Part I: Why Media Forced Edwards Out of the Race (HuffPo)

-snip-

I believe that the primary (pardon the pun) reason the Democrats are left with only two contenders to choose from is because corporate media -- threatened by the only top-tier candidate whose campaign was staunchly anti-corporate, populist and, horror of horrors, consistently against media consolidation -- crafted a narrative around John Edwards as a non-viable also-ran from the get-go, a narrative that hobbled his fundraising, limited his reach and became a media-fulfilling prophesy.

Until the summer of 2007, I couldn't understand why Edwards was generating scant media attention, and why what little attention he did get was mostly dismissive. After all, consider that John Edwards looks in every way like the politico media have always annointed as Their Guy: a charismatic and wealthy white man with politician hair, a smile made for kissing babies, Baptist beliefs and even a family story rife with overcoming tragedy pathos built for headline-making drama. Meanwhile, just as head-scratchingly, the same media that typically treat female politicians like little girls playing dress-up and subject politicians of color to racist screeds and reflexive dismissal were getting all hot and bothered imagining a Clinton-Obama race for the Oval Office... and telling America that this wasn't only possible, it was the most probable outcome.

How was it, I wondered that throughout 2007, Hillary Clinton (dubbed the front-runner from the moment she dipped her toe in the electoral waters) and Barack Obama (seemingly recruited to run by the press as much as by Dem leadership) were generating the kind of journalistic ink that female politicians and leaders of color rarely receive? Though they have absolutely suffered their respective shares of those dusty old media biases (from headlines about Hillary's cleavage, marriage and tear ducts to queries about whether Barack is "Black enough" and whether America "is ready" for an African American president), both of these non-traditional candidates were treated as the only serious contenders vying for the Democratic nomination. Having written about and monitored double standards in media coverage of female politicians for the past decade, I just couldn't figure out why media were so roundly willing to get over their collective baggage to elevate to such political heights a white woman who calls herself a feminist and a Black man who calls himself a progressive. These are, after all, the types of candidates media usually do their utmost to squelch.

Then I heard John Edwards debate the Democratic contenders at the Yearly Kos convention in August, and it became clear. Faced with a candidate who was taking a hard line against the corruptive influence of corporate capital over political leadership and legislation, who was refusing to accept lobbyist money, and who was speaking out against media consolidation, all of a sudden it didn't matter so much that Edwards had the ethnicity, the genitals, the bank account and the religious pedigree media look for when deciding whom to endorse. His anti-corporate, pro-populist rhetoric was far from the stuff of media-happy soundbites, so much so that corporate media were willing to partially suspend the race and gender biases that the industry usually uses to torpedo the political ambitions of women (of all ethnicites) and people of color.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-l-pozner/super-tuesday-media-musin_b_85097.html

It will become very clear why the corporations selected Hillary and Obama if one becomes president. They are no rethugs but they are folks the corporations can do business with like Bill Clinton was.

that the Democratic Leadership Council was pleased with the two front-runners on the Democratic ticket.

Case closed.

say he favored Obama. It looks as though it's seen as a win/win situation by the DLC.

Before or after a National (D) loss?

The corporate media's first and only priority is to protect its own interests and profits. They will destroy anyone who challenges that.

He could have been picking up 15 percent of the delegates today and playing kingmaker at a brokered convention.

Oh, yes, he was the only one who spoke truth. And it was a scam, because he stirred up the left with his rhetoric and then abandoned the cause and left us with a choice of Obama, Clinton, or nothing.

How dare he mobilize support for social justice, and then fail to live up to it and give the people he's mobilized a voice?

To hell with him.

That would draw this out until September while the rethugs would have spent six months uniting around their nominee. With Edwards out we may have a de facto nominee by March. He did the right thing for the party and America.

By your Orwellian argument, there will NEVER AGAIN be a real debate about issues in this country again. Ever. We should all go straight to the Lobotomy Room.

This argument is bogus on so many levels. Learn history, is all I can say. Candidates used to call each other whores until the convention, then united, and would win anyway.

Dear GOD!

Do you remember a 444-day psychological operation on the American people known as "America Held Hostage"?

Do you remember 20 percent inflation and interest rates?

Do you think maybe these had more of an impact than Kennedy?!

For all that it was still close - if the hostages had been released in October it might have been a dead heat.

I mean is this how it is - every time a Democrat loses, you're going to look for a scapegoat among any on the left who were not in full lockstep with the Glorious Party Leader?

What should I expect from someone who chooses as their avatar a slave-holder and the murderer of the Cherokee?

This is Democratic Underground, right?

Kennedy didn't help. Neither did Reagan when he challenged Ford and took it all the way to the convention in 1976.

