Whole Lotta Swelling Goin' On
Paul Krugman gets it. He's one of the few journalists who either sees the proverbial forest for the trees, or is honest enough to let us in on it. In this op-ed piece, he details, and decries, the horribly slanted coverage by the cable news nets of the Democratic convention.
I worry that what I did, watching the convention every night via C-SPAN, is unusual. I worry about this because while I saw stirring, riveting, right-on speeches, the coverage and punditry I read about afterwards depicted another convention altogether. I think it's a shame, for example, that most people are only HEARING about Barack Obama's career-making speech. And I am disgusted that Al Sharpton's rousing (to put it mildly) speech is being so belittled.
But one thing they couldn't do (so far) is marginalize Kerry's home run. I think it's particularly telling that, days later, 20,000 people came to see him in nearby Grand Rapids, while less than a quarter of that showed up to see Bush when he was there just a few days before. Grand Rapids, BTW, is considered one of the most conservative, Republican areas of this mostly blue state.
And during my run last night, I lost count of the Kerry lawn signs I spotted. But I didn't see a single Bush sign (of course, if I DID, I would destroy it quite joyfully). In fact, I also look for car stickers and I have only seen three so far (margin of error: +/- 1 sticker). Of course, I wasn't running through the $200,000+ per-year neighborhoods, but rather was close to campus, passing student and faculty homes. Still, my heart swelled at the sight of each and every Kerry sign. And there was a lot of swelling going on.
Boy, that sounded naughty.
I ordered my own lawn sign last week, but my last experience with demstore.com leads me to believe I'll likely receive my order in mid-November. Last time, I ordered a bunch of Howard Dean stuff in late December, and I received it a month later. And, of course, this was the four week period where he went from presumed nominee to screaming also-ran.
Still, I give them 50-50 odds of getting this stuff to me sometime before the election. I am...optimistic.
I worry that what I did, watching the convention every night via C-SPAN, is unusual. I worry about this because while I saw stirring, riveting, right-on speeches, the coverage and punditry I read about afterwards depicted another convention altogether. I think it's a shame, for example, that most people are only HEARING about Barack Obama's career-making speech. And I am disgusted that Al Sharpton's rousing (to put it mildly) speech is being so belittled.
But one thing they couldn't do (so far) is marginalize Kerry's home run. I think it's particularly telling that, days later, 20,000 people came to see him in nearby Grand Rapids, while less than a quarter of that showed up to see Bush when he was there just a few days before. Grand Rapids, BTW, is considered one of the most conservative, Republican areas of this mostly blue state.
And during my run last night, I lost count of the Kerry lawn signs I spotted. But I didn't see a single Bush sign (of course, if I DID, I would destroy it quite joyfully). In fact, I also look for car stickers and I have only seen three so far (margin of error: +/- 1 sticker). Of course, I wasn't running through the $200,000+ per-year neighborhoods, but rather was close to campus, passing student and faculty homes. Still, my heart swelled at the sight of each and every Kerry sign. And there was a lot of swelling going on.
Boy, that sounded naughty.
I ordered my own lawn sign last week, but my last experience with demstore.com leads me to believe I'll likely receive my order in mid-November. Last time, I ordered a bunch of Howard Dean stuff in late December, and I received it a month later. And, of course, this was the four week period where he went from presumed nominee to screaming also-ran.
Still, I give them 50-50 odds of getting this stuff to me sometime before the election. I am...optimistic.
posted by Price at 7:04 AM
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