TV mob scenes (debates) not helping Democrats

By TED VAN DYK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

The best thing President Bush has going for him just now is not the slowly recovering economy. It is the voluntary debasement to which Democratic presidential candidates are subjecting themselves in their current series of televised joint appearances.

The traveling shows would be positive parts of the nominating process if they could be treated as local appearances before key Democratic groups. But, billed as debates and televised to a national audience, they present the candidates as small-bore seekers telling voting blocs what they want to hear. Last Thursday night's Phoenix show, filled with extravagant pandering to Latinos, labor unions, Native American tribes and senior citizens, was a prime example. It reinforced the caricature drawn of the Democratic Party as a collection of groups, out for themselves, rather than a national party concerned with the national interest.

Second, the large number of candidates involved in the joint appearances reduces the larger figures in size to those of the smallest.

Al Sharpton, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Carol Moseley Braun are not serious candidates. Sen. John Edwards is, at most, a regional candidate and would-be vice president. The real contenders are former Gov. Howard Dean, Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Kerry and Rep. Dick Gephardt. Former Gen. Wesley Clark, staffed by Clinton campaign alumni, could join that list or flame out quickly, depending on his performance over the next month. Yet, because the ground rules of the appearances necessarily treat the participants equally, the also-rans are given the same deference and attention as the real candidates.

The marginal characters with little to lose can define the terms of discussion for everyone else. Sharpton, for example, is a notorious grandstander capable of throwing off any outrageous riff he chooses. The serious candidates, forced by the moderator to respond, face the constant possibility that Sharpton will play the race card -- his only card -- against them, hurting them unfairly on race-related issues.

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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/144009_vandyk16.html

and just a bit racist

Bush bashing and too much Dem bashing. I want newspaper coverage on Bush getting destroyed, not Dems getting destroyed.

I don't really give a darn about differences in non-priority policy at this point. I'm relatively happy, in general, with the positions of all the Democrats.

I want to see who is the best and most convincing at beating the tar out of Bush and the Republican Party.

We shouldn't buy into this crap. We have a strong field of candidates bringing the array of Democratic values to the public. The field will thin out as we move along. The Pubs didn't start losing candidates until Iowa. Nothing to worry about here, if we don't let them get into our heads.

The wise candidate would start avoiding these like the plague until the field has been winnowed.

they are likely to backfire, like what happened here in CA with the groper. The press decides that the winner was the one that people had the lowest expectations of and as long as they didn't wet or soil themselves then they come out ahead. If I was running for office I would be like Nixon and never take part in a debate.