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The Dark Campaign I: Mudmen

14 comments on The Dark Campaign I: Mudmen

The Dark Campaign I: Mudmen

: Sinclair Broadcasting — the real right-wing TV — has ordered its stations to preempt programming before the election to run an anti-Kerry show. To get around all that’s right and holy and legal, the company is inviting Kerry to appear — with full expectation that he won’t, of course.

Jay Rosen says Kerry should show up anyway for a final confrontation with the right wing: “America will watch. And if he can’t win that broadcast, he does not deserve to win the prize.”

Jay expects me to disagree and I’m not going to disappoint him. I suspect that Jay thinks the nuts will expose themselves as nuts and Kerry will reveal himself to be above it all.

But I don’t think we should keep pandering to the fringes, the nuts, the nasties, the mudmen. They are like bratty children off their meds: They do it for the attention. Give them attention and they’ll never behave. They deserve to be ignored and, in due course, they will go overboard and burn up like the latest trend in reality TV.

I think that Jay wishes for a Joseph-McCarthy-“Have-you-no-shame” moment. I wish for that, too. But I fear it will backfire. Attention to these guys is like more plutonium to a chain reaction.

So how do we stop the nuts? How do we hose down the mudmen? By ignoring the lunatic fringes and paying attention instead to the wisdom of the crowd — the essence of democracy.

14 responses to “The Dark Campaign I: Mudmen”

  1. Brett Avatar
    Brett

    Jeff,
    I still say that a campaign-sponsored video presentation of each candidate’s plan, the feasibility of the plan, and the team behind the plan that does not mention the other candidate(s) is the best way to rise above the mud.

  2. Yehudit Avatar
    Yehudit

    So why is “Stolen Honor” about nuts and firngies and nasties?
    I was against the Vietnam War as a precociously political teen, and I was a hippie liberal activist, and I don’t get why this film is a bad thing. Especially since Moore is going to have F911 on cable the evening before the election, and has been shipping it free to soldiers in Iraq to undermine their morale. What about equal time?

  3. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Brett – why have this mediated through video production? Why not have each candidate give their presentations live in front of audiences across the country? Fill stadiums? Central Park rallies?

  4. Brett Avatar
    Brett

    Several reasons:
    1) It might not work with my schedule. The candidate might show up, but at 2:45 PM, during my workday. Inconvenient? Sure, but the whole city can’t take the day off for Candidate X.
    2) Small town America is not served by this.
    3) Candidates tend to only allow their own people in to these events.
    4) If they do allow others in, hecklers/protestors might interrupt the presentation.
    5) The whole team behind the plan could not be presented. It’s important to present not just the plan, but the feasibility of the plan and the team that will execute the plan.
    Video allows for me to view the presentation at my convenience, when I am uninterrupted and I can pay attention, without the distraction of hecklers or bathroom breaks. It is the candidate’s best foot forward to divulge their plan for America.
    Networks can show the video; campaigns can distribute a VHS tape/DVD; I could download it from the internet and watch it streamed. Accessibility…
    I’m buying and shopping domain names for this. I’ve bought two (voteplan.com and voteplan.org) but I’m still thinking through the right site name. I hope within the next few months to make a petition site, pitching the idea and allowing others to grow the idea. If enough people get on board with this, the next campaign could allow us to focus on each candidate’s approach to the issues of the election, as opposed to all of the mud.

  5. Robert Brown Avatar
    Robert Brown

    Even though we like to call it “negative campaigning”, I think it is important to point out the faults of each of the candidates. They certainly aren’t going to do it themselves.
    Kerry needs to point out that Bush will try to put restrictions on abortion and will not appoint judges that will mandate same sex marriage; and explain why he believes that nation building in the middle east will not work.
    Likewise, Bush needs to point out that Kerry’s tax increase will not pay for the benefits he has promised and that economic isolationism will not lead to lower unemployment.

  6. Ebb Tide Avatar
    Ebb Tide

    Why are you for Howard Stern to have free speech to talk dirty, but you are against free speech by Vietnam era Veterans who were held as POW’s?
    I don’t get it, isn’t free speech for everyone?
    Please explain this if you care to.

  7. Ebb Tide Avatar
    Ebb Tide

    oh, and the fairness doctrine was abolished in 1987, read more about it:
    Here

  8. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    How do we stop him?
    Why the same way the AFL-CIO stops Republicans. Shoot out his windows, storm the offices, assault the employees and cause bodily harm.
    Register several thousand people multiple times and jam up the registration process. Send a phalanx of lawyers to speed up the vote count. Lawyers speed up everything, donchano?
    OR
    Send Kerry to rebut the movie. It could be an opportunity for Kerry to “Seal-the-Deal” and clinch his Presidency.
    What would Republicans do if there was a movie about ther candidate that lied, distorted and mischaracterized events?
    What would they do? What would they do?

  9. David R. Block Avatar
    David R. Block

    What would Republicans do if there was a movie about ther candidate that lied, distorted and mischaracterized events?
    They would do what they did for “Farenheit 911,” an ample example of what was described.

