Booze, burgers, and broads: The art of managing the National Press Corps

Friend of mine who's worried about my blood pressure thinks I've been writing too much about politics lately.  She advises that I switch subjects for a while and write about some topic that I enjoy, one that relaxes me.  She suggested I write about naked actresses.

Yes, that's right.  A woman suggested I write about naked actresses.  I'm not making that up.

My blood pressure has been spiking the last few days so I'm taking her advice and putting politics aside.  I'm working on two posts about naked actresses, specifically Marisa Tomei and Mary-Louise Parker.

If you want to be all high-minded about it, I'm writing reviews of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and the third season of Weeds, but Tomei's and Parker's nakedness is intrinsic to the plots of each so I have to write about them getting naked in the interests of objectivity and art.

I've never been very good at following doctors' orders though, so I'm putting those two posts on the back burner to write this one, another one about politics.

Sorry, old chum.

By the way, thanks to Susie and Avedon and Wev and Chet and the Apostate and others, all my political posts of the last couple of weeks have caught the attention of readers who probably aren't regulars here and when I get a sudden rush of new readers dropping in to read about politics I wonder what they make of the fact that they're often suddenly faced with a post about naked actresses or Indiana Jones or love among the Sims or my latest fashion faux pas or restaurant hostesses with beautiful but suspicious smiles.

No time to worry about that now.  Let's get this out of the way.

Several readers have objected to my fairly mundane and obvious observation in Saturday night's post that National Press Corps hates Hillary Clinton and really, really, really doesn't want her to be President and that this has helped Barack Obama shape the perception that the campaign was over before it was over because the only way Hillary could win was in a floor fight at the convention and that would tear the party apart.  This led to the accusation that Clinton wanted to tear the party apart.  She only cares about herself and her own ambition, the party and the nation be damned.  The idea that Clinton is a monster of ego who will do anything to win has been pushed and pushed since before she announced that she would run. 

The National Press Corps and the Village Insiders hate the Clintons and they cover them accordingly using the Clinton Rules of Journalism, Rule Number One of which is that anything a Clinton does is done from the basest and most suspect of motives and Rule Number Two of which is that the smallest ethical irregularity on their part or even the appearance of what can be interpreted as an ethical irregularity is proof of a serious crime that they're somehow magically covering up and Rule Number Three is that their ability to magically cover up this crime that the Press has divined is there despite the Clintons' ability to magically cover it up is further proof that the crime was committed.

This has been going on for over sixteen years now.

It's something that all of us here on the left side of the bandwidth had always agreed on...right up until the moment when it became something that might reflect unflatteringly on Barack Obama.

Then, for about half of us, it became no longer true.

Or at least not so true as it once was that it could have actually played any role in this campaign.

Several Obama-supporting readers have pointed out that there are STUDIES that show that on the whole Clinton has received positive coverage.  Forgive me, folks.  I'm not going to bother reading them.  It doesn't matter how many stories there were that showed Clinton in a positive light or how many minutes of airtime were devoted to portraying her and her campaign in a flattering manner.  What matters is who wrote those stories and prepared those news reports and where they ran and what the loudmouths on the bobblehead shows made of them and how they figured in the op-ed pieces and columns of the most influential Village insiders.

One column by Maureen Dowd is worth infinitely more than a dozen editorials in the Kansas City Star.  A half hour of Chris Matthews bloviating cancels out the most incisive article even if that article's running on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

The Insider Media hates Clinton and that worked to Barack Obama's advantage.

I know there are lots of people who for whatever reason have to believe that Obama is going to win the nomination because he's a knight in shining armor and his strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure.  I won't argue with you, for the same reason I could never bring myself to tell my kids there's no Santa Claus.  They had to find it out for themselves because I'm an old softie.

But there are others who want to believe that he won through the sheer force of his brilliance.

And I can't deny it.   He has been brilliant.

Not all the time.  But enough of the time.

The difference is that I think a sign of his brilliance has been his ability to fight dirty while appearing not to be fighting dirty.

Another difference is that I think another sign of his brilliance has been his ability to make the most of his good luck.

Nobody wins anything, not even a spelling bee, just by being the smartest person in the room.  Luck always plays a part.  The successful ones are those who recognize their luck and take advantage of it in the smartest ways.

Part of Obama's luck this year has been that his toughest opponent is somebody the National Press Corps loathes and despises and wants to see fail.

Yes, he's had to deal with a lot of negative press too.  He'll have to deal with a lot more, unless it becomes so clear that McCain's a loser that the Press Corps does what it does to all losers and turns on him viciously, which happened back in '92 when for a brief period the Press Corps seemed to be infatuated with Bill Clinton.  George Herbert Walker Bush was never a Media darling and when it became clear he was a loser they couldn't find enough words to express their contempt for the poor schnook.

Obama took advantage of the anti-Hillary consensus in the Media and if you don't think he would ever have stooped so low go back and look at the October debate.  Go find me a speech in which he forcefully condemned the misogyny that poisoned all the coverage of her.

