With the presidential debates now behind us, the struggle for the White House will tilt even more towarddecentralized media battles for electoral votes. Between now and Election Day, vast resources will go towardspinning local news coverage in swing states while launching carefully targeted commercials on radio andtelevision.
For the Bush campaign and its allies, the media endgame will include these components:
Smearing John Kerry
For months already, paid advertisements and interviews with pro-Bush operatives have portrayed Kerry as abetrayer of American troops in Vietnam. President Bush gained a temporary lead in the polls thanks largely todeceptive commercials aimed at discrediting Kerry’s bravery under fire. Next came a fierce propagandaassault on the most laudable actions of Kerry’s life -- his antiwar efforts as a Vietnam veteran.
In 1971, Kerry gained national prominence as an eloquent leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War becausehe expressed the thoughts and feelings of so many veterans. Today, the media attacks on his activism areefforts to sway voters by rewriting history, as though the Vietnam War amounted to some kind of nobleundertaking instead of the illegal and immoral crime against humanity that it was.
The TV chain that owns more stations than any other firm in the country, the Republican-allied SinclairBroadcast Group, has ordered its stations to preempt usual programming to air a 42-minute film, "StolenHonor: Wounds That Never Heal," in late October. The movie is devoted to bashing Kerry for his antiwaractivism. Conveniently, more than a dozen of Sinclair’s stations are in pivotal swing states -- Florida,Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Especially in battleground states, such defamation of Kerry is likely tointensify until the last votes are cast on Nov. 2.
Exploiting anti-gay prejudices
It has become a media truism that ballot measures against gay marriage in some states will boost theturnout of Bush voters. The Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign has winked and nodded at virulent anti-gay bigotry onthe ground.
It’s part of a dual-track strategy: While the Republican ticket avoids overt anti-gay comments, and DickCheney uses high-profile media venues to express personal support for his lesbian daughter, the GOP campaignis avidly working to gain votes by capitalizing on anti-gay prejudice.
Inverting realities of class warfare
All four men on the major-party tickets are rich. But the positions taken -- and constituencies represented-- by Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards aren’t the same. Typically, Bush has denounced the Democrats’ call toraise taxes for Americans earning more than $200,000 a year.
To obscure their own ultra-elite loyalties, Bush and Cheney will keep trying to portray Kerry and Edwardsas tools of wealthy trial lawyers and Hollywood snobs. In reality, however, as reflected by the delegates tothe Republican and Democratic national conventions, the base of the GOP is far more wealthy, corporate andnon-union.
Making use of Ralph Nader’s 2004 campaign
In a little-noticed GOP maneuver during the last days of the 2000 campaign, Republican forces poured moneyinto commercials boosting Nader in some battleground states. This time, we can expect pro-Bush forces to dothe same -- but on a much larger scale.
"In a pre-election twist," the Associated Press reported on Oct. 27, 2000, "Republicans are buying TVads featuring Ralph Nader in states where votes for the Green Party candidate might tip the outcome to GeorgeW. Bush. ... Republicans hope the commercials will help Bush by persuading would-be Gore voters to back Naderinstead. " A Republican group targeted three closely contested states in 2000 -- Oregon, Washington andWisconsin -- with ads that featured film clips of Nader attacking Al Gore, the Democratic presidentialnominee. AP reported that the Republican Leadership Council earmarked at least $100,000 for those commercials,airing just days before the election.
The official Bush campaign of 2000 was glad to leave such Nader advertising endeavors to unofficialRepublican allies. The Associated Press reported four years ago (on Nov. 4) that the Republican LeadershipCouncil "ran ads last week to help GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush. The ads were designed to induceDemocrats to defect to Green Party candidate Ralph Nader." The executive director of the RepublicanLeadership Council, Mark Miller, said: "I don’t think he [Bush] could have gotten away with it the way wedid."
This year, Nader wasn’t able to get an endorsement from the Green Party. But he’ll be on the ballot inmost states -- including most swing states. And it would be surprising if Republicans don’t flood theairwaves in many of those states with commercials featuring Nader in the final days of this election campaign.
Norman Solomon is co-author, with Reese Erlich,of Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You. Courtesy, Znet
