I just watched the interview. Actually, I thought she did OK. Russert is a brutal interviewer and it was only in the last 5 minutes (out of about 25 total) that she started sounding like used car salesman. She was low on specifics regarding Democratic proposals, though, and she is a politician’s politician when it comes to not answering questions. Either Feingold or McCain would totally blow her out of the water, but maybe that’s why they’re in the Senate, and she’s still in the House.
This is the AP news story about Reid’s ties to Abramoff that Russert asked and Pelosi brushed off, btw.
Ha ha! You expect some real fire from Tim “Softball” Russert? Give me break.
That guy is, in his own way, as entrenched a part of Washington politics as the people he interviews. He’s part of a media system that perpetuates a narrow acceptable range of discussion, and that tends to articulate problems and solutions only within the parameters established by what passes for mainstream politics.
If that were to change in any substantial way, the politicians would stop appearing on his show.
We must have different definitions of brutal, i guess.
I admit to not having watched this particular interview, partly because Russert’s softballing put me off long ago, and i don’t watch him much any more.
In my experience, the only time he’s really willing to get tough is when the malfeasance or dishonesty or incompetence of his target is so plain that even Blind Freddy could see it.
I’m a Dem and I thought her performance was pretty bad. She’s decided that the Republicans prevailed by repeating buzz words so that’s what she’s going to do.
Don’t bother, Bob. As you can see, they’d rather bitch and moan the usual talking points that there’s no “agenda” than do any of that pesky, like, reading stuff and find out that there actually is one.
Maybe we can come up with a colorforms or lego version?
Maybe I just grade on curve. Who do you think does a better job than Russert?
Puh-leeeze. Look at those snippets in Bob’s post. A more platitudinous* bunch of mush has never been put to paper before. “[We] support fair immigration reform…”. As opposed to what, the unfair kind? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
How about just having our House Leader talking about the 6 point plan in a candid, intelligent way?
But you’re right. I should be more concerned with the spin in the media that the Dem’s have no agenda, instead of bemoaning our leaderships inability to get the agenda out.
And yet it worked for Governor Schwarzenegger, and it once worked for Governor Ventura. (unless we all jumped to another track and I didn’t notice). It may be enough to take the House and / or the Senate. Maybe, maybe not, but it is a valid strategy sometimes.
I don’t doubt that it sometimes works. And I think it is a great political strategy when used as part of a positive campaign telling us what they’ll do. You also can’t compare two guys going mano a mano with two parties slugging it out. And I’m highly dubious of claims that:
So, I’m not so sure you and I really disagree, unless you want to jump on EC’s bandwagon.
It’s cool. and I understand. It can backfire just as easily. It’s a huge gamble. I don’t need to jump on a bandwagon though, it’s much more fun to go flying off on my own tangents
What’s so hard to understand about a party’s spokespersons managing the message? Right now, the Democrats’ purposes are best served by keeping the focus on the Republicans’ systematic meltdown. The Democratic message is “These guys can’t be trusted to do a damn thing right”. That is what has to be hammered home so hard that nothing the Republicans can say will do them any good. Anything else the Democrats say is a distraction from that at best, and ammunition the RW commentariat can use to divert attention from Republican failure.
The remaining undecided voters, who will decide the elections this fall, won’t start paying attention to more than the background music until late summer anyway. The job right now is to manage the background music, and right now the GOP is doing a fine job of playing the Dems’ selections. You do know the old saying that, if your opponent is shooting himself in the foot, don’t interfere, right?
So, tell us, complainers, what do you think the *Republican * message is and how well is it working? What GOP candidates are saying anything more positive about their agenda than “I’m not *really * a Bush supporter, I *do * think we need to bring the troops home, I *do * think we need to balance the budget, and I’m a *real * Republican, unlike the ones in charge”? Sorry, folks, that’s what they’ve got to work with, and it’s hardly a positive message.
We’re spying on you to protect you, and will do it no matter what the law says - private phone calls, internet chatter, library surveillance.
We’re for family values when it comes to your private life (right to die with dignity, gay issue, abortion, maybe birth control, but not when it comes to ours (Twatergate).
We’re for personal responsibility - except when we get caught.
We’re for honesty in government - indictments and bribery galore.
We’re for a strong national security - except when we lie about the reason for war, or when politically expedient (Downing Street, Plame Wilson, etc).
We’re invading them there so we don’t have to invade them here (preemptive unprovoked war is good).
We’re bringing democracy to the M.E., even if we have to kill every last one of them.