Explain away the "the claws come out" remark.

Now please keep in mind I am not criticizing him.  I think he was being smart.  He was trying to win.  That's politics.

But that was my point Saturday.  That's not my main point here.

Rather than debating how much a role the negative coverage of Clinton played, I'll try to deal with this question, one Victoria asked in her comment.

Why do they hate her so much?

That's a better question but one with no single good answer and far too many plausible suppositions to get into in depth here.  But I'll just offer one.

Because she served them cookies.

I'm not kidding, but I'm also not referring to when she literally brought them cookies aboard the press bus.

Cookies are a synechdoche here.  They stand for all the cheap and stingy ways Democrats treat reporters, according to reporters themselves.

You want the National Press Corps eating out of your hand?

Feed them.

Get them drunk.

Surround them with pretty young women.

For the most part, the reporters who cover Presidential candidates are a pack of prima donnas with short attention spans, gigantic egos, big appetites, and a powerful sense of entitlement.

They don't want your steenking chocolate cheeps.

They want to be treated like visiting kings and queens.

And they want to be treated like the candidates' best pals.

Democrats just don't seem to know this or care about it.

The Clinton people sure don't.

Back in November of 2006, I got the chance to pretend to be a real journalist when I was invited to blog Hillary's Senate victory party.  It was held at the Sheraton Towers in Manhattan and I had a blast.  But by the end of the evening I was starving.

There was a table of food and drinks in the press room.  Guess what the food was.

Yep, cookies.

The drinks were bottles, very small bottles, of soda pop and tonic water.

I've been to children's birthday parties where they served hardier fare.

And the cookies were all gone by eight o'clock and the soda pop was taken away at nine-thirty or so.

Anybody who wanted a real drink or real food had to go downstairs to the hotel bar and pay for it.  You know what a hotel bar in Midtown charges for a glass of soda pop?

This made for a roomful of very hungry, very thirsty, very grumpy people.

Most of us bloggers, feeling like the poor relations at the wedding, kept our disappointment to ourselves.  The regular reporter types did not.  They were pissed and they weren't quiet about it.

Now I can't blame just the Clinton people for this.  The party was actually hosted by Eliot Spitzer who was celebrating the beginning of what was going to turn out to be a very short tenure as governor and I now suspect he was skimping on the costs in order to save up money for his visits to "Kirsten."

But in addition to there being no booze and no burgers, there were no broads.

Clinton's representatives in the room that night were all men.  Young men, but not pretty young men.  Except for Peter Daou, who is a gentleman, a snappy dresser, and a handsome devil as well, they were mostly officious and supercilious wonkish types in black suits who went about brushing off anybody who tried to talk to them.

No booze, no burgers, no broads---and no respect.

Moving on to my two most recent make-believe moments of being a real reporter.  Clinton's Communications Director Howard Wolfson was in on both conference calls and in both of them he shouted at the reporters asking questions, argued with them, and allowed his impatience to show.  Maybe he just has a loud voice and can't help it, but it seemed to me that he was awfully belligerent for someone whose job is to keep the Press happy.

People don't like to feel bullied, especially smart, aggressive, arrogant professionals who believe it is their job to bully you.

Of course my experiences are few and far between and don't count for anything much.  But this has been a general theme of inside the campaign stories and books going way back.  Timothy Crouse's The Boys on the Bus is still relevant reading.  And it's sadly true that Jimmy Carter's problems with the National Press Corps, although they began with Carter's own arrogance towards them, or at least Jody Powell and the late Hamilton Jordan's, were not improved by Carter's decision to ban hard liquor from White House functions.

Getting back to this campaign, I don't know what member of Hillary Clinton's team thought it would be a good idea last March to set up a press room in a men's bathroom but I hope that person was summarily...um...shit-canned.

To keep the Press Corps happy you have to get them drunk, keep them well-fed, give them at least the illusion that they might get laid, and treat them like they're your best pals and smartest advisers.

McCain is a master of this, apparently.

I don't know how Obama's people are handling them.  The word is that Obama himself is aloof when he's not giving them the brush off entirely ("Let me finish my waffles."  "Sweetie.")  That can't be helpful, but maybe his staff is good at it and know the numbers of the best caterers in every town the campaign stops in.

And another sign of Obama's brilliance is his ability to learn on the fly and adapt.  So maybe he can learn how to schmooze and flatter the ladies and gentlemen of the press.

I know, you think he would never stoop to that and he'll win them over by the wonderfulness of his rhetoric and the logic of his arguments and, anyway, all that should matter to the Media are the issues.

Let me tell you something about Santa Claus...

