What did SBC have to do with the attacks on Dean and Kucinich?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

It seems the debates, which I saw on NYC public television, were sponsored in part by SBC corporation based in San Antonion Texas, a very Republican company and very conservative. Interesting that they would be underwriting the broadcasts of the Democratic party debate.

Kucinich was attacked quite underhandedly by the moderator, with the scripted "Kmart" joke - Kucinich didn't say that Kmart was profitable, but the moderator interrupted Kucinich in the middle of his sentence to pretend that he did, to get a laugh. If I were Kucinich, I would have attacked the moderator right back for his strawman, but then again that might have made it worse. Kucinich was the ONLY candidate that was attacked by a moderator.

Dean not only got underhandedly attacked by Lieberman, but his appearance on TV was staged *very* differently and unflatteringly, at least on the channel I was watching. He seemed to have a different, very busy background in his camera shot, and he was framed to look separate from the other candidates. This was done very subtly, but it was noticeable if you paid attention.

The attacks on Dean and Kucinich were done regarding the CORPORATE issues - Kucinich was attacked as he spoke about free trade, and Dean was attacked for the same thing. It seems to me the debates were well set up to catch those two candidates on an issue the DLC and the corporate Democrats DON'T want to have to argue about.

Now why is SBC, a Texas, Republican, pro-Bush corporation, underwriting our debates?

[cprise]

1. Very interesting

I didn't catch the debate.

But isn't this in the wrong forum? If you post messages that require a lot of thought or research in GD, it will get buried in no time by all the noise.

We have a seperate forum for this precise topic.

[sfecap]

2. Kucinich made a slip up...

Kmart is bankrupt, and in the context of his answer, he would have looked a bit foolish. Ray Suarez, actually seemed to want to inject some humor to get him past it...it came across nicely, IMO. Ray did him a favor...he could have just let it hang there.

BTW, I thought the mods did a superb job.

The backdrop for Gov. Dean was just where his podium happened to be. No big deal. He was first podium, stage right. Just coincidence, that's all.

Interestingly enough, what you didn't see were 4 large "windows" cut into the backdrop that they placed cameras in (behind the set)looking out. There were two on either side of Kerry, and one each on the sides of the set Their purpose was to get shots of the mods, and the audience. The way they shot Kerry, Kucinich, CMB and Gep, with such a tight shots, you never saw the openings, pretty neat. I really like the "behind the scenes" trivia stuff...)

SBC underwrote the debates? Or did SBC simply underwrite that portion of PBS programming? The debates were sponsored by the Hispanic Congressional caucus and the DNC.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

4. No, he did NOT

Kucinich did NOT say that Kmart was profitable. The moderator's joke was intended to make it seem that Kucinich did, but he didn't. Kucinich did NOT claim that Kmart was profitable, nor did he imply they were.

It was the moderator who brought up Walmart and Kmart, then interrupted Kucinich in the middle of a sentence, to make a joke and pretend that Kucinich claimed Kmart was profitable, which he did not.

I'm interested to see how this is spun. I know what I saw.

"Ray did him a favor...he could have just let it hang there."

Total crap. Ray made a joke that had nothing to do with Kucinich's answer, other than that he used the word "profit" in the same sentence that he did "Kmart" - it was Ray that brought up Kmart - a total and utter smear.

[TLM]

9. The mod brought up walmart...

Kucinich injected K-mart as well.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

14. No, you are wrong, the moderator brought up Kmart

Here's the transcript:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/transcripts/090403demsdebate.html

SUAREZ: Congressman Kucinich, if we follow the advice and the assurances that you just gave and start to pull out of some of these treaties, if we start to demand these standards abroad in the places that America acquires the things it sells in its stores, won't the price of everything that you see when you walk into a Wal-Mart go up, everything that you see when you go into a Kmart or, indeed, even to the supermarket?

KUCINICH: Well, the real question, Ray, is what kind of profits do the Kmarts and the Wal-Marts of the world make?

SUAREZ: Well, Kmart, not too much.

(LAUGHTER)

KUCINICH: But on the misery of those people in Third World countries who are working for pennies an hour and are finding themselves unable to support their own families.

I mean, all this talk about trade here belies something that really needs to be looked at and that is NAFTA makes it impossible to be able to protect workers' rights. Now, those people say they're going to put conditions on NAFTA. If you put conditions on NAFTA, that's WTO illegal.

So what we need to do--the only way that we can go back to trade which will work for the American people and for people all over North America is to make sure that we have workers' rights, human rights and environmental quality principles in trade. And by workers' right I mean this: the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike.

