Hillary is the New Gore

[dude77]

by Jackson Williams
Huffington Post
February 28, 2008

Tina Fey, guest-hosting Saturday Night Live last weekend, endorsed Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama during the show's faux news segment with the clever line, "Bitch is the new Black."

Fey's routine, as well as the opening debate skit, played on the fact that the mainstream media has treated Clinton with the disdain that comes with familiarity, while falling all over themselves to lick the boots of the new kid on the block who has only been in Washington -- let's face it -- since January 2005, three short years.

In truth, the performance of the mainstream media in this campaign (mainly TV) actually has a recent antecedent. It is quite reminiscent of their coverage during the race in 2000 between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

In that election, Gore was the well known, eight year vice president, up against a relatively fresh and nationally unknown politician from Texas.

Gore couldn't catch a break from the press to save his soul. Everything was overly and harshly scrutinized, from the way he *sighed* during the debates to his supposed wardrobe malfunctions orchestrated by his "guru" Naomi Wolf. He was "a know-it-all" who had answers and plans for everything. It didn't matter that he'd never claimed to be the inventor of the internet, Chris Matthews and company devoted countless hours to dissecting each insignificant and meaningless detail at the expense of substance.

Bush, on the other hand, was a laconic, likable fella who you'd want to have a beer with at a backyard cook-out. Or so we were told ad nauseam, even though Gore went on to win the popular vote nationwide while losing the electoral vote, the first time that had happened since 1876.

Continue:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jackson-williams/hillary-is-the-new-gore_b_88971.html

[Larkspur]

1. The Media intentionally refused to check Bush's background in 2000

Hillary's problem is that many of us know her past and didn't like a lot of it.

And while I'm not an Obama-bot, Obama is much more intelligent and eloquent then faux-cowboy-in-chief.

[IowaGirl]

7. It might be a good time....

to check out Obama's past. You may find that you like it even less.

[Larkspur]

28. I'm not a fan of Obama

I voted for him on Feb. 5 because I saw him as the lesser of 2 evils. None of the Dem candidates for Prez got me excited this year.
I won't support Hillary because she favors shipping my job to India. I'd like to outsource her job.

[dude77]

10. Gore was extremely intelligent

And Obama's intelligence does not justify mocking Hillary's 'cackle', cleavage, 'wrinkly face', etc. The media has focused in character rather than content.

[LisaM]

2. Exactly what I have been saying. I was so passionate about Gore in 2000

To the point where I put up his picture in my office (still have it there) and I couldn't even buy a break from my friends. I remember they all thought Gore should give up fighting for votes in the election and just concede.

Now, those same people won't admit that maybe there is some basis for my support of Hillary. They'll listen politely, but I don't make any inroads getting them to admit she could be a good candidate and that negative media coverage (in her case, since 1992) affects their thinking. Of course, the same people are all slobbery about Gore now.

It's kind of the Jimmy Carter syndrome. People love him NOW, but they weren't rushing to his defense in 1980.

[JuniorPlankton]

4. Well, Carter was not a good president back then

In recent years he acknowledged that he is "a much better ex-president" than he was "a president".
He learned a lot since 1980.

[LisaM]

6. He was still better than Reagan. I think ineffective would be the word.

But Reagan was a million times worse.

[aquart]

22. Too innocent for deliberate sabotage, more like.

[IowaGirl]

9. "Much better ex-president"

Ain't it the truth!!:toast:

[ingac70]

3. Yeah, Al was losing contests left and right!

:sarcasm:


Bill Bradley Al Gore Others
January 24 Iowa (caucus) 35% 63% 2%
February 1 New Hampshire (primary) 46% 50% 4%
February 5 Delaware (primary) 40% 57% 3%
February 29 Washington (primary) 32% 68% 0%
March 7 California (primary) 18% 81% 1%
March 7 Connecticut (primary) 42% 55% 3%
March 7 Georgia (primary) 16% 84% 0%
March 7 Missouri (primary) 33% 64% 1.55%
March 7 Rhode Island (primary) 40% 56% 2.72%
March 7 Massachusetts (primary) 37% 59% 3.05%
March 7 Maryland (primary) 28% 67% 4.23%
March 7 Maine (primary) 41% 54% 4.72%
March 7 Ohio (primary) 24% 73% 1.69%
March 7 New York (primary) 33% 65% 0.92%
March 7 Vermont (primary) 43% 54% 1.79%
March 10 Colorado (primary) 23% 71% 5.29%
March 10 Utah (primary) 20% 79% 0%
March 11 Arizona (primary) 18% 77% 3.23%
March 14 Tennessee (primary) 5% 92% 2.61%
March 14 Florida (primary) 18% 81% 0%
March 14 Mississippi (primary) 8% 89% 1.78%
March 14 Oklahoma (primary) 25% 68% 5.85%
March 14 Louisiana (primary) 19% 72% 7.13%
March 14 Texas (primary) 16% 80% 3.42%
March 21 Illinois (primary) 14% 84% 1.41%
April 4 Pennsylvania (primary) 20% 74% 4.98%
April 4 Wisconsin (primary) 8% 88% 2.69%
May 2 North Carolina (primary) 18% 70% 11.28%
May 2 Indiana (primary) 21% 74% 3.15%
May 9 West Virginia (primary) 18% 72% 9.55%
May 9 Nebraska (primary) 26% 69% 3.56%
May 23 Kentucky (primary) 14% 71% 14.06%
June 6 New Mexico (primary) 20% 74% 4.81%

[dude77]

8. Bradley did not give journalists thrills up their legs

Don't compare.

And now with the widespread use of the internet and more coverage of primaries, plus many more debates on TV, this effect is magnified.