_____________________

Updated to take advantage of my smart commenters and to help out my RSS readers never click through to my posts and therefore miss out on comment threads:  Victoria, who blogs at I'm Talking Here, just left this comment:

This question of why the collective press shares ill feelings about the Clinton's (and I think Clinton "hatred" is over the top in describing it) is one that fascinates me. You're probably right about the food. Also the young, dismissive male representatives. More pointedly, an over-arching stinginess that comes out of being (perhaps understandably) over-protective, secretive, and non-forthcoming. But there's been something else, too. Did you ever see that YouTube video from way back in Iowa with Penn, Axelrod, and Trippi? It's a classic. Axelrod and Trippi come across as reasonably human beings; Penn - not so much. In fact, Trippi and Axelrod could barely cover their disgust for What He Is/ How He Plays It. Trippi even calls him on it. That Penn vibe - Wolfson's demeanor, Ickes' inclination to junkyard dog fights, etc - permeated the HRC campaign. I don't wonder why the press would react badly to that. I wonder why HRC made this her organizational vibe. My life-long experience is that organizations reflect the energies of their creators. And the Clinton campaign team's vibe has made me wonder what it tells me about the woman. Haven't decided yet, but it's troubling. Worse for Hillary, as her campaign went on, they were forced to float more and more implausible win scenarios, to the point where eventually the TV commentators couldn't help laughing at Lanny D. and Terry M. Weeks ago, Josh Marshall started pointing out one absurd claim after another and referred to them as Jumping The Shark. - At some point, being told a big silly story becomes annoying and tiresome, and it shows. There's a great, revelatory book to be written about this primary season. I hope I don't have to wade through too many so-so ones to find it.

Comments

[Jennifer]

but Tomei's and Parker's nakedness is intrinsic to the plots of each so I have to write about them getting naked in the interests of objectivity and art.

When you do get around to that post may I suggest you make the readers' nakedness an intrinsic part of the reading of the post. Yes, when that post comes out, all post reading must be done in the n'yude! ...again, only because it's intrinsic to the plot of the post...

[Linkmeister]

You know, I suspect that Obama thinks his opponent in the general is solely the Republican party and its flag-bearer John McCain. He'd better realize that the Village is also an opponent, although it probably won't initially be as virulent as the other political party.

[Batocchio]

What I don't get is all the either/or reasoning out there. I mean, I get it, but... Clinton has clearly been the subject of sexist attacks and plenty of other BS. That also doesn't make her the best candidate. There are plenty of reasons to support or object to both Clinton and Obama. But the press likes to use a standard of shallow BS to decide on candidates, and they try to force that on the public, despite polls showing the public hates that shallow coverage. Regardless of which candidate you may be for, that sort of BS should be challenged, because eventually it'll be turned against a candidate you do like, if it hasn't been already. And the press almost always favors the GOP, and smears the major Dems. They try to play kingmaker, which they shouldn't, and they're also horrible at it. They picked Bush, not once, but twice. Really, think about that. (We also still have the same warmongers on air, their opponents mostly off it, and the same apologists in the media saying they did nothing wrong.) And imagine, policy actually mattering. Not coicidentally, discussion of policy on the merits almost always favors Democrats, but somehow the latest GOP policies to give even more money to the obscenely wealthy never seem to get much press, but Charlie Gibson mispresenting financial data to complain about an increase in his capital gain taxes does. There's always gamesmanship of the system as it is, but one doesn't have to be a tool to do that, and media reform has to continue to be a major cause of the liberal blogosphere.

[Victoria]

This question of why the collective press shares ill feelings about the Clinton's (and I think Clinton "hatred" is over the top in describing it) is one that fascinates me. You're probably right about the food. Also the young, dismissive male representatives. More pointedly, an over-arching stinginess that comes out of being (perhaps understandably) over-protective, secretive, and non-forthcoming.

But there's been something else, too. Did you ever see that YouTube video from way back in Iowa with Penn, Axelrod, and Trippi? It's a classic. Axelrod and Trippi come across as reasonably human beings; Penn - not so much. In fact, Trippi and Axelrod could barely cover their disgust for What He Is/ How He Plays It. Trippi even calls him on it.

That Penn vibe - Wolfson's demeanor, Ickes' inclination to junkyard dog fights, etc - permeated the HRC campaign. I don't wonder why the press would react badly to that. I wonder why HRC made this her organizational vibe.

My life-long experience is that organizations reflect the energies of their creators. And the Clinton campaign team's vibe has made me wonder what it tells me about the woman. Haven't decided yet, but it's troubling.

Worse for Hillary, as her campaign went on, they were forced to float more and more implausible win scenarios, to the point where eventually the TV commentators couldn't help laughing at Lanny D. and Terry M. Weeks ago, Josh Marshall started pointing out one absurd claim after another and referred to them as Jumping The Shark. - At some point, being told a big silly story becomes annoying and tiresome, and it shows.

There's a great, revelatory book to be written about this primary season. I hope I don't have to wade through too many so-so ones to find it.

