Read a Pacific Northwest, liberal perspective on world, national, and local politics. From majestic Redmond, Washington - the Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

We'll get back to you

Atrios writes:
Why Bill Clinton's past infidelity is more relevant to his wife's candidacy than Rudy Giuliani's own infidelity is to his own candidacy is an exercise left to the reader.
Because moral failures by Democrats are, by definition, an indictment of all Democrats, who smell bad and would steal all our stuff.

Moral failures by Republicans are specific, individual failures in which case it is unfair to blame even those who looked the other way in situations like Mark Foley-gate.

The press has set up a "heads we win, tails you lose" system for Democrats in this country. The more we understand that and refuse to buy into games of "gotcha," the better off we'll be.

Put simply, all Democratic candidates at every level need to learn a little about playing hard to get, instead of stampeding towards any microphone or camera that appears, especially if that camera is marked "Fox." If people were wondering why Maria Cantwell's campaign tended not to get back to people and to issue terse, one sentence statements, it could be she rightly senses the grave political risk that one tiny mistake represents. In many instances, the right distorts what is actually said, further reducing the incentive to engage the press at all.

People may not have agreed with Cantwell's positions on the war, but her campaign probably showed the way of the future. Deal with the press as little as humanly possible, go around them and win a massive landslide. Admittedly, it doesn't hurt to have a great deal of money to do this, but a lot of people are just sick and tired of the double standard against Democrats in this country. The ultimate irony, of course, is that Republicans have managed to take this double standard against Democrats and convince millions of people that it's a double standard against them.

You have to admire those kinds of stones, even if it is a putrid spectacle to behold. Meanwhile, the (senator or representative) will get back to you on that.

MORE-- Frontline ran the third part of its series "News War" last night. It's called What's Happening to the News, and is well worth a look.

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