BASICS: THE CAMPAIGN IS THE SCREWUPS | nationalsalvation.net
Back in the 60s I noted a change in the nature of politicians. No one else understood what I was talking about, as usual.
I put it this way: If a Strom Thurmond or even a Hubert Humphrey were lost for two weeks on a trip and gave a press conference, they would hold a press conference at which they would speak off the top of their heads.
If a New Type politician were lost for two weeks, a Lott or a Dukakis, he would not hold the press conference until he had read over the newspapers and seen the latest polls.
On talk shows, media people always say, "The question is whether he will screw up during the campaign."
These same media types then bitch about how both sides are so negative. They wonder why the public is not interested in a candidate's program but only on the dirt.
They just SAID that the campaign IS the dirt. The campaign IS the screwups.
If you want to make a LIVING as a reporter, you send your editor what he wants to PRINT. When he hands out a paper droning on abut some policy initiative, you are thinking about how to use the question time to get him to screw up, to say something Jesse Jackson or NOW can declare is Evil.
"Professional" has only one meaning: You get PAID.
For a "professional journalist" a campaign is the screwups, not policy.
The changeover from the Ole Stroms to the new Lotts came largely because of the simple fact that campaigns meant less and less each time. People elected Strom or Humphrey because they MATTERED, and when Ole Strom or the Ecstatic Frog said something stupid it was just entertaining.
Strom was fighting integration and Humphrey was putting civil rights platforms into the Democratic Platform. Harry Byrd was fighting every expenditure and liberals were pushing whole new areas of taxation. Nobody was going to give up those critical matters over a silly remark.
Today in terms of real policy the only difference between Obama and Clinton is, IN FACT, the color of the skin. Every dime that can REALLY be spent is being spent, every tax that can in real politics be taxed is BEING taxed.
"Civil rights" and every other critical non-fiscal issue is decided it the courts, not in the White House or in Congress. All that is LEFT to vote on is looks. All that is LEFT to report on is verbal screwups.