(APPLAUSE)

The right to join a union, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a safe workplace, the right to a secure retirement. Those have to be written specifically into our trade agreements and they were not. We had intellectual property written into the trade agreements. And we need specifically written into the trade agreements prohibitions on child labor, slave labor, prison labor.

But you know what? Unless we cancel NAFTA and withdraw from the WTO, we aren't going to get there. So all of this is just talk. I'm the one, first day in office, cancel NAFTA, cancel the WTO, return to bilateral trade with all those conditions we've just spoken about.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

[dpbrown]

10. KMart is not bankrupt

January 22, 2002 - filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Under
bankruptcy protection, the company cut more than 60,000 jobs.

May 6, 2003 - emerged from bankruptcy protection - share price at $15.25.

At close of trade on Sept 4, share price was $29.37.

The stock price of KMart has nearly doubled in the past six months.

Dan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota

[JohnKleeb]

13. Thats right I remember now

[Touchdown]

3. How is SBC a "Republican" corporation? How are they Pro-Bush?

"After checking public records on political contributions,
the students drew up a list of 12 companies, placing six
that contributed to Democratic candidate Al Gore's
campaign in one fund and six that contributed to Bush's
campaign in another. Their Republican fund included
Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cintas, Enron, Philip Morris, Pfizer
and UST. Their Democratic fund included Goldman
Sachs Group, Loral Space & Communications, Leucadia
National, SBC Communications, Unilever and Seagram."

http://fisher.osu.edu/news/2000/001109-presmarket.htm

The guest list of 138 people was made up mostly of lawmakers, administration figures and Chilean dignitaries. Also invited
was Edward Whitacre, chairman of SBC Communications, the regional Bell telephone company that gave more than $196,000
to the Democratic Party over the past two years. SBC also holds a 40 percent stake in a Chilean telephone and cable
television company.

http://www.ardmoreite.com/stories/022797/news/news03.html

GWB* campaign contribution...
SBC Communications ..................... $299,365

SBC Communications gave the largest single soft money contribution to either political party during the first quarter of 2000, a $350,000 donation on February 29, 2000 to the DNC.

http://www.commoncause.org/campaign2000/050100.htm

Most big corporation hedge their bets by contributing to both parties, this is nothing new, so is there something I am missing here?:shrug:

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

5. Probably because SBC bought PacBell recently

PacBell, really Pacific Telesis, was a very Democratic company, but was bought by SBC around '98. I used to work for PacTel when they were bought by SBC, and met a number of upper level corporate management at SBC. Trust me, they were quite conservative and quite Republican.

Part of the confusion is probably that SBC is set up similarly to how PacBell was - the major company, the "baby bell" with a corporate owner. The "baby bell" itself is usually unionized and would tend to lean Democratic, while the holding company, that siphons off profits from the subsidiaries, are very Republican.

[Touchdown]

18. Wait a minute now.

I thought what you said was a little over the top, so I did a little search for a few actual facts, and all you can say is "Trust Me"???

I work for your former parent, Ma Bell, and although the death star gives to republicans a helluva lot more contributions than SBC, I could hardly call anyone outside of upper management strictly republican...now that we got rid of the cable arm it's gotten a bit less conservative around here.

C'mon!

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

20. you're right, they give a similar amount to both parties

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?Order=A&txtName=sbc&txtState=&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=&txt2004=&txt2002=Y&txt2000=&txt1998=&txt1996=&txt1994=&txt1992=&txt1990=&txtSoft=N

I went to open secrets.org, and from a cursory look they have given a roughly equal amount to BOTH parties. Perhaps I'm too quick to associate corporate money with the Republicans.

My opinion of them is certainly influenced by meeting the San Antonio management people, I'm sure most of the unionized workers in the company are Democratic at least, and most workers outside of Texas I would think. So if a company has mostly Republican management, and most Democratic employees, is it a Republican or Democratic company? :)

You were right, thanks for calling me on it.

[Evanstondem]

23. SBC

Thanks for this information. I had not realized that SBC has been a significant contributor to the Dems.

[damnraddem]

6. "he was framed to look separate from the other candidates"

Yes, I thought he stood out. He got in his licks.

Lieberman looked bad in his attack on Dean; and looked bad speaking over the moderator's attempts to interrupt him.

I thought that Kucinich gave a poised, dignified response to the moderator's joke.

