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For a few days now, I've been getting google alerts on all 41 Bush Dogs, which means that I've been reading a lot of articles on awards ceremonies, immigrant-bashing by Democrats, and occasionally random attacks from Republicans (like this one on Zack Space) or announcements that Republicans are running for office against them.
What's missing is not only any progressive critique of any of these public officials, but any explanation of what they do in office. There's no press on PAC donations, letters they send on behalf of one party or another, or even votes on major pieces of legislation and what they mean. Now, Google alerts tends to miss smaller publications, and it also fails to include the talk radio circuit. Talk radio is an organized partisan media source, and smaller community papers tend not to have tremendous reach or the resources to cover politics systematically. Alternative papers with some reach exist, but only in major metro areas.
In fact, the only Bush Dog that consistently receives coverage that offers information about his record, as well as a progressive critique, is Dan Lipinski, the man running in a primary in a major Metropolitan area with a dense media ecosystem.
This creates an incredibly perverse incentive system. Bush Dog Democrats, in fact most Democrats, and in fact most politicians, simply cannot get credit for doing anything progressive because the press won't explain what they are up to. The only time they are noticed is if they bring pork back to the district, if they are attacked by the right, or if they are praised by the right. That's it. Is it any wonder that politicians are responsive only to the right in their decision-making, and have organized their institutional affiliations around conservative networks?
For the voters, this also presents a huge challenge. Being told that your Congressman, after 10 years of thinking he's a good Democrat, is suddenly a reactionary that votes for corporate interests and endless war, is incredibly jarring. The antiwar Lieberman voters, who were about 10-15% of the total voting universe and have flipped against Lieberman, just couldn't believe he was as right-wing as he turned out to be. And this is because the press simply wasn't reporting on his record until challenged by Lamont, and third party validators would not come in for Lamont. In essence, voters were choosing between a candidate they had voted for three times before and were told repeatedly over 18 years was a good Democrat by the press and other Democratic elites, and someone they didn't know making the first case against Lieberman they had ever heard.
I don't have any immediate solutions to this problem. We need a lot more primaries, if only because it looks like they are the only way to educate Democrats as to what their representatives are actually doing. But we also need to begin thinking about how to break stories into local media and move information over the internet to local constituents.
On the flip, I put a few samples of the press these Congressmen regularly get.
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