We’re protecting freedom by doing away with it - free speech zones, torture, indefinite detainment with no charges or trial, convenient “reclassification” in order to ignore that quaint Geneva Convention.
We’re compassionate - like when one senator from Pennsylvania wanted to punish New Orleans hurricane victims and others were describing them as criminals and scum, and are now leaving the city to rot.
We’ve cut taxes and given tax breaks (to the uber rich and the corporations).
We fixed health care - to the point where it’s even worse than before.
Mission Accomplished (maybe, some day, when some other guy is president and gets stuck with it).
And the recurring one that keeps coming up in one form or another, the Traitor claim - helping the terrorists, not supporting the troops, losing the war for us.
The more I think about it, this “get a platform” and this “talk about issues” is just a smokescreen and a meme that won’t die. The real issues are there. Someone just needs to run with it. What are Republican issues, other than yelling that the Dems don’t have any?
At any rate, negative campaigns work, and the ammo is there. The slogan can be as simple as “Enough is enough”. But, it won’t happen. When faux newsmen from the COMEDY CHANNEL show more chutzpah than the entire Democrat party, that’s a real pity.
Negative campaigns and attacks work. Swiftboating worked, and even had an “aura” of deniability, if you don’t look too close. Prior to that, the “McCain has a black baby” worked real good too. How about that “Kerry will outlaw religon” flap? So the more I think about it, the more I think the Republicans have no right to scold anyone about platforms, positions, plans, or campaign ethics. Attack, character assassination, halftruths and lies work. The idea that the party which did it, and won by doing it, is now clucking and scolding the party that hasn’t yet done it is ludicrous.
I agree that Russert is better than many, but unfortunately that’s damning with faint praise in my opinion. I really don’t have anyone in mind as being much better; in my opinion the state of political interviews in the United States is abysmal. Columbia Journalism Review, to which i subscribe, had a good article last year about the merry-go-round of Washington interviewing, and the way in which any reporter or show that steps too far out of line and gets too aggressive will simply stop getting its calls returned, and will find no politician willing to go on the show.
I’m not sure how many Aussies on this board will agree with me, but one of my models for political interviews is Kerry O’Brien of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a publicly owned and run network similar in mission (although not in breadth and scope) to the BBC.
O’Brien is well known for pushing politicians to answer the questions that he asks them, and for trying to get beyond their canned rhetoric and self-serving statements. Some have accused him of favoring the parties of the left, but in my experience he’s very demanding of any and every politician that sits across the desk from him.
Caveat: i haven’t lived in Australia for almost six years, and i don’t know whether O’Brien’s interview technique has changed in that time.
What I like best about Russert is that he does his homework no matter who he is interviewing. That’s why I was surprised when he did soft-pedal Pelosi.
The Democrats do have a good agenda, but no one special to deliver it yet. Strong women haven’t come this far in the last thirty-five years to have someone like Pelosi mealy-mouth it. What we need is a Margaret Thatcher who speaks from a liberal position instead of the political stance that Mrs. Thatcher took.
I suppose unfair immigration reform would be passing a law to make unlawful presence a felony, then blaming the opposing party for it when it draws heat.
Of course these proposals are non-specific. If they were to say “reverse the tax breaks for the wealthy” there would be a thundering herd of elephants saying “they want to raise taxes.” Every time you propose a specific policy, you lose someone’s vote. I’d like to see the focus kept on the incompetence and corruption that is rampant in the Republican party.
See, an actual agenda contains proposals intended to accomplish something. “We’re for Prosperity and Honesty” is so laughably dim that the party’s best hope is that no one visits the Dem website.
What the GOP has going for it is pretty much one thing - no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 2001. Democrats have to counter that with something concrete to go along with all the GOP screwups and malfeasance.
It’s a problem in my state too. We should be able to elect a Democratic governor since the Taft administration has been so scandal-ridden and ineffective. But the main thing the Democratic candidate has going for him is that he’s not Taft. It may not be enough to win.
No terrorists attacks since 2001 isn’t much to run on. I think it says much more of the patience of terrorists than the competence of the administration. “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” worked quite well indeed for Reagan in 1980. I don’t recall a lot of specifics on what he wanted to do, he was just being un-Carter,
There’s more on that page–a lot more. However, it’s all links to press releases, and of the first ten press releases, nine of them are all about Republicans. (The exception is one talking about Dean’s push to raise the minimum wage, exactly the sort of thing that needs more coverage, not less).
