Everything Is Bad For Democrats

by: Chris Bowers

Wed Oct 29, 2008 at 16:04


Opening up my mail today, I was greeted by this top headline at Yahoo:


Everything is always bad for Democrats. Kind of reminds me of this classic article from the New York Times over the weekend:

Democrats See Risk and Reward if Party Sweeps

Look, the raison d'etre electorally focused political party is to win as many elections as possible. To argue that winning more seats is somehow a negative for any political party is exactly as stupid as arguing that it is bad for a sports team to win a championship. To even attempt an argument that winning an election is bad for a party is to enter the final level of concern troll mastery, where you begin to take on a light glow.

Arguing that 30-minutes of unchallenged, scripted, primetime coverage on all broadcast networks (I believe it is every broadcast network, anyway), isn't much smarter. Obama has effectively purchased another one-half night of Democratic convention coverage for himself. This TV spot presents about as much risk as the Democratic National Convention poised for him. Of course it could suck and backfire, but you take that "risk" with every campaign speech, every interview, and every piece of paid media in a campaign. However, no one holds back from giving campaign speeches or paid media because they might suck. You work hard and have staff to make sure these things don't suck.

Arguing that tonight's commercial could hurt Obama is akin to arguing that campaigning at all could hurt Obama. It doesn't quite give you the concern troll mastery glow, but it does mean you have almost achieved that level.
Chris Bowers :: Everything Is Bad For Democrats

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Everything Is Bad For Democrats | 32 comments
I wasn't surprised. (4.00 / 2)
I saw the same thing, and I'm not surprised by Yahoo! News anymore.

Yahoo is only good anymore for an email address.

Yahoo is like joe lieberman (0.00 / 0)
They try to do whatever they think is best for Israel
[ Parent ]
actually, IIRC (4.00 / 1)
the convention wasn't on network TV.

Obama bought himself a "state of the union" speech.

All networks, plus you know that the news networks, paid or unpaid, will be covering it like crazy.

Plus, he'll pick up the pre-world series viewers in Florida and Pennsylvania.

I eagerly await (4.00 / 3)
The "analysis" which shows next day polling didn't move much which will "prove" this event has backfired.

I wonder if CNN will do snap polling or focus groups?

Maybe. (4.00 / 2)
Or maybe they'll do the squiggly lines of undecided Ohio voters.
[ Parent ]
CNN isn't airing it... (0.00 / 0)
They refused to air it, but will do "analysis" of it... so maybe there will be a focus group of it that they'll go to at 8:30, despite not having aired it themselves.
[ Parent ]
Indeed. (0.00 / 0)
I was being sarcastic. ;)
[ Parent ]
CNN's Larry King will have McCain on to "analyze(?)" it (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
I saw this too (4.00 / 4)
I almost was going to write something about this somewhere. If you read the body of the story, not once does anyone interviewed say this will be bad for Obama. You even have Republican strategists admitting that they've been telling McCain to do the same thing.

Chris is right, this piece belongs in the concern troll hall of fame.  

If we win 33 senate seats, there (4.00 / 7)
are potential risks and rewards.  Sure, the Democrats will dominate and make policy for several years, but six years from now, it will be hard to hold on to all 33 seats.  We will have many seats at risk and may end up six years form now with only 29 or 30 seats for that Senate class.  Hmmm.

I'll take the risk of a Democratic landslide.    

Steep Hill (4.00 / 1)
All this crap about Obama and the Democratic Party's latent weaknesses from the so-called liberal media just shows how hard we'll have to work to implement real populist economic policies.  
Oh yeah, it's really bad (4.00 / 2)
to have a half hour of prime time to give an unfiltered message, to make your case as a candidate the last week of the election. That is really bad.. bad...
So bad to make a demonstration of the financial support of your campaign from four million small contributors..
really bad...
It is soooooooo bad to dominate the news cycles for 48 hours in the five days leading up to election day......
so very very very......... bad.
Oh, lordy... (4.00 / 2)

 McCain would KILL to have a half-hour of media like this.

 I am not the least bit worried about tonight. Thirty minutes with no moderator teeing up gotcha questions? This is Obama's ELEMENT.

 The one thing I wonder is what stunt the Republicans will try to pull to change the subject tomorrow.  

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

would mccain like this? (4.00 / 1)
how can you fill up a half our with just policy-slogans and association-smears? It would be more obvious that theres no there there.
[ Parent ]
Sure, but the (0.00 / 0)
"liberal" media would slurp it up anyway.

That Obama on the other hand...just can't seem to close the deal.

[ Parent ]
McCain drops a point in ABC/WP tracker (0.00 / 0)
Oh noes!!! (4.00 / 1)
I mean... awesome!  I just get confused now with so many of these out there. =)
[ Parent ]
less risky than convention speeches (4.00 / 1)
It's probably harder to focus group how people will react to speeches since you aren't sure how the candidate will deliver and how the crowd will respond. But a 30 minute tv spot, um yeah, you should be able to focus group the hell out of it before hand to see how it will work.

not perfect, but less risky.