[MBunge]

Oh, here we go. Another edition of myth-making about how much the media "hates" the Clintons. At least Lance is able to acknowlege, though downplay, the '92 campaign where Bill Clinton received the most adoring and worshipful press coverage of any candidate I've ever seen. Reagan crusing to a 49 state landslide in '84 didn't get press coverage as good as Clinton in '92. And then there's the '96 campaign, where the media treated Clinton as a conquering hero and Dole as an irrelevent joke. Heck, the media even started giving Clinton some decent coverage toward the very end of his administration, in sort of a "let byegones be byegones" thing, until he crapped all over that with the pardons fiasco.

The boomer media types have always had a weird relationship with their fellow boomer president, and their disgust and anger over Monica and the non-stop lies that followed very clearly influenced their coverage. But "the media hates the Clintons" myth needs to figure out how to account for the repeated times when the media has fallen all over themselves with "love" for Bill and Hill.

Mike

[MikeT]

That the media had a visceral dislike of Hillary was actually a factor in my supporting Obama. She's doing quite well for herself in spite of it, so I don't feel bad about it. We've only got a shot at the presidency once every four years, and I wanted our candidate to have as easy a road to victory as possible, because the Rs cheat, and the closer it is, the easier they can cheat.

Frankly, the same goes for Obama's ability to hit below the belt without getting a speck of dirt on him. I've never thought he was a saint, but I've always thought he was a really, really good politician whose goals happen to align quite well with mine. Hence my support.

It's not fair to Sen. Clinton, but my belief that life is fair died on a baseball field about 25 years ago, when I got called out on the second strike by an umpire who couldn't count. I was absolutely certain that third pitch was going places, and I never got my chance at it.

[Camorrista]

"Worse for Hillary, as her campaign went on, they were forced to float more and more implausible win scenarios..."

Absolutely. With a popular vote difference of less than one percent (of more than 34 million votes cast), and a delegate-vote difference of less than three percent--in other words the closest primary contest in decades--the Clinton campaign was just laughable. Sure.

And who is quoted to support this Obama-phile-cherished notion? Why none other than the inimitable Josh Marshall, an Obama-lover of such fulsome and demented ardor that in another context he'd be a candidate for listing as a chronic sex-offender.

It's okay for Marshall to adore Obama, and it's even okay for reporters (and Obama-philes) to hate Clinton--and anybody who believes reporters =don't= hate Clinton has either never listened to Chris Matthews, and David Shuster, and Howard Wineman, and Tim Russert, and Maureen Dowd or suffers from either deafness, blindness or drastic cognitive impairment.

Senator Clinton began with many advantages, and then mishandled them grievously. Senator Obama began with many advantages and handled them brilliantly--helped by a press corps that has detested the Clintons, Senator & President, for 16 years (check out David Broder and Sally Quinn in the 1990s) and by most of the A-list liberal blogs that joined in that detestation (check out Huffington and Kos, etcetera).

Yet despite her mistakes, and despite the swollen media thumb on the scale, Senator Clinton has managed to attract the support of nearly half the voters in the primaries (and a majority of the Democrats).

What's implausible is the apparently sincere belief among Obama's admirers that Clinton should quit because they say so. As they have said so since Iowa.

[MBunge]

"With a popular vote difference of less than one percent (of more than 34 million votes cast), and a delegate-vote difference of less than three percent--in other words the closest primary contest in decades--the Clinton campaign was just laughable. Sure."

Show the math that would have allowed Hillary Clinton to win more pledged delegates than Obama after Super Tuesday and then show that math after North Carolina and Indiana. Then explain how getting the superdelgates to overturn the pledged delegate lead and hand the nomination to Hillary wouldn't cause massive unrest among Obama supporters.

Mike

[KC45s]

I think there's a subtext in Lance's column. The reasons Clinton is about to (officially) lose the nomination are many and complex--I too await the definitive book explaining it all. I wonder if it may have happened in small part because of an ongoing liberal/Dem blind spot: they treat the big-name media according to how they think the big-name media should be--impartial, professional, logical, deep, adult, and wonky.

Conservatives have the superior insight here. They treat the big-name media as they are: kiss-assy toward power and access, hell-on-wheels ambitious, addicted to controversy, eager to rant, shallow, narcissistic, and lacking time to read white papers and detailed wonky studies due to a busy social schedule.

I would agree Obama benefited (and benefits) from more favorable news coverage by big-name cable screamers and the more calcified pundits. By the media as a whole? I don't know. Here in Chicago we get big doses of his supposedly sleazy real estate deals and the Mad Preacher controversy. But maybe that skews my view. Maybe elsewhere he's never criticized, never treated unfairly.

(Cough, cough)

Anyway, good post, Lance. But watch your blood pressure. I suggest more Anne Hathaway.

[KC45s]

P.S. For the commentor above: Chris Matthews, David Broder, and Maureen Dowd are not reporters. None of them "report" on anything save the dreadful churnings in the tar pits that are their souls. Having been a reporter, I don't want to be lumped in with such people even in absentia.

[Tom Hilton]

I suggest more Anne Hathaway.

Ideally, Anne Hathaway naked.

