|
THE UNMAKING OF A PRESIDENT-2004 By Carl Jensen
Howard Dean supporters across the country were surprised
when they woke up Tuesday morning, January 19, to read reports of Dean's
unexpected third place finish in the Iowa caucuses. What happened? Gov.
Dean started 2003 with little name recognition and even less campaign
funding. Through the summer he spread the old familiar theme of power to
the people, mostly through the Internet, and Americans by the hundreds
of thousands responded with their support and dollars. We wanted to take
our country and the Democratic Party back. Then in late 2003, the media,
which had anointed Dean as the front runner, started to attack him. By
the time of the Iowa caucuses, the polls showed him plummeting and the
media's new darling, Senator John Kerry, soaring. Kerry's remarkable
overnight turnaround even surprised the candidate himself who gleefully
declared he was the "Comeback Kerry." Meanwhile, the Center
for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA), a nonpartisan, nonprofit research
organization in Washington, DC, which conducts scientific studies of the
news media, was monitoring the nightly network news broadcasts that are
the source of news and information for most Americans. The results of
the CMPA study, released January 15, 2004, revealed that Gov. Dean
received significantly more negative criticism on the network broadcasts
while his Democratic presidential competitors received significantly
more positive comments. The research examined 187 stories broadcast on
the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news in 2003. Only 49 percent of all
on-air evaluations of Gov. Dean in 2003 were positive while the other
Democratic contenders received 78 percent favorable coverage. In a
follow-up study by CMPA, of the network coverage of the candidates from
January 1 to January 18, the night before the Iowa caucuses, revealed
that the networks selected Kerry and Senator John Edwards before the
Iowa voters did. As you may recall, Kerry finished first with 38% fo the
vote; Edwards ranked second, just below Kerry, with 32%; and Dean
managed only a poor third with 18% of the vote. During the
two-and-a-half week period leading up to the Iowa caucuses, there had
not been a single negative word uttered about Edwards by the three
networks (100% favorable coverage) while nearly all, 96%, of the
comments about Kerry were positive. However, Gov. Dean's coverage during
those first 18 days of January was significantly less glowing with 42%
unfavorable on-air evaluations. What happened in the campaign that
inspired the media to turn on Dean and throw their support to
uninspiring Kerry? A clue may be found in a story published in the
Washington Post on November 19, 2003. The Post reported that, "In
an interview Monday night (11/17/03), Dean unveiled his idea to
're-regulate' utilities, large media companies and businesses offering
employee stock options. He also favors broad protections for workers,
including the right to unionize." Also on November 19, the
Associated Press reported, "Dean, the former Vermont governor, said
Tuesday that if elected president, he would move to re-regulate business
sectors such as utilities and media companies to restore faith after
corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom." Dean's idea of
re-regulating two out-of-control business sectors produced criticism
from some of his competitors and surely struck a raw nerve within
monopolistic utilities and mega-media companies. I believe Dean's
progressive attack on monopolies helps explain why the corporate media
started piling on Dean, portraying him with the pejorative term of the
"angry candidate." But while this helps explain why the media
went after Dean, it doesn't explain why they suddenly anointed Kerry as
their Golden Boy. However, it would appear that Kerry would not pose a
threat to corporate America while Dean would obv |
