Dodd at 25.8% and Biden at 27.1%!

http://2008central.net/?p=985

And now we have The N.Y Times Blog posting a mindlessly sarcastic little piece directly aimed at rooting out these candidates from future debates and, as always, indirectly aimed at telling the public who is/is not a viable candidate:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/lighter-campaign-schedules/

After the blogger writes that "leading candidates for president ramp up their campaigning this week" (without even explaining what ramping up includes) he wonders about "those who aren’t drawing many headlines or showing strength in the polls?" "Those" apparently only include Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, and Mike Gravel.

Never mind that Kucinich is ahead of Dodd in virtually every poll, ahead of Biden in more than a few, and beating Richardson in a couple while gaining fast in general:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/2008_democratic_presidential_primary

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/062807_release_web.pdf

But, "those" are the only candidates who have a dissenting opinion or challenge corporate interests such as the Military-Industrial Complex, Oil and Healthcare Industries. "Those" are the only candidates that have been aggressively outspoken against and GENUINE in proposing an END to this disastrous war. "Those" include Kucinich and Gravel who propose eliminating for-profit, private health insurance: Kucinich offering a true single-payer approach and Gravel proposing a voucher system.

The blogger finds it important to note that all three attend the debates, but are "devoting fair less time to solo campaigning, a costly endeavor that, unlike a debate, doesn’t guarantee free air time on national television."

But, I think it is important to note to the blogger a few things. First, I don't know Gravel's schedule, but Kucinich and Paul are very busy in Congress doing their job, as Kucinich's record above will attest to. Next, the candidates are very much more busy campaigning than the article mention. Kucinich's schedule included more than just the ONE event they listed, including events scheduled every day except Monday and Friday. In fact Kucinich was just In Los Angeles last weekend, speaking at six gatherings in one day, one of which was the National Mayors!
And then there's the money issue.

These candidates are able to challenge the corporate interests because they haven't accepted donations from them. I know this is the case with Kucinich. Sadly though, these corporate interests include the media:

http://www.corporations.org/media/

The media is now controlled predominantly by six companies. And they have wield their influence in politics from campaign finance to "news" coverage to poorly run debates... Before the NY Times so filppantly talks about "free airtime" they should look at the fairness of their own coverage and the amount of time that they give to certain candidates rather than others.