On the primaries...look, Clinton got unfair coverage, and Obama got unfair coverage; a lot of the time Clinton's coverage was worse than Obama's, but there were times when Obama was getting the rawer deal. (Recall one period in particular where some very savvy jujitsu by the Clinton campaign got the press to ease up on her and encouraged harsher coverage of Obama.) Maureen Dowd despises them both (and worships St. McCain). And in the end, it all adds up to Wev. You go to campaign with the media you have, not the media you wish you had, and media hostility is just one more factor you have to figure out how to neutralize or turn to your advantage (which I think she did, to some degree--that is, she used negative press to strengthen the resolve of her supporters).

I'm just not persuaded by the 'press corps killed Clinton's candidacy' narrative. Back in November or so she was polling at between 40% and 45%, and 5 months later she was polling at...between 40% and 45%, without ever having gone above 45%. She ran a safe, predictable incumbent-style campaign, and as a result she never persuaded the 50%+ who really weren't thrilled at the thought of voting for her in the general. And sure, some of that hardened resistance was due to negative coverage of her over the last 16 years...but a lot of it had to do with things like the AUMF vote, or Mark Penn's union-busting work, or her liberal-hawk foreign policy team, or any of a dozen other reasons why even people not afflicted with Clinton Derangement Syndrome might be turned off of her candidacy. (And when her campaign did get a lot stronger (too late) it accomplished this using coded racial appeals and Republican themes like 'toughness' and anti-'elitism'--thus pissing off some of us who, despite voting for Obama, had been defending Clinton all along.)

[Dawn]

One slight disagreement. I would say that it is part of Obama's brilliance, not his luck, that he was able to take advantage of the press's antipathy to Clinton. I think he recognized that before he ran, and I do not think he would have run at all if he had not been able to count on that.

[droszel]

Mr. Mannion, I'm a big fan of fairly long standing of your blog. Started the process as a HRC supporter, but gradually and finally switched to Obama.

You started as an HRC supporter and stayed that way.

Was my change due to my inability to think for myself? Was I swayed by a press corps that only got cookies and seltzer water? If so, I wish I were as smart as you, as able to see through the smoke screen thrown up by those press guys who were pissed at how parsimonious and ugly the HRC people were.

Actually, I find your analysis mildly insulting to Obama's supporters.

[lina]

Unlike Lance, I WOULD like to see a comprehensive study of the press coverage after this is over. Because I'd bet upfront that it comes out to an even three way split among positive, negative and neutral for both Clinton and Obama.

Lance, as well as other diehard HRC supporters, continue to push the idea that Obama supporters have been snowed by their candidate's shiny Sir Lancelot/Dudley Dooright/Prince Valiant act.

You may recall, throughout this interminable primary process, we've been hearing about all those demographic groups that voted for the two candidates. The exit polls show Obama gets the majority of people with college degrees. HRC gets a majority of the people with "no college."

So can we extrapolate that people who are better educated are more easily duped by presidential candidates?

Do I have that right?

[Huh]

So Broder - and more importantly a Pew study he links to takes this head on and comes out that perhaps there just wasn't that much media bias after all.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/30/AR2008053002519.html

I have seen an huge amount of posts lately by Clinton supporters decrying the intensely unfavorable press HRC got. But the premise is never supported - here either. To be honest, I really haven't seen that unwarranted - rather I think there are a lot of sour grapes from the HRC side looking for any reason to explain the loss - no surprise - the close ones are always harder to take.

[Campaspe]

I'm an Obama woman--have been since day 1 of the campaign--but yeah, Clinton rules still apply.

What's best about this post is your prompting me to Google Image Peter Daou. Oh my good goodness. Thank you for that.

[Doghouse Riley]

That Penn vibe - Wolfson's demeanor, Ickes' inclination to junkyard dog fights, etc - permeated the HRC campaign. I don't wonder why the press would react badly to that.

Right. 'Cos they sure hated Rove and Lee Atwater, right?

[Chris The Cop]

The main reason for me I'm flabbergasted that people are insisting Hilary drop out is because SHE KEEPS WINNING PRIMARIES!!!! What am I missing here? And she's obviously not atracting the 'white racist vote' because she just won
%@!%$# PUERTO RICO 2 to 1!!

In terms of media bias, it's amazing to me that the emphasis has been that no matter how many she wins the emphasis is still she's merely 'delaying the inevitable' and not 'could Obama be in trouble?'

[Chris The Cop]

The main reason for me I'm flabbergasted that people are insisting Hilary drop out is because SHE KEEPS WINNING PRIMARIES!!!! What am I missing here? And she's obviously not atracting the 'white racist vote' because she just won
%@!%$# PUERTO RICO 2 to 1!!

In terms of media bias, it's amazing to me that the emphasis has been that no matter how many she wins the emphasis is still she's merely 'delaying the inevitable' and not 'could Obama be in trouble?'

