The second day of the “Take Back America” conference, held this week in Washington, DC, opened with a speech by the Rev. Dr. James Alexander Forbes, Jr., an African-American pastor from New York City. Around 2,000 leftist activists, mostly white and well-heeled enough to afford the $175 conference fee, stood rapt listening to the pastor, but reporters ignored him, opting instead to gather off to the side of the stage where Sen. Hillary Clinton, resplendent in blue, stood with George Soros, the billionaire Democratic activist and amateur political philosopher who has made it his late-in-life’s work to get George W. Bush removed from office.
In a bit of preemptive spin control, Republicans had attacked Soros and Clinton in the New York Post that morning, painting them, and by extension all Democrats, as left-wing extremists. The Democrats were also trying to control the message, however, and they had a weapon of their own: Toby Chaudhuri, the conference’s communications director, who had engaged in a little pre-emptive spin himself. He had been working highly-regarded Wall Street Journal reporter John Harwood for days and that morning the Journal had run a front-page article painting the conference in a positive light and raising the possibility of a rebirth for the American left (subscription required). It was exactly the spin Chaudhuri had pushed, and staffers distributed it to the journalists at the conference in an effort to influence further coverage. When asked if he had “placed” the piece — if he had come to Harwood with the idea, or Harwood had come to him — Chaudhuri just grinned, shook his head, and said he couldn’t comment. (Harwood told Campaign Desk Chaudhuri did not initiate the piece.)
Soros and Clinton, who made blistering speeches about the Bush administration, were just two of the prominent liberals at the conference, which also attracted Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Arianna Huffington, Sen. John Corzine, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and others. In the halls, people wore “Dumbsfeld” stickers and sold balloons shaped like George W. Bush, who was portrayed in a flight suit and with an extremely long nose. When the crowd gathered for lunch, someone yelled that George Tenet had resigned that morning, prompting a raucous cheer. Organizers showed a series of anti-Bush commercials on the big screen — notably, not one of the spots contained a positive message about John Kerry — and then Corzine introduced the real star of the show, former Gov. Howard Dean. In rock-star fashion, Dean entered from the back of the room, music blaring, and shook hands with the swarming throngs as he worked his way towards the stage. Many in the crowd held up signs and waved shirts as though Dean were still running for president.
After Dean’s rousing anti-Bush speech, which drove true believers in the audience into near frenzy, Dean and the conference organizers held a gathering for members of the media. Around 50 reporters and a smattering of cameramen crowded into a small room and listened to the organizers push their talking points — chief among them, that the excitement of the crowd at the Dean speech demostrated the unity and momentum of the progressive movement – before opening the floor to questions. After a question from a Swiss reporter about Tenet’s resignation, Dean fielded two questions from Lyndon LaRouche supporters, who asked why LaRouche wasn’t welcome at the Democratic convention. Dean’s response: “He’s a convicted felon.” (After the conference ended, one of the young LaRouche supporters, sensing he was being mocked by one of the reporters, said, “No trash talking from the old baby boomers,” which prompted the overweight, bearded reporter to respond, “I’ll take you out on your ass.” Violence, however, did not ensue.)
Following the impromptu press conference, reporters gathered in the pressroom to file their stories and watch Tenet’s resignation speech on CNN. Chaudhuri said he was pleased with how things had gone so far, and argued that the traditional perception that reporters hold PR flaks at arm’s length is misguided. “I think reporters tend to chum us more than the other way around,” he said. “A reporter has to go to an editor with something new every day. That’s their worth. They want to be my friend because I can get them information.”
Only time will tell if the spin that Chaudhuri is pushing, however, gets reflected in the coverage. Our next post from the conference will examine that coverage and attempt to figure out how well Chaudhuri was able to control it — that is, exactly how much influence the flak has over the hacks.
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.