Chris aren't you upset that it will preempt the world series pre-game?

(concern troll) I am really concerned for Phillies fans that the the obama speech won't allow the proper buildup of tension before the big, deciding, 3.5 innings. I think it would be much better for Phillies fans if they lose the game so that they can win it in 6 in front of Tampa fans (/concern troll)  

But if there's no pregame show (0.00 / 0)
doesn't that just prove that Obama and his Marxists buddies are taking over America?
[ Parent ]
don't even joke about the Phillies (0.00 / 0)
my stomach is in knots.
[ Parent ]
I thought it was just CBS and NBC (0.00 / 0)
not all three networks. But I could be wrong.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.
Fox too... (0.00 / 0)
As well as Univision and some cable networks.
[ Parent ]
Not on ABC, from what I've heard (0.00 / 0)
Something about how they responded too late to the campaign.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton
[ Parent ]
While we're discussing Yahoo news (0.00 / 0)
Did you see that they are showing Dem and Rep polling results, and red and blue percentage bars, with data from RealClearPolitics? That's just been added to the front page in the last day or so.
Correction, data is from RCP and AP (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
The real danger I suppose (0.00 / 0)
is that nobody will watch it. Or that people will watch it but Drudge will find some anecdotal evidence to prevent with a siren blaring showing otherwise.

But, then again, what would that show? That a lot of people have already voted and a lot of the rest have already decided.

Now in Abe Lincoln's time ... (0.00 / 0)

Wasn't it great when a candidate did not campaign, and his "friends" toured the country making speeches on his behalf. Lincoln stayed in Illinois for the whole campaign, made not a single speech, gave no interviews or penned a single public statement.

Back then, candidates had to act like the Roman general Cincinnatus, called from the plough to save his country. To indicate desire or ambition or to openly canvass for the office of President was considered undignified.

Franklin Roosevelt created a sensation by flying to Chicago to accept his party's nomination. Even then, candidates were expected to wait to be asked.

As time went on, "pseudo-events" like nominating conventions took over. And Barack Obama's infomercial is just another pseudo-event like a press conference, but an effective one to get press & news coverage.

Sure (4.00 / 2)
Because Cincinnatus was a brutal reactionary thug (check Livy). Brutal reactionary thugs don't have to campaign, because they get invited to become dictators.

Politics matters. Pretending you're above it all might have been good politics when it was fashionable to look down on the labouring classes, but it would be ridiculous now. If you can't organise and put your head above the parapet, you shouldn't be president.

So I'll take the pseudo-events. It's better than pretending that politics is grubby.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
Breathing is dangerous to one's health (0.00 / 0)
All those toxic chemicals in the air (not to mention, ahem, gaseous emissions). Better to hold one's breath and avoid injecting them into one's system, and die healthy.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton
HAHAHAHA (0.00 / 0)
the NYTimes also thought Obama's DNC stadium thing had grave risks. The NYTimes has been completely ridiculous on this stuff: the "Democrats could be doomed, if successful" angle.

here's the Boston Globe version, I couldn't find the NYTimes one, but they ran a similar article with a big headline on their home page for a day. I love the "significant" part. not just some risk, but really big risk; life ending kinda stuff I imagine!

http://www.boston.com/news/pol...

"Barack Obama will take a significant political risk tonight when he accepts the Democratic nomination for president in a 76,000-seat stadium"

Obama is doomed. We're all doomed. Especially if everything goes really well.  

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare

As counter point proof this is bad (0.00 / 0)
suspending your campaign and pulling ads works out great!

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
Distorting the NY Times/Yahoo Articles (0.00 / 0)
http://dissentingjustice.blogs...

http://dissentingjustice.blogs...

Those articles did not say winning was a bad thing. Instead, they offer a historical perspective for people who believe the mere election of a Democratic president (toss his race in there too) and the expansion of our party's congressional lead implies that the country has moved sharply to the left. It hasn't.

The economy (stupid) has much more to do with Obama's success than any leftward shift in the electorate.  Clinton won because the economy was bad under Bush I; Reagan won because it was bad under Carter; Bush I won because things improved under Reagan, etc.  Either the country was schizo during those years of shifting party control, or.....people voted against the incumbent during bad economic times and for the incumbent when things were great.  I'm going with the latter explanation.  

Furthermore, many of the new members of Congress are good old southern pro-life, pro-prosecution blue dogs.  Also, Obama does not strike me as anything but a moderate (even triangulator).  On the other hand, let's define "left" as 1.wanting to end the war that everyone else finally wants to end, 2. opposing same-sex marriage, 3. supporting the death penalty in sexual assault cases, 4. believing that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms and that this right is powerful enough to trump a handgun law, 5. not wanting to repeal NAFTA, despite bashing it, and 6. wanting members of the supposedly "dead" GOP in your cabinet as "leftist."  Under this definition, Obama's is the most leftwing president in U.S. history.  Hurrah!

PS: If the Democrats have nothing to worry about, why is the blue state of California in a close battle over a state DOMA?

Everything Is Bad For Democrats | 32 comments
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