[Chris the cop]

'And she's obviously Not ONLY attracting the white racist vote' (sorry)

[Ben]

I've been an Obama supporter for a while now. Soon after Richardson dropped out, really. But I think you're pretty much on target when you say that he's been able to fight dirty without looking like he's fighting dirty. This will be an important skill, because McCain will have a whole Republican attack culture to fight dirty for him, and he will rarely if ever be called on any of it. Remember hearing how the Swift Boat Veterans had nothing to do with Bush or Rove? Get ready for a rerun. By contrast, everything would stick to candidate Clinton.

She is for all practical purposes out of the race. Her story isn't over, though. She's shown greater tenacity than many people who actually wind up winning their party's nomination. I think she'll be an influence for years to come.

[CathiefromCanada]

Great post. One thing I think you missed, though -- a major problem with Hillary and the press was that the boys on the bus weren't allowed to ask her or Bill or Chelsea about Bill's affairs. When we see Chris Matthews talking about how Bill's philandering was the basis for Hillary's whole career, its obviously something they all chit chat about at Washington parties (and, of course, one more reason why these guys just can't see her as a REAL politician instead of a woman wronged -- but that's a story for another day) and it must just kill them that they cannot get any true confession sob story coverage out of her.

[HenryFTP]

I think KC45s has hit the real sticking point for Hillary (and a lot of the crowd around her) -- they are true policy wonks, and are not very interested in the circus aspects of political campaigns. Whatever may have been the case a generation ago, it is abundantly clear that even the so-called quality press (Times and Post) have the attention span of a 14 year-old on the first warm day of spring for serious policy discussions, and it maddens them no end when it becomes clear (beginning in New Hampshire) that the voters connect with Hillary because she speaks to them seriously about, and is obviously in command of, the issues.

The media's dyspeptic reaction to serious policy debate ties back to the most virulent outbreak of Clinton Derangement Syndrome, during the honey trap scandal. The media became deranged when it became abundantly clear that the American voting public not only did not share their prurient obsessions, but continued to back Bill Clinton because he, too, was much more concerned with policy and not with the fluffy political theme of the day (for which we all have Mike Deaver to thank).

Lance is of course correct in making it clear that Team Hillary should have been working overtime, the way John McCain does, to overcome this problem (at the very least with booze and burgers -- she would probably have to ration the other item lest the press start speculating about which one of them was Bill's latest squeeze).

Ironically, for all the complaints coming from the Clinton camp these days, they of all people should have known that winning the National Media Primary was the key primary, but like everything else in their operation they seemed to think that winning the primaries in big electoral vote states would take care of that, and the nomination. Anybody who has paid attention to presidential politics since 1960 would have known how wrong that approach was.

The Obama camp's problem is the inverse -- having won the National Media Primary, they seem to think that sews up the nomination, so losing places like Ohio and Pennsylvania that will be crucial in November is just an irrelevant detail. And I think he's trailing in the National Media Election, and it could get much worse once the GOP Oppo Research and Swift-Boat Slime Machine gets rolling.

I'm not very sanguine about Team Obama's adaptability -- his supporters think he's Bill Russell but at the moment he looks a lot more like Ralph Sampson to me. I sure hope he proves me wrong.

[huh]

"The main reason for me I'm flabbergasted that people are insisting Hilary drop out is because SHE KEEPS WINNING PRIMARIES!!!! What am I missing here?"

I see this question a lot. Isn't the answer that she can't possibly catch Obama in delegates? I mean regardless of whether one agrees with the decisions made by the RBC this weekend (I doubt there was a solution that would have made everyone happy anyway) - the decision has been made. Sure the popular vote is a dead heat. But it all comes down to delegates and Obama has a pretty insurmountable lead - So what's HRC's path to victory?

[lina]

huh: The popular vote is not a dead heat. Four caucus states don't even count their popular vote. Sen. Clinton can start healing her Party by ceasing to say she won the popular vote, because it is not true.

[lina]

read about the popular vote here:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

[notgunnadoit]

What a relief this website is. I wanna come more often. I'm pretty sure I saw this at Somerby's first, but I have to repeat it whenever I can. The battle for the White House is always between the Democratic Party and the media. The Republicans have nothing to do with it. They come in at the end.

[Lance]

lina: Obama. Lance, as well as other diehard HRC supporters, continue to push the idea that Obama supporters have been snowed by their candidate's shiny Sir Lancelot/Dudley Dooright/Prince Valiant act. You may recall, throughout this interminable primary process, we've been hearing about all those demographic groups that voted for the two candidates. The exit polls show Obama gets the majority of people with college degrees. HRC gets a majority of the people with "no college." So can we extrapolate that people who are better educated are more easily duped by presidential candidates? Do I have that right?

Lina, I'm guessning now that when you called me the voice of reason last week you were being sarcastic.

I don't know where you get the idea that I'm a "die-hard" Clinton supporter. Unless you think that being a diehard means still having some good words to say about her and not being gushing in my praise of Obama, the guy I'm pretty sure I've made it clear I'm going to vote for with enthusiasm come November.

