And as I wrote about a month ago for CJR, Sasha Issenberg’s new book about breakthroughs in political technology, The Victory Lab, raises questions about whether reporters have a clue about how presidential campaigns are targeting persuadable voters. But while I stand by my recommendation that reporters should err on the side of humility, my recent experience canvassing with Obama and Romney volunteers in the Columbus, Ohio, area left me wondering whether campaigns have really transcended the clipboard era.
So, in the end, I am back with the most traditional weapons in a campaign reporter’s arsenal—voter interviews and long, mostly background, conversations with political insiders in states like Iowa and Ohio. Often the smartest and least spin-laden interviews a reporter can find are with veteran operatives and strategists who, for whatever reason, are on the sidelines in the 2012 campaign. They boast perspective, knowledge of their states, and an independence that campaign operatives lack.
All this is not a substitute for polls and data analysis, but a companion piece. I am under no illusions that I am doing anything more original than testing hypotheses with actual on-site reporting. But as it increasingly appears as if we will be facing another close election in a deeply divided nation, there is no shame in celebrating Political Horserace Time.
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A refreshing blast of common sense in all the posturing.
#1 Posted by David Blake, CJR on Thu 11 Oct 2012 at 11:27 AM
A teacher would be fired if her lectures were as unpredictable as the events the news media must investigate. But no one in the journalism profession is interested in communicating like a teacher would with an annual one week review of events and conditions. Which could be republished as a paperback book or booklet so voters could buy a photographic memory of what their government of the people has been doing to the people. And the books or booklets by the largest newspapers could include book reviews for the fifty to one hunderd most important books of the prior year. Which might inspire Joe Sixpack and Wanda Winecooler to read a book that actually makes them think. Can anyone imagine how that would affect our democracy. However, reporters are obviously not interested in educating the public because one week of writing the second draft of history woud be too much work.. Reporters are in the entertainment business and they need to work hard at entertaining the public with horserace journalism. And the people at CJR are not interested in understanding how Joe Sixpack and Wanda Winecooler use and/or misuse information that the news media occasionally provides.
#2 Posted by Stanley Krauter, CJR on Thu 11 Oct 2012 at 04:21 PM
If the Democrats had faster reflexes, they would be all over Google's "completely wrong" and "completely wrong for America." (Romney)
They would be swarming "Romney's own goal," but they are not that quick.
How many days would it have to come up before they got it?
How often did "Completely Wrong for America" figure in the debate tonight?
As a matter of fact, it is as if fate put her finger on it: it is the truth.
As for the death of the American ambassador in Libya, the Republicans are extremely slow on it. There needs to be a powerful commission on education for the military and the CIA.
Just look at the poverty of "Class 11." Look at the fact that Mark Moyar when at Marine Corps University noted that universities, including his own, were too rigid. How the Marines sent their anti-terror force out to Libya after the attack. With better leadership, they would have been able to make better recommendations.
There is a book that provides evidence not only about the unforgiving minute in war, but also weaknesses in English teaching at West Point.
So are the Republicans putting the patterns together and calling for a Mark Moyar commission on military and intelligence education?
They can't do it. They are just too slow.
Mitt Romney: Completely Wrong for America. Wrong Romney.
The truth always comes out, even if you bury it under a stone.
#3 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Thu 11 Oct 2012 at 11:13 PM
The moderator rightly pointed out that she was going to switch between domestic and foreign affairs, as should have been done in the first debate.
The sit down format was far better.
On the first question, which the moderator handled well, on Libya, Biden knocked Ryan flat out.
You have to listen carefully and read the transcript with attention. Ryan does not have this file. He kept coming back to the Marines, but he does not grasp it. Mark Moyar himself sent me an email admitting the rigidity of Marine Corps University:
--Thanks for your incisive suggestion about a Marine doctorate. That would be
a great program, but would require a degree of flexibility that is unlikely to be encountered at any university, whether civilian or military. Our university does a better job than most at bringing new thinking into the curriculum but even here it is sometimes difficult to change existing practices. I'm pleased to hear that you are enjoying Triumph Forsaken. I'd recommend that you also read A Question of Command, which students here have begun using.
Best Regards,
Mark Moyar--
Ryan, you are not ready. You do not have your files in order. You also spoke clumsy English on this critically important matter of Libya.
It would be dangerous to switch to Ryan-Romney now. Both are "Completely Wrong for America."
#4 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Thu 11 Oct 2012 at 11:51 PM
There is no defense of horse race coverage. You have one candidate with a set of policies and a record to defend and another who has nothing but mutually exclusive promises and a bunch of awful people who built the shitpile that was the record of the Bush administration.
And from what can be discerned about what they do want to do, their policies are going to be awful for the most vulnerable people.
These are the facts. If you aren't reporting these facts, your 'work' is harming the nation and breaking the process by which democracies offer choice to the people.
This is not goddamn American Idol, idiots.
Which brings us to the diagnostician of American idiocy, Mr. Pierce:
http://www.esquire.com/_mobile/blogs/politics/second-presidential-debate-2012-13764625
"Romney has so battered the political dialogue — and the English language — with his 100-pound bullshit sledge that he has pretty much shaped the narrative of the campaign in such a fashion that his fanatical devotion to barefaced non-facts has become a weird kind of status quo. Far too many people in this business have accepted the Etch-A-Sketch argument to the point at which whether something is true or not is measured by its effectiveness as a tactic. "He had to run to the right in the primaries and then 'pivot' to the center in the general" — that's something that makes the political wiseguys look smart, but, taken literally, it means that the entire election process in the world's oldest self-governing republic is a contest to find out who can most smoothly move from one set of lies to another, and it is also a recipe for depriving the people who ultimately will make that decision of the kind of information they need to do so. How this is in any way good for democracy is not for small minds to ponder, I guess."
If you guys let the race be defined by bullshit and make believe while letting the ugly realities of what lies ahead under a Mitt Romney Republican era go unchallenged, then you're the ones responsible for breaking the nation.
You horse race people suck at your jobs. You're an embarrassment.
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 16 Oct 2012 at 11:15 AM