Normative journalism. Yesterday I mentioned the possibility of the interior pages serving as a kind of staging area for A1; much to my surprise I see something like it enacted today. Adam Nagourney's front-page story on the New Hampshire race, headlined "Democrats Look to Independents in Tuesday's Vote," set off an echo in my head, and sure enough when I looked back to Friday's paper, there on A17 was a "Political Memo" by David E. Rosenbaum ("Move to new Hampshire Often Brings New Tone") featuring, as a pull quote, "Voting by independents means 'the candidates throw less red meat.'" Short version: the New Hampshire primary, unlike Iowa's party caucuses, allows independents to vote, and that changes the dynamics of the race.

Fair enough. Rosenbaum's article is a straightforward, workmanlike piece of analysis examining, with some historical context, how the particular shape of the New Hampshire electorate dictates changes in campaign strategy and tone when the focus shifts post-Iowa. Rosenbaum's first graf, though, and the structure of the piece that follows, suggests that he's writing self-consciously against the grain of the Times' own recent coverage of New Hampshire:

Howard Dean is hardly the first Democratic presidential candidate to change his message and style between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. ... It is not surprising that candidates change their tack. The economy here is different from Iowa's. There is no talk about farm subsidies, corporate meatpackers or ethanol.

And primaries are different from caucuses. The relatively small number of people who attend the Iowa caucuses tend to be political activists. In New Hampshire, the turnout is almost always high. Independents are eligible to vote in the primaries. Younger, less partisan voters go to the polls. ... And particularly if a campaign seems to be flagging, it is important for the voters and the news media to think the candidate is correcting course ...

Or, more tendentiously: Memo to Jodi—There's a logic to political campaigns, the logic of actual voters casting ballots in actual places at appointed times. They aren't primarily psychodramas, and when you see a candidate adapt his campaign to a new place and new voters, you may not actually be seeing to the tortures of his inmost soul.

That's my version of it, anyway; I can't tell what Rosenbaum may have intended. And as far as any psychodrama on my side might go: I have no idea whether Adam Nagourney even read Rosenbuam's piece, much less is reacting to it. But Nagourney does seem to be taking up the NH-independents meme as a challenge today, challenge being to work it back into the ever-compelling renegade-Dean storyline:

For the most part, the candidates ... tried to adhere to the civil tone that had been evident since the Iowa caucuses on Monday. That reflected, to a large degree, an effort by the candidates to nail down the support of independent New Hampshire voters ...

But despite efforts to keep the tone civil, some strain showed through on Saturday. Dr Dean, travelling with his mother in an effort by his campaign to soften the image, raised questions about two opponents as he spoke to reporters aboard a bus rolling through the snow-covered hills.

Success! Where there are independents, there must be a demand for civility, and look at ol' angry Howard just unable to keep himself in check! [As an exercise, remove the "travelling with his mother" clause from that last sentence. Suddenly there's a lot less sting in the fact that Dean "raised questions" about opponents. That's what Nagourney wants us to think is a challenge to civility? Isn't that what political candidates do pretty much all the time—isn't that a big part of their jobs? But with Mom there, and her there to make him all soft and everything, well, raising questions isn't so much like a baby soft, is it?]

Nagourney's piece is a prime example of what I call normative journalism: a style relentlessly favored by the Times' election coverage, in which it's the reporter's main job to hold the political types to some more or less specious idea of decorum. Good Democrats who are "trying to adhere" to our valued civility! Your efforts are noted. Bad Dean who might wish to deviate! Nagourney seems to think it's his privilege and his right as a Timesman to dispense and withhold lollipops—much more significant than that he should actually get off his ass and report something.

posted by michael  4:53:31 PM  
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CSS woes. I'm a Web developer, but I'm not a CSS guru. If anybody looking at this is, and has a quick fix to offer: why is the orange links pane overlapping the content pane? They're two absolutely positioned DIVs, the content pane at left:0 and the links pane at right:0, and when the widths of the two panes add up to 100% the links pane badly overlaps the content. The CSS that's up here now is a stopgap, but I can't for the life of me figure out the set of incantations that'll get the page to lay out the way I want it to. Any help much appreciated.

I should add that I'm trying to avoid specifying pixel values for the width and height of the main elements, so that the page can lay out for whatever browser widths.

posted by michael  12:58:33 PM  
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