And I don't know all Clinton's supporters or Obama's. I just know the ones I've met and dealt with on the web, and I'll bet there are as many college degrees among the HRC types as among the BHOs here. So it's not a question of education making people dupes or not. It's a question of whether one crowd or the other is willing to admit that their candidate isn't perfect or that the other people's candidate isn't a monster. Based on evidence in my comments threads, neither side has shown a particular ability to exercise any self-skepticism. I see a lot of people with beams in their eyes sneering at others for not noticing the motes in their own.

[Lance]

Huh,

I don't think you're winning many points here even among Obama fans by referring approvingly to David Broder. But Broder the Clinton Hater in Chief finding that there just hasn't been that much negative coverage of Clinton? It is to laugh.

But as for Broder and that study, Bob Somerby has dealt with that.

Tom Hilton: I'm just not persuaded by the 'press corps killed Clinton's candidacy' narrative.

Nobody here's made that argument. There are lots of reasons for her not having been able to defeat Obama or catch him. But certainly what has put an end to her run at last is the new "rule" that a floor fight at the convention is the worst thing in the world that could happen and that any candidate, no matter how many votes or delegates SHE has won, who forces a floor fight is an evil, conniving, destructive, disloyal egomaniac who doesn't deserve the nomination. THAT "rule" is in place thanks to a lot of help from the Clinton hating media.

Also, what notgunnadoit said.

[Tom Hilton]

But certainly what has put an end to her run at last is the new "rule" that a floor fight at the convention is the worst thing in the world that could happen and that any candidate, no matter how many votes or delegates SHE has won, who forces a floor fight is an evil, conniving, destructive, disloyal egomaniac who doesn't deserve the nomination. THAT "rule" is in place thanks to a lot of help from the Clinton hating media.

You're conflating two different things here: the idea that not having a nominee until less than 3 months before the election is damaging to our electoral prospects, and the idea that Clinton is "an evil, conniving, destructive, disloyal egomaniac". The latter is nutty, the former is decidedly not, and in conflating the two you tar the one with the nuttiness of the other.

I understand that you disagree with the idea that a convention floor fight would be a really, really bad idea. Fine. At least accept that reasonable people can come to that conclusion independent of whatever the Clinton- (and Obama-) hating news media are telling us.

[Lance]

Tom, it's been a long running theme of mine that none of here in blogland is reasonable. We're all nutty as fruitcakes. We have raisins for eyes.

But I've never said that Obama supporters are blinded by the Media. All I've said is that Obama has benefited from an anti-Clinton bias among the Village elders and their minions.

I think a convention that actually decided the nomination would be a lot of fun, but I gave up hoping for it when it dawned on me that before we got to it we'd have to put up with months of articles and op-ed pieces and bobblehead gassing about how the Democrats can't get their act together, how they're tearing their own party to pieces, how united the Republicans are, how this shows how the Maverick and Commander is CHARGE, while Obama/Clinton is chasing his/her own tail etc etc etc...and this is all Hillary's fault.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to conclude that the Democratic Party leadership doesn't want to read and see any such stories either and that Obama has taken advantage of their concerns in his arguments to the superdelegates.

It's ironic that in the year of the highest voter turnout in history, the nomination is going to be awarded by the party bosses in back room deals, and basically because they're afraid of how it will "look" to the country if the Democrats don't have their nominee declared three months before their convention.

[MBunge]

"any candidate, no matter how many votes or delegates SHE has won, who forces a floor fight is an evil, conniving, destructive, disloyal egomaniac who doesn't deserve the nomination."

Such sentiments are equalled by Clinton supporters complaining about how an "indequate black male" is stealing the nomination away from Hillary.

And I'm not sure its unfair to label stuff like Harold Ickes' performance on Saturday as "evil, conniving, destructive, disloyal" egomania. When you absolutely know your candidate is going to lose and your response is an angry, childish tantrum that undermines the legitimacy of the winner...what else fits?

Mike

[MBunge]

"It's ironic that in the year of the highest voter turnout in history, the nomination is going to be awarded by the party bosses in back room deals"

Neither Obama and Clinton can win without the superdelegates, so bitching about that is just irrational.

Mike

[Dan K]

"But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."

I don't think I even have to mention who said that, but it is telling (link below -- just in case). The Democratic primary audience is probably what? 80% or 90% opposed to the Iraq war? I have not heard that topic mentioned in the last 3 months of this campaign by any media analysis (basically since the big March primaries it has ALL been horse race coverage). The fact that Clinton made it this far in the process while being completely out of step with the entire party base on one of the two most important issues is actually incredibly impressive. If she had voted the right way on the war, Obama would still be a little noticed first term senator from Illinois. The thing is, as one of the loudest voices in the Democratic caucus back in 2002-2003, she might have been able to rally other fence sitters (Kerry, Edwards, etc.) AGAINST the war. That was her "commander in chief test" and the Democratic primary voters failed her on it...