  10. Tom Grey - Liberty Dad Avatar
    Tom Grey – Liberty Dad

    Jeff, YOU supported SE Asian genocide.
    You are in denial.
    I’m truly sorry your own anti-war policies, when followed, had such a bad result. It was predictable, though — and predicted.
    The Vietnam Vets, who were fighting evil communism, were called perpetrators of “war crimes” by Kerry — those words came out of his mouth and into the Senate record.
    You don’t like the facts. Because they mean something, and you don’t want to face their meaning.
    America needs to understand the costs of NOT fighting, as well as the costs of fighting. You are trying to hide the facts, violating your own standards.

  11. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    I wonder how much it really matters to the public today, or especially tomorrow, that a broadcaster (or broadcast TV producer) decides to air content available on the web; as many political ads and documentaries already are. Today, the issue simply seems to be audience and left over qualms of the Fairness Doctrine.
    Is there a distinction anymore between broadcast, cable, satellite, fiber … which are all transport for a myriad of content? Public shmublic. Everything goes through the spectrum somewhere.
    In fact, if we consider progress being net savvy, linking, and a greater transparency of the process/reasoning, then why wouldn’t other media attempt to incorporate and replicate web content as well?
    For example, Dave Koppel links blogs and online sources in his column; using New Media sources to challenge Old:

    …
    CBS never vouched for the veracity of the lies contained in the e-mails, but neither did CBS debunk the e-mails. Instead, CBS brought forward a mother who was supposedly a Bush supporter from Philadelphia, but who was fearful about the draft. What CBS didn’t tell the viewers is that this mother is actually an anti-war activist who has been part of the campaign spreading phony draft rumors. For details, including CBS’ weak defense of the story, see Beldar Blog for Sept. 29 (http://beldar.blogs.com/ beldarblog/), and the INDC Journal weblog for Sept. 30 (“INDC Interviews the CBS Evening News” at http://www.indcjournal.com/ archives/2004_09.php).
    …
    And when doing stories about young people who are worried about being forced into government service, the Denver and national media should have pointed out that John Kerry is the only candidate who has proposed such coercion. As detailed in Kerry’s proposal “100 Days to Change America,” Kerry’s “plan will require mandatory national service for high school kids . . . As president, John Kerry will ensure that every high school student in America does community service as a requirement for graduation.” The plan appeared on Kerry’s Web site at http://www.johnkerry. com/issues/100days/. Like many other pages on Kerry’s Web site, this one has disappeared without explanation, but you can still find the page by entering the original URL into the “search” box at http://www.archive.org.

    The Colorado media have reported the claims made in Colorado by Kerry surrogate Max Cleland and by Kerry stepson Andre Heinz that a new draft may be on the way. So that voters can assess such claims, it would have been helpful for the media to inform Coloradans about Kerry’s own shifting positions on forced labor. As the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org) observes, Kerry’s plan for mandatory national service could create the foundation for mandatory national military service.

    Couldn’t we soon see something similar on TV, both across broadcast and cable format? From an exchange at Rhetorica:

    Couldn’t Brown briefly discuss a great Frontline feature that was relevant to a debate topic? Something on Discovery Channel or History Channel? Something available on the web or at the library to get more information than his time constrained and commercial format allows?

    Why not act as a portal rather than infotainer? How do you “link” in a TV format? Does the structural or infrastructural bias of the TV medium prevent or preclude a link-like feature? Could a TiVo/WebTV have a link overlay allowing you “click through” to related information from other sources? Could “link love” promoting other channels be a revenue replacement for any lost sticking (Nielsen) ratings? Rather than a vote against CNN by switching channels, it becomes a vote for CNN as the referrer?

    Here’s what I found on a quick Google for techno-geek solutions. I still think Brown could be avant-garde in researching and recommending other “primary” sources. I think we’re seeing some of it when an anchor or talking head recommends visiting their website and giving out the URL “for more information”.

    Hyperlinked television research at the MIT Media Laboratory
    System Manager and Hypertext Control Interface for Interactive Cable Television

  12. Karl Avatar
    Karl

    “What’s right, holy and legal?”
    I have to agree with Ebb Tide: there’s a flaming double standard here. It’s not just the defense of Stern and demonization of Sinclair. It’s also the condemnation in this episode compared with the cursory dismissal of Rathergate as a pox on both houses. Yes, the post here also ends on a “pox” note. But if you lead with “what’s right, holy and legal,” and suggest that the people involved with Stolen Honor are “nuts” (ad hominem dressed as high-mindedness) before trying to scramble back onto the high road, don’t be surprised if people start finding you as shifty as John Kerry.
    PS: How do we know these people are nuts? Have they been shown to have used forged documents?

  13. syn Avatar
    syn

    Now I understand why those who support Howard Stern’s right to free speech but not Vietnam Veterans right to free speech, they lack any substance and integrity in a quest for their deluded idea of Utophia, the rot of Liberalism.

  14. John Avatar
    John

    The comment of Kerry advisor Chad Clinton today, that “They (Sinclair) better hope we don’t win” doesn’t exactly make it sound like the senator and his staff are free speech absolutists, does it?