Reply #86: Reagan and the mike [View All]

[PATRICK]

Reagan's method of breaking out of the dwarfish gaggle situation that is the ludicrous crowded "debate" forum was simply to throw an authoritative tantrum about the microphone. Nothing sensible or substantive, nothing that had anything to do about an issue. But seeing someone finally display some virile decisiveness and throwing aside the strangling format like a confining tutu established the final pissing order for pack leader. Aroooooo-oo-oo-oooooooo!

Edwards has been trying outside the actual debates where he behaves decorously and by the rules to do something about several inbuilt flaws and absurdities such as the black forum using FOX News as its moderator and outlet. Probably because anything he did onstage to display "manly outrage and frustration" would be more correctly regarded as self-serving infantilism- which while a prime requisite for leadership character in the GOP- is merely another opportunity to beat to death a Dem tripping outside the media gauntlet.(Those unfamiliar with the gauntlet should remember that the people with the sticks make the rules and when you wander off the path from their blows they can finish you off.)

Now, my point is all of this from past experience and many savvy candidates should have been taken care of with one simple group question: the people and the candidates must be served by process and process can be changed. Outside mediation by disinterested parties and moderation of debates especially would have been unsatisfying to many private ambitions but of service to all. Furthermore, other types of events, also as liturgically strangling as the annual Pottawatomie Chicken Roast, should have been reined in for the good of all from the candidates point of view. Other special events created by the party(if that organization could stay away from favorites and over programming) could give different exposure than the odd debate forums we now have confined our people to on the major GOP-leaning networks.

Whatever. This year, as in all others, things change on the fly, thinning the focus goes hand in hand with the impatience of top candidates who suddenly realize no one has actually remembered a single word of even the canned speech they would like everyone to hear, much less substantive issue commitments(far more sincere for being the only party offering any). I am sure Hillary is anxious that she will not break out of the mere image to real solid ground to compete with the very fixed sentiments toward her nationwide. So candidates on top negotiate as the burden of really becoming the candidate or watching it all fizzle and evaporate before any democratic discussion really starts. Especially our party- because it matters.

Naturally when the usual over-planning meets campaign chaos the under-planning is revealed too late. I think we should be patient with all individuals in the inevitable mess and worry more about the actual candidate, the positions and the electoral strength. If Edwards grabbed a mike or talked sub voce(friends fill in the blanks, enemies fill in the blanks, networks promulgate the latter) with the Frontrunner he loses points by putting a toe outside the gauntlet. And neither has any real meaning
except to distract from the inbuilt problems of media presentation.

So far Edwards has been the only one strongly and rationally doing something, (albeit belatedly) about the meek trooping of centrist candidates down media lane. I had better posts on why the present debate system reformed and orchestrated by party and campaign advisers is all the more counter productive to their goals for them having made them this way. Every year the obvious goes a begging.