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama's_Iraq_Speech

[huh]

I wasn't boosting for Broder. I was mostly just using him as a shortcut vehicle to get to the Pew study. (which still seems pretty reasoned - Somerby's concerns notwithstanding).

Back to the original premise though - You know if you surf on over to Redstate, you can read all about how the *liberal mainstream media* is outrageously biased against McCain, Bush, the GOP and all that is right in America. That's bosh but nor do I see some massive slant against HRC as the Clinton favoring sites (including this one) claim exists.

Rather, I think that everyone sees the press as overly negative to their own preferred candidate - when the reality is that they are just trying to sell stories and would happily throw anyone under the proverbial bus to do so.

[Lance]

Dan,

Maybe so. But it's something that seems to have mattered to only a very small percentage of voters more than those for whom it didn't matter enough to keep them from voting for Clinton and it seems that an awful lot of the voters to whom it did matter reside in the smaller, redder states (Who knew there was so much more anti-war sentiment in Mississippi than in New York and California and Massachusetts?) and in states where there were caucuses along with or instead of primaries.

Or maybe it was the case that Clinton lost because she made no serious effort to win any of those smaller, redder states? Maybe she lost because Obama just ran a smarter campaign.

Geez-uz, folks, I'm complimenting your hero here. I'm telling you why I think he's going to whip McCain's ass.

[MBunge]

Hey, Lance! What did you think of your girl's non-concession, non-endorsement, let-me-stand-here-with-a-shit-eating-grin-while-my-supporters-chant-Den-ver!-Den-ver! speech? Does it beat out "You won't have Nixon to kick around any more" for Most Classless Statement by a Mainstream Politician?

Mike

[Leah]

Mike,

Come clean. You're a Republican operative, right? Assigned to the task of sharpening whatever intra-party divisions have developed during this long Democratic primary? I can see why Republicans might think it worth the effort, since half of the huge number of Democrats who came out to vote did so for Hillary, even after being told again and again that there was no way for her to win the nomination.

If what you were was a genuine Obama supporter, why on earth would you bother to needle Clinton supporters like Lance, or like Molly Ivors at Whiskey Fire, where I caught your act the other night, both of whom have embraced Obama's win, and in their commentary through-out the primary season have been the Platonic form of fairness and generosity? What is the point of the continued Clinton-bashing?

I was an Edward's supporter, but when he suspended his campaign before I could vote for him, I voted for Obama, but my rejection of Hillary had only to do with my unhappy conviction that she would not be able to transcend the terrible beating she was going to get in the press.

Here's my take on last night. Hillary was conceding, but in a manner that will allow her to bring her voters to Obama.

This ridiculous pretense that this primary was like all others and therefore there was no special reason why Hillary shouldn't have just conceded and endorsed Obama and left the stage as quickly as possible is just more Clinton bashing. I thought it was one of the better speeches I've ever seen her give. And her policy positions were almost identical to the ones in Obama's speech, which I also think was splendid. It was absolutely clear that what Clinton was doing was bringing her campaign to a close, and taking a moment to celebrate, with her staff and voters, the remarkable and history-making campaign they had made together. Even Chris Matthews had to admit it was a moving speech - at least for a moment, anyway. The Hillary-bashing was pretty much non-stop on MSNBC, except for Obama supporters. I have to say that they seemed to understand what Hillary was doing.

How you can compare that to Nixon's self-pitying speech I can't begin to understand.

Frankly, I think that a number of Obama supporters and Obama blogs have disgraced themselves today, in their inability to extend, not only to Hillary Clinton, but to the half of the Democratic base that voted for her, an iota of an iota of respect, understanding, or good will.

[MEC]

I can't argue with your thesis. I remember the 2000 campaign. The reporters hated Al Gore because, among other reasons, he didn't feed them well enough. One of the reasons for the McCain Swoon is that McCain gave them the best food.

The mediawhores thinks it's all about them, not about the story they're supposedly covering.

[Brad]

"The reporters hated Al Gore because, among other reasons, he didn't feed them well enough. One of the reasons for the McCain Swoon is that McCain gave them the best food."

Has anyone asked WHY the Democrats aren't breaking out the booze, burgers and broads? Especially if they've had the same problem since (at least) 2000?

[glenn mcgahee]

We know the deck was stacked for Obama by the DNC from the beginning. Why the primaries were re-arranged without penalties for all states that broke the scheduling rules. The DNC scheduled the convention in August, 3 months before the election. But the worst was Obama receiving delegates from a state that didn't have his name on the ballot? We can blame the media but I don'tlisten to them anyway. It was very telling when the reporter from the BBC was attacked by American media for reporting Samantha Power's comment that "Hillary was a monster". Powers was foriegn advisor to Obama. The BBC reporter was shocked that she became the target of the media's bias for reporting a fact. Finally, NBC, the host of most debates. When we finally got aroung to another player in the debates (ABC) and they actually challenged Obama, NO MORE DEBATES! Even other media outlets spewed critism toward the ABC hosts. GE/NBC, no longer in the appliance business since their war-making toys are all the rage.