Dean's Demise: Don't Blame The Media
Everybody is stunned by the results out of Iowa last night. Not just the media or the public, but the various campaigns themselves. Kerry was stunned. Edwards was stunned. Gephardt probably wasn't all that stunned, I suppose.
And you know Dean was reeling. What a crushing blow it had to be for him to only pull as much as he did last night, despite massive amounts of organization in the state and money spent.
Why did it happen?
I know a lot of Dean supporters are going to say it happened because of the media, and that will be that. The Howard Dean Media Bias is the new Single Unifying Theory for Dean supporters. In their world, Dean has no failings, and anyone who does not see Dean the way they see him has simply been under the spell of the media. The media, you see, submarined Howard Dean. They propagated memes about him being angry and negative. They ran stories about him sealing his records while he was governor. They consistenly ran his quotes about America not being safer after the capture of Saddam. They jumped on him for saying that he wanted guys with Confederate Flags to vote for him. They ran a bunch of old clips of him saying that he thought the Iowa caucuses were dumb and phony. And finally, the media openly asked the question of whether Dean could beat Bush.
Let's break that down. First, the easy stuff.
Dean did seal records. He had a chance to defend that action, and the stance the media took on the issue was no more or less than positions they have taken on the other candidates. I doubt that had anything to do with Dean's loss last night.
Dean did say America wasn't safer after Saddam was captured. A lot of people got up in arms about it, and the media did cover that. But the media also covered a lot of people saying that they agreed with Dean, that we were still in high alert, people were still dying, etc. I personally agree with Dean, but the fact that media covered this statement, to me, isn't anything personal about Dean. It's just typical campaign fodder, similar to Kerry getting major coverage for being a waffler on Iraq (which was to Dean's benefit, every time), or recent coverage of Clark supporting the war (also to Dean's benefit). And, of course, Dean made the statement himself, over and over again. How the media coverage of that was uniquely damaging and targeted to submarine Dean, I'm not sure. Besides, a very small percentage of people in Iowa last night said that Iraq was an issue for them. So that doesn't seem to have been the issue.
The Confederate Flag deal was covered fairly extensively, although the coverage was greatly delayed. And I don't think the press was nearly as hard on Dean on this issue as they could have been. He made the statement, and while the idea he was expressing was a reasonable one, it was surely an awkward way to say it. Given further opportunities to clarify, Dean didn't exactly make the issue go away with a smooth re-packaging. Look, anytime somebody talks about the Confederate flag, it's going to be news. But does anybody really believe this is why Iowans chose to not caucus for Dean?
So that leaves three main "media" issues, as near as I can tell. The first is that Dean is "angry", the second is that Dean made a lot of videotaped appearances where he dissed Iowa pretty hard, and the third is that the media seemed to adopt the line that Dean might not be able to beat Bush.
Let's deal with the Iowa disrespect first. NBC went and found many hours of video of Dean on a Canadian talk show, during which time he made a few disparaging remarks about the Iowa process, and the self-importance of Iowans who want to stand there and tell people how to run the world. (Personally, I would probably agree with him after I was forced to stand and listen for the umpteenth time about the evils of trade or whatever.) Did the media fabricate these statments? No. Was it wrong for the media to uncover them, and then run them? Well...I think that's a questionable call, in that it didn't serve any real purpose for the issues. The statements were made some time ago, and Dean has certainly shown himself to be attentive to Iowans in the more recent past, unlike Weepin' Joe or Wes Clark.
But what does it say about Howard Dean, a man who surely must have been able to anticipate that he would run at some point and thus have to campaign in Iowa, that he would make such statements, multiple times? At what point is it a meme that the guy is a verbal loose cannon, and at what point is it real? Listen, if Kerry, Clark, Edwards or Gephardt had ever been stupid enough to say any of that stuff, the media would have been all over that, too. But they weren't that stupid. Howard, have a little forsight, OK? As it was, the story was only really a story for about three days, and Dean had ample opportunity to kiss and make up and say that he was mistaken when he said that, and he has now had an epiphany. But do I think it cost him some support in Iowa? Hell yes. And it should. You can't diss people and then ask for their support. Well, you can...but you can't expect them to give it to you. But again, the key question: Was this an unfair shot by the media to submarine Dean's chances? I don't think so. It is typical fodder for anything a candidate has said in the past about a given constituency to be fair game in a future race. Remember when George Bush Sr. was roasted for claiming all the different states he was from? I see no media conspiracy against Dean on this point.
Which leaves us with the anger meme and the idea that Dean couldn't win. Oh, the gall of the media to suggest that Howard Dean couldn't win! Everybody knows that incumbent Presidents who have increasing poll numbers, high personal popularity ratings, a pseudo-resurgent economy and a nominal military victory to point to almost always lose to Northeast "liberals" from small Canadian border states. I mean, come on. The reason the media is openly doubting whether Dean can win is the same reason all the members of the public not wearing Dean shirts is doubting it: it's a formidable task. Or maybe all the speculation I'm reading this morning about Kerry's chances against Bush, or Edwards' chances, maybe that's all a media campaign against them, too? Puh-lease.
So, then. Anger. Haven't you heard? Dr. Howard Dean is angry. Well, maybe he is, and maybe he isn't. How do we know? How do you know? I saw the debates. It's not like he started kicking over podiums, or put Lieberman in a headlock, though I frankly would have enjoyed the latter. But there were way, way too many times, especially in the early debates, where Dean looked like a deer in the headlights whenever people would get on him. Is that just my perception, fed by the media? Or is that my own, independent judgement of a guy that I just thought looked like he couldn't take the heat? Who can say?
What I can say, for certain, is that I have also seen clips of Dean speaking at rallies, and it's not all that different from his bizarre concession/victory speech last night. To steal a line from my friend Ian, he does Mussolini from the balcony very well. If you don't like that slant, you can call it Wellstone on the bus, or whatever else you want to call it. The guy has big-time fire in his belly, and he's not afraid to show it. Fire is good. Fire wins some people over, especially young people and those who are eager for somebody to just take charge of the damn thing.
But when it's all said and done, maybe people in Iowa, or the media, or the country, don't want that kind of fire in a job where you have to stay pretty cool. I think the media depiction of Dean as angry is accurate, and not necessarily a demeaning one. It's who he is. Now, maybe Dean would rather have you substitute "passion" for "anger", and maybe that's more appropriate. But in the end, last night you couldn't help but notice the contrast between Dean's speech and the understated, confident message of Edwards.
The media didn't make Howard Dean scream like Henry Rollins on a night when he had a national audience and a chance to reach out. People see with their own eyes, and hear with their ears. The media can't make a lie stick, when the people get so much chance to see these candidates for themselves. The media couldn't stick an anger rap on John Edwards or John Kerry. Why did it stick so damn easily with Howard Dean? I saw the answer last night. Iowans saw the same thing, and they voiced their opinion on it, in force.
Dean isn't dead yet. He has money and organization, and a near-home state primary in 8 days. He will sink or swim on his own merits and the desires of what the various voters around the country want in a candidate. He'll have positive and negative stories in the media, just as any other front-running Dem candidate will have. And for the record, I like a lot of things about Dean, about how he has organized his campaign, and his willingness to say certain things. But I don't think he can beat Bush. And I don't think his warts are a media mirage.
Dean supporters who think last night was all about some media-propagated myth are lying to themselves. Dean has had to deal with a lot of flak from all sides, and there's plenty of room to say that some coverage has been unfair, but that doesn't mean Dean isn't perfectly capable of not winning the nomination on his own merits.
11:07:57 AM 
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