Although I guess Bill Clinton subjected it to euthanasia.

Present-day involvement in the politics of a party does not require an endorsement of its historic origins. If so, I think you lose 91 percent of everyone here, if they have to endorse the Party of Slavery.

Certainly I would never vote for Woodrow Wilson, either.

Be honest: Do you endorse the politics of Andrew Jackson?

Oh, and by the way, the technically correct answer for who founded the entity that continues today as the Democratic Party is Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

It is foolish to hold figures from past eras to today's standards. Even St. Obama and others will look retrograde in the future because they opposed gay marriage. Jackson would be horrible if lived today. In his day he fought for the common man against the special interests, expanded voting rights, helped give folks more of a stake in the political process and created the modern Democratic Party. Jefferson, a racist slaveholder, founded the Democratic-Republican Party, the forerunner to our party but it was Jackson who created the modern party after it split in two. We are descendants of the Jacksonian wing of the party. The Adams wing became the Whigs and later the rethugs.

FDR continued the party Jackson founded. He changed politics and the country but not the party.

There are Jefferson-Jackson dinners held by state Democratic parties in each state. Should the name be changed (to Clinton-second president to be named later?) since Jefferson and Jackson would not be acceptable if they lived today? Or should we pay homage to the titans who founded our party and helped institute the core values of the party?

Should we renounce ever president prior to Clinton? Yes, even JFK appointed some segregationist judges and Carter ran as a racist in Georgia.

I have no problems renouncing pretty much all of it. The human world is in need of a transformation that goes far beyond the categories we've been stuck in until now.

Sadly, I'm still stuck in the present day, in which the Democrats are the nominally more sufferable party of the only two parties that ever end up in power. Don't fool yourself into thinking peoples' loyalty to these parties stems from anything other than their perceptions of their own interests - OR SHOULD.

FDR did bad things, but unlike Jackson he moved things closer to justice, and I believe he wanted to do so, I believe he wanted to serve. Let's look at your example: He didn't dismantle segregation, no. But by championing the economic interests of working people he managed to reverse the historic polarity in which 90 percent of blacks had voted for the Republicans!

Everyone's stuck in their own time and circumstances, yes, like World War II would be a big one. But some try to serve the world around them and others are just glory-hounds and scoundrels. I think Jackson is decidedly the latter, and I don't really care if dinners are still held in his name.

You didn't answer about the Cherokee.

He didn't start Social Security but that was impossible in that era. Jackson fought for the common man against special interests as well. Jefferson and Jackson are the reason for our party's historic mission of representing of working folk.

Jackson was wrong on the Cherokee like FDR was with the Japanese. At the time both things were not unusual.

The country was better after FDR's 12 years, the country was also better after Jackson's 8 years.

Japanese: Panic in the whole country after history's only genuine attack on the United States by a foreign power, in the midst of a World War. I make no excuses. It was wrong, but it derived from the circumstances.

Indian Removal Acts: One hundred percent thievery of land that was known not to belong to the whites who seized it after rumors that there was gold there. No threat from the tribes. The Cherokee in particular had adopted agriculture and white ways, and were praised as "models" for other Indians. Sheer greed. It was also well-known that they were being lied to about Oklahoma. I think even in that distant, backwards time, even white people knew what lies were, and understood that lying is wrong. On Jackson's part, the mentality at work was without a doubt genocidal.

Remember, the same historical epoch that you cite as justifying the actions of the slave-owners was also the era of the Abolitionists. "The times they lived in" is not an all-purpose excuse.

at a brokered convention.

:eyes:

Also, do you also happen to have several millions of dollars for Edwards to have continued to campaign with?

:eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

If he runs and he gets the kind of support he did, for the issues he represents, then yes, he takes on an obligation that transcends whatever personal bullshit (or genuine tragedy, as in the case of his wife's illness) or money or "viability" problems he runs into. It becomes bigger than him.

A brokered convention would mean that he would advance the causes he was claiming to represent.

He wooed his supporters, promised the world, then dumped them by the side of the road. Now some of them are still pining after the jerk.

The end.

If you've been here on DU very long you would know exactly how diabolical politics have become in this country.

The bastards that thrive on power will do ANYTHING to get what they want.

Sell their souls to the devil? NO problem.

Edwards tried, he really did. But I believe that someone-Ted Kennedy or Bill Clinton-pressured him to get the hell out and so he did.

Edwards made a personal as well as political sacrifice. I don't think any of us should fault him for that.

Who knows, maybe Edwards will get back in since his campaign was only "suspended" after all.

At least that's the thin sliver of hope I'm trying hard to hang on to.

