By Aaron Sussman
Though alternative news sources like blogs are being created at staggering rates - implying a frustration with the profit-seeking, risk-averse culture of the corporate mainstream media - when it comes to electoral politics, the mainstream news outlets are still pretty much the only game in town – and it is harsh game for those who don’t follow the rules of the political establishment. An upstart politician who adopts an “outsider” image and communicates outside the media-political complex risks being scorned by the press and slapped with the badge of not being a "serious" or “electable” candidate, especially when polls prove that candidate’s widespread support. Such a fate befell Howard Dean (doomed to have the media make sport of his every misstep and characterize him as the candidate who couldn’t control his temper) in 2004 and the mainstream media may now be dragging Connecticut Senate hopeful Ned Lamont down a similar path.
Lamont has rankled the Democratic Party by opposing Joe Lieberman, considered to be right-wing on many issues, in the primaries. Lamont, like Dean, has reached out to his base through innovative grassroots fundraising and effective use of the Internet. Though the race has received national attention, the coverage has been misleading and incomplete.
For over a century, Congressional incumbents have consistently been re-elected over 75% of the time; in more recent years, it has often been well over 90%. While political scientists may devote a large amount of time to such a phenomenon, the press virtually ignores this extreme incumbent advantage, omitting it from stories in which it would provide the necessary context. Instead, the context is shaped to most benefit the entrenched political system.
On MSNBC’s “Hardball,” John Harwood from the Wall Street Journal framed the race as being between the “anti-war” wing and the “more moderate, pragmatic wing.” Lamont is consistently painted as a one-issue candidate, railing against the war in Iraq, but lacking the “pragmatic” views of Lieberman. Most stories describe Lamont as “the anti-war candidate,” simplifying his robust campaign and virtually echoing Lieberman’s criticism that “He’s a single issue candidate who's applying a litmus test to me.”
In fact, Lamont has spoken out strongly about health care, school funding, gas prices, and many other issues that affect Connecticut and the country. Most of the mainstream media, like the LA Times, have declared a “rift” among Democrats because of this race, as though challengers like Lamont were the sole impediment to party solidarity. The media does not point out, however, the fissures and disunity caused by Democrats like Lieberman who have supported Bush’s war, Bush’s Energy Bill, almost all of Bush’s appointments, and Bush’s policies in the “War on Terror” (Lieberman voted “no” on legislation that would “provide for judicial review of detention of enemy combatants.”)
To understand just how averse the mainstream media is to the sort of change that Lamont represents, one needs only to look at the coverage of the debate between the two candidates that occurred on Thursday, 7/6. Most articles begin by describing Lieberman as “on the attack,” portraying him as the strong, seasoned candidate. Rick Klein of the Boston Globe begins his story with, “Senator Joseph I. Lieberman last night attacked his Democratic primary opponent, Ned Lamont, for supporting a policy Lieberman said would ‘turn Iraq over to the terrorists,’ confronting head-on in a widely anticipated debate the issue fueling what has emerged as the toughest challenge of his political career.” Right away, Lieberman is presented as the stronger candidate “attacking” and “confronting head-on.” Klein, like many other reporters, chooses Lieberman’s career as the backdrop for the story – not Lamont’s career, the anti-war movement, the devastation in Iraq, etc. The Hartford Courant begins its story with a similarly one-sided lead: “Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman relentlessly attacked Ned Lamont during a televised debate Thursday, painting his challenger as a rich neophyte with a single issue -- the war in Iraq.”
It sounds pretty clear that Lieberman shredded his inexperienced opponent in the debate. And if you believe that, you are in the 25% minority. According to a poll conducted by Hardball of 1,500 viewers, 73% declared Lamont as the victor. In regard to this poll, host Norah O’Donnell said, “it‘s probably not surprising because we know Ned Lamont‘s campaign, in many ways, has been driven by the Net roots,” as though only a viewer with the technical savvy and passion of a “liberal blogger” would vote in the online poll.
With almost every commentator and journalist describing Lamont as a “long-shot” or a threat to the Democratic Party, it is unsurprising that challengers in the primaries have such a difficult road. They usually become “unelectable” precisely when the media claims that they are. In Liz Sidoti’s AP article, she refers to Lamont “torpedoing the party's chances to make 2006 a referendum on Bush's handling of Iraq.” She also mentions the Senate race in Washington, in which the war-supporting Democrat Maria Cantwell is being challenged by “anti-war activists who want U.S. troops out, including one candidate who has the support of peace activist Cindy Sheehan.” She does not tell us the name of this candidate, but does say that the “challengers lack the cash and name recognition….” It isn’t much of a mystery why this might be.
It seems that only those who are entrenched in Democratic party politics are called upon by reporters and talk-show hosts to weigh in on the primary race. The Hartford Courant spoke to John F. Droney, former party chairman, who said “``Lieberman was good on the issues, and he was up against a Cub Scout from Greenwich….” Few reporters interviewed someone from a grassroots, Lamont-backing PAC like MoveOn.org or Democracy for America (a PAC headed by Jim Dean, brother of Howard), which have been invaluable in mobilizing voters and campaigning for Lamont.
In a medium like print journalism, where one must choose one’s words carefully, it is telling when a columnist, like former Republican state legislator Kevin Rennie of the Hartford Courant, decides to describe Lieberman’s opponent as “insurgent Ned Lamont.” Worse is David Brook’s asinine New York Times column, in which he writes, "What's happening to Lieberman can only be described as a liberal inquisition.” How, exactly, the attempt to challenge a candidate within the democratic political process who has failed to represent his mostly anti-war constituency is an “Inquisition” is never quite explained.
Ned Lamont is an outsider. He is staunchly against a war that most of the press was complicit in initiating. He, like Dean in 2004, does not play the game to which the mainstream media has grown so accustomed; he represents more than corporate interests and political pandering. Because of this, the media echo chamber resonates with declarations of unelectability and divisiveness, preferring congressional stagnation to threats to the status quo. The media-political complex has candidates like Lamont squarely in its sites, ready to pull the trigger, forgetting that lost democracy is more than collateral damage.
For more of Sussman’s work, visit www.AcrowdedFire.com. He can be reached at AcrowdedFire@Yahoo.com
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