A presidential election is not the time for pettiness, but is a white male politician really in a position, ever, to complain about the amount of media attention he's getting because of the combination of his race and gender? Should we be boohooing for John Edwards because the media has painted what is essentially a three-person race to be a two-person one?
We live in a political culture dominated by celebrity journalists covering celebrity politicians. Big media want to consort with the big stars — currently New York Sen. Clinton (plus Bill) and the charismatic Illinois Sen. Obama (with Oprah in his entourage). One recalls Angela Lansbury's quip when television executives in Los Angeles canceled her very popular show. "Nobody in this town watches 'Murder, She Wrote,' " the actress said. "Only the public watches."
Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden recently hit the nail on the noggin as he explained why a candidate as experienced as he gets so little attention. After all, polls show that in a general election, Biden would run even with leading Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. Democrats, Biden said, have a talented woman and a talented African American, and "they've sort of sucked all the oxygen out of the air."
I don't believe that John Edwards is fighting some losing battle with U.S. journalists. I think he gets quite a bit of press, and if he brought it like I'm confident, being a moderate J.E. fan, he could, I'm sure the media would be more than happy to place him up on the Obama/Clinton pedestal. For now, he and/or his supporters can continue to play the race/gender card as much as they want, but it's a hard sell (at least, to moi) when you're living in a country where the elected officials are overwhelmingly white males. If a voter wants to learn more about a candidate that's not a frontrunner, there are lots of resources out there for them. People shouldn't be relying on soundbites and who appears on Ellen and Oprah to be helping them make their voting decisions, anyway. [SI]
Jesse Jackson has been a vocal supporter (and critic) of Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, but in an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times, he's taking all of the Democratic candidates to task for ignoring issues affecting the African American community. All the candidates except one John Edwards. Danny Glover would agree.
Yet the Democratic candidates — with the exception of John Edwards, who opened his campaign in New Orleans' Ninth Ward and has made addressing poverty central to his campaign — have virtually ignored the plight of African Americans in this country. The catastrophic crisis that engulfs the African-American community goes without mention. No urban agenda is given priority. When thousands of African Americans marched in protest in Jena, La., not one candidate showed up.
Democratic candidates are talking about health care and raising the minimum wage, but they aren't talking about the separate and stark realities facing African Americans.
Let's not forget that John Edwards said "pretty soon we're not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They're all going to be in prison or dead, one of the two." Unless he is elected, that is. So yeah, Edwards definitely cares.
Last night's Democratic debate in Philadelphia could have been called the "Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President Debate" with Barack Obama and John Edwards (but especially Edwards), realizing that it's now or never, coming down hard on the frontrunner whenever possible. Which, it seems, was almost every time they had the opportunity to speak. CONTINUED »
Oprah Winfrey has spent a lot of time and money on Barack Obama, as have Magic Johnson and other supporters on Hillary Clinton, Danny Glover on John Edwards, etc. But do big name celebrity backers really made a difference when it comes time to vote? Will Al Gore's pending endorsement make any sweeping changes in the polls? Yes and no, experts say. Voters who are big on global warming issues might take a Gore endorsement very seriously. And daytime television watchers and basketball fans might be swayed by Winfrey or Johnson. But many endosements, particularly celebrity ones, don't really show up in the polls.
Shea weighed the importance of other endorsements from labor unions and celebrities. Labor unions, he said, can offer a campaign volunteers who work night and day knocking on voters’ doors and work in “phone banks” to recruit other volunteers and votes. Labor unions also help a candidate with raising money, which Shea called the “mother’s milk of politics.”
He also discussed the importance of celebrity endorsements. Television talk show host Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of fellow African American Barack Obama, for instance, has not helped lift Obama’s numbers in the public opinion polls for president.
Shea said Winfrey has succeeded in going beyond the “color barrier” in America and is “venerated by lots of people, not just in the African-American community.” Winfrey’s endorsement, he said, translates into more money and exposure for Obama.
I feel slighted. The "experts" in this story didn't analyze blog endorsements, which obviously have the power to change the tide of an entire election.
• Favorite headline of the morning: "Bowling Not Always An Option For Blacks." What if it's an option, but it bores you to tears every time you do it? [DFP]
Barack Obama gets mentioned in the conventional media nearly as much as Hillary Clinton, and, I'm just guessing here, a hell of a lot more than Dennis Kucinich.
Hillary Clinton was mentioned in 41 percent of all media articles covering presidential candidates in August, the same share of coverage Clinton generated since May, 2007. Barack Obama's coverage increased to 40 percent of media articles in August compared to 34 percent since May, an increase of 17.8% over his average.