Was he pushed out? Why doesn't he say so? Why doesn't he come out and do this: "There are those who would like to push me out, who place their authority in the party above the principles in which we believe. But I cannot surrender the fight for our poor and working people. It's not always about winning, or about being popular. Long as their voice is unheard, I will fight on, to the convention, to be that voice, etc. etc."

Will that sound like a "sore loser"? I bet it would be good enough to mobilize a lot of angry voters and keep him at the same level he was.

When he has taken up a cause and won over those who believe in the cause, it's his duty to take that cause to the Convention. If there are those who want all Conventions to be Coronations: to hell with them.

I suppose there's a question I'm neglecting: Was he blackmailed? That might be an excuse. Ted Kennedy being an asshole is not.

I can't help but think that Gore isn't running for the very same reasons.

I don't know why they don't speak up, but my guess is that they are afraid.


BTW, did you see this thread & specifically post #95 from a couple of days ago:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=4337743#4342986

Unless Edwards was subjected to some form of personal blackmail or threat, he has no excuses and basically betrayed the voters he stirred up by his premature drop out.

I don't think the progressive shows and blogs have raised nearly enough HELL about this issue. Media is choosing our President now. That is not democracy. I am voting for Edwards as a PROTEST vote. Those that control the media want a war president so they can continue to steal from us unabated. This last seven years have been about larceny on a scale never before seen in the history of the world! It is disturbing that more Americans cannot see what is happening. We have lost the only candidates who would have tried to straighten out this mess. We were denied democracy when their messages were stifled and criticized relentlessly by corporate owned media. They used to call this COMMUNISM.

Some, real experts in their fields, a fiery class warrior, a guy for whom 'peace' isn't a joke. Now look what the choice is. Two technically skilled politicians, specialists in getting elected.

Tragic.

I long for a real politics of meaning.

It's possible, I believe. It will be a long march from where we are.

The Gravitas switch is now off. Thank you.

Gotta go check the horse race.

Funny the '04 (S)election the Democrats had a BLACK WOMAN Senator Carol Moseley Braun running for president. Nary a word was uttered by the corporate media.

The corporate media has been in the position of choosing candidates forever it seems. Over the years it has become more obvious. I started noticing back in the 80's, which has gradually increased with the newer technologies at their disposal.

The first televised debate Kennedy vs Nixon was the beginning of media influence.


:cry:I'm sorry John didn't get the chance to enrich our country with his vision. The steps needed to be taken to help get us out of this mess within our government. But the corporate media didn't want that message to be heard.

I just wish the new congress would address John's issues of media consolidation. The whole system needs to be over-hauled.


EDIT: included CMB's name to the candidate.

Some of us learned this with Al Gore's 2000 campaign; and we had it confirmed with Dean's 2004 campaign. It's the continuing saga which has been going on for over 200 years in this Country -- the masses are simply too stupid to choose the President of the United States, thus the Elite among us must make the choice. The media now considers itself counted among the "Elite."

The DLC later came out to endorse both Hillary and Obama! Amazing.

Gods sometimes I just want to sleep through November.

corporate fears. This was political, too. The decision was too quick and makes absolutely no sense.

Either some very real pressure was brought to bear OR
John Edwards is not the man I thought he was. I prefer to believe the first option.

And...where is he? No one has heard a word, that I know of. Not a statement, not a picture, not one update that I've seen. Too quiet. Too strange. And much too simplistic to just blame it on the media, although they are the viral carriers of marginalization.

And I say this as a rabid Edwards fan.

The rest is also true - but this one is the most direct cause-effect link

We should all vote for Edwards anyway.

... questions they were asking earlier trying to comprise the ticket of being only the two corporatist front runners.

That is CLEARLY media manipulation of things, and shouldn't be tolerated. Heard Ed Schultz give them hell for it today as one should! They obviously want to make it clear to Hillary or Obama that the media won't tolerate them going outside of der Korporatist family to put someone like Edwards on in a VP slot or someone like that, even if it might be the right thing to do to rally more of the party base, and win the election.

the power of one. A giant waterfall start with one drop of water. Think on this...

I am not sure if people voted for Howard Dean in the primaries after he dropped out-but enough of us raised such a fuss that he was made head of the party. Many of us are becoming increasingly aware that good candidates are being shut out by the media and sabotaged by 'leaders' in our own party that insist on being king makers. Well, I'm not buying it this time, like I did the last time. I will continue to campaign and vote for the candidate of MY choice. The media may ignore my vote-but I want these leaders to know I am on to this game. I will educate more and more of my friends until this one little vote along with others become a stream, a torrent flowing in to a river until it is a waterfall that cannot be contained. The media may be bought and sold but it will be the internet that brings these guys down...the internet and my one vote.