Tuesday, June 12, 2007
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The Media Narrative Against McCain
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Posted by:
Matt Lewis at
11:13 AM
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Anyone who knows the media, knows they basically decide on a narrative, and then stick with it ... until it gets boring. For example, the narrative that John McCain was a "maverick" was a great story ... back in 2000.
Well, the new narrative is that McCain's campaign is falling apart. For this reason, the Washington Post featured a huge story on John Dowd's flip from McCain to Romney. The truth of the matter is that Dowd raised less than $7K for McCain -- but you can't let that fact get in the way of a good story ...
Conversely, the media has chosen to ignore the fact that Utah's state Senate Majority Leader has defected from Romney to McCain.
The reason? Flipping to McCain doesn't fit the template or the narrative that the media has created. As such, it is barely mentioned.
Here's the dangerous part: The media loves to build you up, and then tear you down. Today's hero (McCain in 2000, for example), is tomorrow's media goat. Remember how much adoration Howard Dean got from the Post back in 2003? Then, remember what they did to him in 2004 ...
My point is that -- as John McCain has learned -- if you live by the media narrative, you die by the media narrative ...
Who knows? Maybe the next template will be: "How McCain has made a comeback"?
Stranger things have happened ...
Correction: 2:20 PM - Rob Bluey reminds me that John Dowd went to Thompson, not Romney.
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Glad to see you back as I was worried the McCain camp had you fired after it was discovered that you were on their payroll. |
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When was McCain positive? Honestly I do not know of a single conservative who likes him. I know a lot of Democrats that do, but not a single conservative. If he gets the nod and you think GOP turnout in 2006 was bad... you ain't seen nothing yet. |
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Mitt is not a supposed front runner. McCain is. Though I like Mitt, we all know he does not have a shot, only a chance at a VP nod.
Your comments about the media is also total BS. McCain is a liberal in EVERY single way except when it comes to the military... and there he is a moderate. The media LOVES him and he is their #1 pick for the GOP nod. If it were not for the media he would not even have made it as far along back in 2000 nor would he even be a contender now. After all McCain has done to sink his own nomination, the media has gone extremley light on him using the kid gloves.
McCain should be going after the DNC nod, not the GOP one.
The idea that its the media beating McCain down is pure BS. McCain beat himself down long ago when he decided to be the biggest RINO of them all. |
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McCain Fanboi.
McCain is toast Matt, sorry. This race is now between Rudy, Fred and Mitt. And Rudy is probably not long for it. Which means it's between Fred and Mitt.
Fred's a decent enough conservative, but once folks find out that he was basically a lackluster senator who served as a McCain lapdog, I'm guessing he won't persist too long either.
Hey wait - maybe you can switch to Fred then Matt! After all, he's a McCain Fanboi like you are.
My money's on Mitt. He's shown himself to be the savviest campaigner of the lot thus far. |
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..........they simply fade away. Are you listening Sen.McCain? |
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So many reasons to loathe McCain, so little time.
Here's hoping he's McToast. |
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(I posted this under Ruffini's blog, but I figured it would go well here, too):
Keep in mind I'm not saying that McCain will overcome this challenge. I certainly believe he can -- but I don't know that he will.
What I am saying is that the media is currently creating a narrative that says McCain is losing support. And in order to fit this template, they will highlight stories which confirm it (and they will ignore news items which would undermine their premise) ...
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trying to make McCain look good and paint Romney as a loser huh? Nice try but a lot of people caught that. Shows what a phoney you are Matt Lewis. |
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The article you linked says that Dowd has gone to Thompson, not Romney. But, despite being an alleged McCain backer, I think you have a reasonable point about the changing media stories.
However, I would argue that this is less about political beliefs than it is about finding new narratives to fill the 24-hr news cycle. |
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Matt Lewis is a professional political operative who has authored a book about activism. Essentially, a political operative's job calls for one to help shape narratives for the media to latch onto.
So, it's not that Matt Lewis actually objects to the construction of media narratives in general---rather, it's that Matt objects to media narratives which don't champion his beloved candidate, John McCain.
Notice how Matt never complains about media narratives which hurt Rudy, Mitt, John Edwards, or Hillary.
Matt is the guy who recently wrote that he "loves Chris Matthews."
If there's anybody on Planet Earth who does NOTHING BUT discuss the prevailing media narratives, it's Matt's hero, Chris Matthews.
You can't watch his show for five minutes without Matthews saying something along the lines of, "Isn't the current media narrative that..."
And if there's anyone at Townhall who leaves out information from a narrative which might be contradictory to the point of view he is pushing, it's Matt Lewis.
Whenever there's a poll showing McCain performing well, Matt takes the polling results at face value, no questions asked.
However, whenever there's a poll which shows McCain performing less than stellar, Matt's knee-jerk reaction is to poo-poo those polls as he did recently the Iowa polls showing Romney at the front of the field---which have turned out to be so accurate (!) that McCain has since dropped out of the Iowa straw poll.
Several weeks ago, when Fred announced he might throw his hat in the ring, Matt wrote that Fred's tough guy image might not be viable in these "Leo DiCaprio times."
Soon after that, Matt flip-flopped on the issue of tough guys, after McCain said the "I'll follow Bin Laden to the Gates of Hell" line during the first GOP debate.
In applause, Matt said something like "maybe these tough times call for tough guys"--- completely changing his tune about Fred & "Leo DiCaprio times."
And also recently, a blogger (Streiff) from Red State blog came here to the Townhall boards to basically call Matt Lewis a liar for the way that Matt misrepresented what that Red State blogger had written at Red State.
In fact, the blogger basically pointed out that Matt distorted his words to fit into Matt's narrative.
So when Matt complains about narratives which withhold inconvenient facts, pardon me for laughing.
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i don't understand how anybody still supports this guy, but he seems to have a base of support that will stick to him until his death, which is probably closer than any of the other candidates.
he is tempermental, old, and just old. He is not exciting. I don't get why people like him. Although I guess it doesn't hurt to be the media darling. I like this article becuase it points out how ridiculous the media is, absolutely ridiculous, worthless! It is sad that it is so far off what most people think it is there to do, report the facts.
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...that you should complain about this. Since you are biased in favor of McCain, you emphasize the positive about him and de-emphasize the negative. You do the opposite with Romney. How are you any different?
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He's toast...but it is NOT because of the media. He's toast because he is in bed with Teddy Kennedy to screw America. |
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I think you mean Down went from McCain to Thompson, not Romney. |
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Now, let's talk for a while about the media agenda against Romney.
Buck up. It's a tough world out there, Mat. |
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unless....he puts forth an Enforcement ONLY/ Build the Whole Double Fence/Secure the Borders Now Bill!
then he might have a slim chance. |
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If the immigration bill does not come back, media attention will shift to Thompson as the new front runner. That is both good and bad for Thompson. However, it will give McCain some room to recuperate and regroup. His campaign is not dead and neither is Romney's.
Most polls show (if you analyze them well) that about 1/2 of the Rep voters will shift easily to whoever might win. There will be a lot of shifts between now and Jan. Thompson is hot right now but he will need a lot more than a good week or two of media. He is mostly positive image right now just like McCain was in 2006 and Rudy was in March.
It will be an interesting race.
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