Where some of the Dem's sometimes looked silly was in their strained attempts to speak Spanish -- but the other side of that coin is that at least they tried. People can forgive you for looking silly if you are trying to speak their language. I liked it that the questioner asked questions in Spanish first and then English -- I even got to practice my Spanish (my wife and kid asking 'what's she saying?'; and I could sometimes answer before she switched to English). Inclusivity by language is going to become more and more expected from such events. I can hardly wait to 2008 when candidates are trying to say a few words of Vietnamese. ;-)

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

7. Dean looked horrible on my TV

I thought Dean did fine, but the image of Dean on my TV - NYC public channel 13 - looked very poor compared to the others. Even Kucinich got a better angle than Dean did. It was Lieberman's attack on Dean's NAFTA stand that really stood out though as an example of a low blow meant to cloud the issue.

I agree about the Spanish, for the most part. It did seem rather forced for most of them.

[JohnKleeb]

8. I didnt expect Dennis to have a grasp of Spanish

but maybe he can give addresses in Croatian as President, I think he may know it, his grandfather or maybe even father was an immigrant so he may have grown up speaking it. My grandfather did the same with Slovene. BTW it would be cool if those two talked, DK and my grandfather my grandfather isnt as liberal as DK but on trade and workers and the current war they would agree totally. Hes a dem well honestly I think hes more liberal than he thinks he is same with his wife.

[librechik]

11. SBC underwrites The NewsHour

which hosted and moderated the event. They specifically want their grant to assist in covering the elections coming up. No restrictions on editorial content, AFIK.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

12. of course, corporations *never* restrict editorial content

They always say that. FOX says it's fair and balanced too. Jack Welsh said there was no need for their networks to attack their parent corporation. Move along, nothing to see here.

Who hired and paid the moderators? Anyone know?

[librechik]

15. They are on regular salary at the NewsHour

and have been for years (except for the Latino woman--I don't know who hired her, presumably senior management at The NewsHour.) The debate was just a routine part part of the expanded election coverage that the show starts scheduling into about a year before the national elections.

Did you notice any bias or favoritism on the part of the moderators? I mean aside from the heightened Latino flavor? I'd like to hear actual examples, if you remember anything...

[revcarol]

16. Ray Suarez was definitely not fair to Kucinich.

The debate was sponsored jointly by PBS and Unavision, a Spanish language network, so she was from Unavision.

At the Kucinich rally before the event, DK stopped by and spoke Spanish extemporaneously to thank everyone for coming to the rally. His accent is yukky but understanable and he DOES make the effort. About 50% of our rally signs were in Spanish.

[JohnKleeb]

21. cool you had spanish rally signs

I didnt even know he spoke Spanish. I am not suprised his accent wasnt good but you know he tries. I bet he knows more Croatian than all of the candiates try to beat that lol.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

22. Kucinich is okay at Spanish

I think Dean is the only one that can really pull it off. Of course, most Spanish speaking people would vote for Kucinich if it was about the issues.

[shance]

17. Interesting and I think it makes sense

Thanks for the insight.

In looking back, there was a subtle yet now, evident isolation of Dean. It felt as though they had put him away from everyone else. He seemed isolated. I wish I had taped it so I could go back and watch it again. I could be wrong, but it also seemed that they did not grant him as much time. The corporate influence on our politicians AND our elections is becoming outrageous and its a type of corruption that is going head to head with Democracy. And you really have to look for it, because it is subtle but pervasive as heck.

And the whole Lieberman thing was so gerryrigged. I thought Dean handled it very well.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

19. My opinion of Dean has increased because of this

I wrote Dean off as soon as I heard about his pro-NAFTA pimping while he was governor, and even more so when I found out he was the product of an elite wealthy family, who were I'm sure well protected from the economic effects of NAFTA, and probably stood to gain from it.

But after watching him get attacked by the ultimate pro-corporate Democrat, Lieberman, over his proposed "fair trade" policies, what looked to me to be standard political spin from Dean now seems to actually be threatening to the corporate wing of the Democratic party. Good on Dean.

Lieberman's attack was scripted of course, just like Ray Suarez's attack on Kucinich, and they both had to take heat for their corporate trade platform. I don't believe for one second that the visuals of Dean were just a coincidence either, these people are professionals and they look at every angle, and know what looks good on tv.

Dean didn't back down, made his point clearly, and I'll bet anyone familiar with the issue would say Dean won the exchange. It's still a long way until the election, if Dean continues like this my opinion of him will get better, and I'll bet a lot of other people's will as well.

It's very significant that these attacks were done over trade issues.