Politics as entertainment
I’ve been a little bemused lately at the uproar (yes Jill, I’m calling you out on this:
“I’m not much into name-calling, but I gotta tell you - the way the Republican candidates are freaking out over the CNN/YouTube debates - criminal and immature at the same time. You want people to vote for you, but you don’t want to have to answer to them, in even the most transparent way possible? That is not the quality of a leader - period. And everyone should remember that.”)
regarding certain Republican candidates who have chosen to bypass the upcoming YouTube/CNN debate (insert Competitive Press Conference here). The fact of the matter is that while the Democrats version last week provided entertaining questions, the responses those questions generated from the candidates were nothing new (unless you consider Conman Kucinich’s flagrant attempt to outleft his fellow Democrats by vociferously supporting reparations - who da thunk that Dennis would do that… well everybody - the guy hasn’t met a ridiculous cause on the left yet that he doesn’t embrace, but I digress…).
Frankly, I’d much rather see a process like this, than the sham that the candidates and their handlers continue to force feed the American public.
My assumption is that messiers Romney and Giuliani would rather not be forced to address “thoughtful” questions like, “Governor Romney, we’re Judy, Joanne, Nancy, Laura and Bob - we’re really excited about your campaign for President because of your Mormon faith. Does this mean that if elected president you’ll allow us to live our HBO-like ‘Big Love’ lifestyle out in the open?” Or perhaps this question from an animated urine-soaked cross, “Mayor Giuliani, isn’t it wrong to deny art to the masses simply because you disagree with its media?”
Both highly entertaining questions (if I do say so myself), but what’s the value? It certainly isn’t political, but it is entertainment.
Maybe CNN is on to something here.
I disagree, Wendell. Nothing more to it. That people found it entertaining, that’s a pejorative thing. I found the majority of questions to be good and I’m not necessarily even interested in the precise content of the answers - what they’re doing is presenting themselves to us. People have so few chances to see these candidates in any forum - no matter how they fly around or how many MTBs we do. There are still more than 100million people who can vote - what proportion of those voters ever sees or meets or talks with a candidate?
I have no problem with what it was and is and I stand my opinion about the GOP side.
July 31st, 2007 at 8:27 am
Jill -
How can you say that “people have so few chances to see any of these candidates in any forum?” The level of scrutiny and media coverage is so overwhelming that it’s hard not to see them.
I find it hard to fathom that there was anything new learned at the D’s CNN/YouTube CPC that voters didn’t already know. Having said that, I did find the questions entertaining, and as I said in the post, maybe that’s what the real value was.
July 31st, 2007 at 8:40 am
1. I say it because viewership is still falling all around and even without falling viewership, we’re still talking about basically the same several millions. It’s not enough to say we can abandon other methods. What you’ve said is that the media coverage is overwhelming - but what about the watching? And even then, so what if people watch? How many of them believe what they hear or are impacted by what they see? Isn’t that part of what blogs work to balance, to say we can be our own filters - but that means we need access to the raw sources.
2. Again - entertaining or not - I didn’t look at it that way. I watch so little television to start. Learn what we didn’t know? Eh - I’ll give you a draw on that only because I didn’t watch the whole thing and honestly, I barely listen to the content. Why don’t I listen to the content? Because you and I both know that we have far better sources and antennae than most people watching that debate - so what we think the candidates think comes from other sources.
July 31st, 2007 at 8:45 am