While there has been some negative coverage on his foreign policy position, according to Biz360's Point-of-View Sentiment™ tone analysis, the majority of Obama's recent increase in coverage has been positive or neutral.
That one percentage point is all well and good, until you realize that in actual polls of voter, B.O.'s trailing Hill by about 19 points.
All three of the top Dem candidates — Barack, Hillary, and John — are mentioned far less in blogs, with Obama mentioned in 28 percent of online presidential discussions to Clinton's 31 percent. Here at Stereohyped, I'm just trying to even out the score, one Obamarama* at a time.
"If you're looking for what's wrong in Washington, why the system is broken, why the system doesn't work, one perfect example is what's been happening just over the course of the last four days," said Edwards, who spoke before Clinton and Obama.
"We've had two good people Democratic candidates for president who spent their time attacking each other instead of attacking the problems that this country is facing," Edwards said to a mixture of groans and applause.
This is the one of the few articles I've read that actually describes a black crowd's overwhelmingly positive response to a speech by Barack Obama. I'm sure that somewhere out there, there's another story, maybe on Fox News, about the senator's "lukewarm reception" at the NAACP convention. It's all subjective, isn't it? Anyway, his speech yesterday during which he described himself as a product of NAACP's work and promised a Democrat victory in 2008, was a hit, according to the Boston Globe. The other candidates were there to put in their two-cents, although they probably felt like they were playing second fiddle. CONTINUED »
You Know The Media Is A Little Bit Obsessed With You, Too, B.O.
Barack Obama claims the media is obsessed with the Clintons. Here at Stereohyped, I'm just trying to even out the playing field. Although I might also be moderately obsessed with the Clintons. Edwards, too.
"You know, I know that the media is obsessed with the Clintons because they've been such a significant part of the political landscape for a long time. But I'm not running simply against the Clintons. I'm running against a politics here in Washington that has been continually obsessed with who's up, who's down, whose polls are where, who's in power and who's not."
He may not lead in the polls, but plenty of people want to give him their money. Barack Obama broke records by raising $32.5 million in the second quarter of 2007, $7 million more than in the first quarter and lots more than his opponents John Edwards and Chris Dodd. Hillary Clinton hasn't released her numbers for the second quarter, which ended Saturday, but Obama raised more than the Clinton campaign's own estimates. I wonder how many reggaeton ringtones $32.5 mill can buy…
As soon as he decided to join forces with controversial Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to make a movie, Danny Glover went from being John Edward's high-profile supporter to a huge black eye for his campaign. The Chavez connection is screwing over candidates on a bipartisan level, with Rudy Giuiliani also under fire for his law firm's dealings with Venezuelan oil companies. John Edwards attempts damage control after the jump. CONTINUED »
Democratic Candidates Won't Associate Themselves With A Fox News Debate
Belatedly realizing their error in partnering with Fox News for a debate, twenty-six members of the Congressional Black Caucus sent letters to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards requesting they rethink their decision to skip out on the debate.
Last month, under pressure from liberal activists, Obama, Clinton and Edwards, the front-runners in the Democratic presidential primary, announced that they would skip the debate scheduled for September because they consider Fox biased against Democrats.
Obama in particular has had a rocky relationship with Fox. His campaign froze out the conservative-leaning news network for a few weeks after it erroneously reported that Obama had received schooling at a radical madrassa — a Muslim school — during his youth in Indonesia.
Members of the Black Caucus say that by skipping the Fox debate, Obama and other candidates risk missing a chance to share their views on issues important to minority voters that are often given short shrift at other debates.
“Reconsider,” said CBC Institute Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), summing up the letter to Democratic presidential candidates. “Basically, it would be in your best interests to talk to the communities we represent.”
As is the way with most big political choices, the candidates are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Supporting Fox News by participating in the debate may anger the Democratic party, but, damn. It may look even worse to shun the CBC, even though most of them have already made that choice.
The sports world continues to a hotbed of racial politics even if the people who play them either don't care or don't care to notice. Eighty-six percent of athletic directors at Division A-1 schools are white. I wonder what percentage of the athletes at those schools are black. [MCall]
I appreciate Teddy P. Brains, a cartoon about a young, brainy black child, so much I may just buy a DVD even though I don't know any five-year-olds. [PDN]
Fifteen of the first 28 Kentucky Derbys were won by black jockeys. Now Star Jones in a big, floppy hat is the blackest thing about that horse race. [BASN]
Richard Bruce Nugent is the Harlem Renaissance artist you've probably never heard of. [QT]
Jesse Jackson has been a vocal supporter (and critic) of Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, but in an o