[ingac70]

11. You compared Hillary to Gore, yet I am not to compare?

Hillary is no Al Gore. A vast majority of Dems wanted him. Look at the results.

You really think Democrats are so stupid that the media can manipulate them? Thanks for the kind thoughts!

[dude77]

14. You are missing the point

The article compares Hillary-Obama with Gore-Bush, and you conveniently spoke only about the 2000 primaries, which did not receive the same level of coverage as the 2008 ones. Not even close.

Do you deny that the media hurt Gore in the general?

[ingac70]

16. Al Gore hurt himself in alot of ways...

Distancing himself from Bill Clinton, who had over a %60 job approval at the time, did him no favors.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/08/11/politicsofvalues.ap/index.html

I admit Clinton didn't make things easy for him.

[dude77]

19. And Bush hurt himself more

But the media did not care.

He said dumb things, bad spelling included, that would have earned Gore hell had he been the dumb one.

Even in 2004 Bush got a pass:

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/10/29/bulge/

[ingac70]

20. Dumb was "cool" for alot of Americans...

His idiocy wasn't ignored, it was embraced by voters.

[aquart]

23. Sure, when they were told it was cool.

You really don't see where articles and news reports are colored to guide your thinking? A student once handed me a NYT article he was supposed to analyze for a class. It was about Gore preparing for an important speech. In the first sentence the article described Gore as "tinkering" with the speech. I handed the article back and explained why that one word invalidated the entire article. They could have said "honing," "refining," "editing," "perfecting," "sharpening," "punching up," but they went with the word that trivialized the process. Right up front.

[truedelphi]

21. It does say a lot that Wolf Blitzer is holding

His crossed fingers for luck for Hillary behind his lying snivelling back every time he is on TV.

[IowaGirl]

5. Ain't pretty is right........

I'm still waiting for some investigative reporting on Barack Obama.......:popcorn:

[Buzz Clik]

13. Waiting for more, you mean. Plenty of unsubstantiated bullshit has hit the news.

How much would be enough for you?

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. The same way the other side kept waiting for the smoking gun

on Whitewater.

Nobody found anything because there was nothing to find.

I there was anything on Obama, Hillary would have used it by now. I promise.

[Buzz Clik]

12. It is very hard to buy into these comparisons and call them parallel.

The Bush phenomenon was orchestrated by an enormous machine that was well entrenched -- left overs from Daddy Bush. We had a clue of what was coming when we saw the trashing of McCain in the primaries; the GOP is rarely so cannibalistic. Still, the media was not kind to him -- the replayed his stupid gaffes, proclaimed him as lacking gravitas, etc.

Obama is a poor parallel for GW Bush. Obama is intelligent, informed, articulate, and seems to be a lot less the result of pure PR. The MSM will repeat Hillary's claims against him, analyze them, and move on.

Gore's trashing in the media was largely self-inflicted. Time and time again he would say things in such a ridiculous manner that he was begging to be trashed. My frustration was the glee with which the media instantly repeated the rightwing bullshit about him without a filter. For example, I NEVER saw a MSM refutation of the "Gore thinks he invented the internet" line. I still have not -- you can find the rock solid refutation, but not in the MSM.

Hillary's handling by the press is far less blatantly negative. At least in the media outlets I watch, any claim that Obama makes about her is given a truth test and far less likely to be repeated verbatim without comment.

Blaming the media for one's woes is much too easy and, generally, dead wrong.

[dude77]

15. Even members of the media have admitted it

See National Review's Rick Lowry saying that the media hates Hillary.
Roger Simon saying Obama stole their hearts, and media critic Howard Kurtz agreeing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/03/AR2008020302995.html

SNL, Hillary, members of the elite and right wing media agree.

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. SNL, Hillary, members of the elite and right wing media agree.

That's EXACTLY my problem with her.

[Skittles]

29. well, I agree

and I am not in any of those groups

[Uncle Joe]

24. I believe the largest self inflicted wound by Al Gore

came about because he actually was the primary political champion for opening up the Internet for the American People. They didn't give Al Gore a Webbie Award because he was a duck. As the Internet grew in power and influence, the corporate media came to resent him for it, they had become addicted to setting the frame of national dialog and all the power, money and influence that goes with it. Being able to conveniently seek information and the two way public communication or dissemination of that information without having to go through a corporate media filter is fire in the Information Age.

This is the true motivation behind all their slander and libel, for the Internet was democratizing information, taking power away from the traditional top down one way communication of the corporate media and the subsequent loss of control or message and giving it to the people.

The corporate media openly jeered Al Gore during a debate and every time he started to pull away from Bush, they came up with a fresh new slander or libel. I call this the Prometheus Effect only instead of taking bites of an every healing liver such as Zeus's Vulture did to Prometheus, the pundits were taking bites from Al Gore's credibility, 24/7 for the better part of two years prior to the selection of 2000.

Anyone can be demonized by the corporate media should they put their collective minds to it, and it doesn't take that many as six corporations own 90% of everything the American People see on television, hear on the radio or read in print. Although as the Internet grows in power and influence, I believe that task will become more difficult and perhaps this is why Bush started illegally wiretapping the American People shortly after taking office without going through FISA and before 9/11.

I believe Al Gore has done as much for the cause of democracy and empowering the people as anyone you can name in history and the corporate media treated him like a pariah for it. I also believe nothing in this current campaign compares to that travesty.

[katty]

25. it's a problem, Gore and Hillary suffered from 'old brand' syndrome

or boring policy wonks, next to the new Barack brand.

[Imagevision]

26. Got news for you, Obama could be in politics 60 days, he still is the most sensible choice!

[susankh4]

27. Another election stolen by the MSM.

Oh well..... I knew there was some reason for my feeling of deja vu.

Do ya think it will stick? Will they still be liking Obama in November?