It's not the media. Ideas and plans mean nothing.

[gulliver]

The debate is all that matters. You have to win the debate for your ideas and plans to be considered. Even if the media put Dem leaders on 24x7 to discuss their plans, viewers would just change the channel or put in a DVD. A poor workman blames their tools, and a poor politician blames the media. It's not the media. It's us.

That's actually good news, because, theoretically, we are in control of ourselves. We don't control the media.

Right now, the Republicans are being extremely successful selling dog crap as chocolate mousse. Anyone who complains is told they don't know good mousse when they taste it. The GOP media presence is fronted by extremely good salespeople working an organized campaign. The Dem media presence is a trail mix of brilliant salespeople, greedy free agents, and "it's my turn to lead" maladroits.

We'll know when the Dems get it, because we will feel like cheering. There have been a few more of those moments this sales season, but not nearly enough. Those moments will get media attention, tons of it. The media is absolutely dying for white knights from the Dems, IMO.

On edit: Took "Sorry" off of the subject line. It seemed impolite.

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Kerry wasted Shrub in their debates, to what avail? Kkkarl not Karma!

Smoke and glass and Monica's ass ,how much in depth reporting have we had about the known Election Fraud problem?

[gulliver]

4. Kerry won a couple of debate battles. He lost the debate war.

Would that we had smoke, glass, and Monica's ass fighting for our side. Election fraud is a highly saleable product, but we don't have any salespeople on it. So not enough people are buying it and the stores (the media) are not giving it shelf space.

[rusty charly]

2. "dog crap as chocolate mousse"

that's a keeper!

:applause:

[AndyTiedye]

3. If Winning Debates Still Won Elections, Kerry Would be President

Kerry mopped the floor with Bush** during all three debates in 2004.
Much good it did us after they got through stealing votes.

[gulliver]

5. Kerry dismantled Bush in the first two.

But he arguably dismantled himself in the last one. It's a classic example of a blown sale. People were thinking about voting for Kerry by the third debate and looking for a reason not to. He gave them one with the Mary Cheney blunder. That was a deal breaker for a lot of people. The GOP sold it as proof of Kerry's "being a bad man," and people bought it.

This supports the point I am trying to make about the futility of trying to appeal to voters with rationality alone. Kerry scored dozens of rational points against Bush. But the GOP sales force was able to trump them all by "ghosting" and raising FUD about Kerry, both before and after the debates.

[PBass]

6. The name of the game is NEW VOTER REGISTRATION

Last week on Sam Seder's show on AAR, he said James Dobson planned on registering 3 MILLION new Republican voters before the November election, through churches and church related outreach.

Then Sam Seder said something to the effect that "The Left just doesn't have anybody who can do this for the Democratic Party"

EXCUSE ME????

Isn't this Howard Dean's responsibility? Rahm Emmanuel's responsibility? Isn't this the responsibility of everyone on the Left, for that matter? Democrats should be registering voters locally, in every state in the nation. This is what winning will require.

I think Democrats tend to overanalyze things, and we love facts and figures and statistics. We KNOW the facts are on our side, so we expect everybody else to recognize the facts, and then vote accordingly, thus insuring victory. Perfect examples of this 'statistical overload' approach were seen in the Gore/Bush debates, and the Kerry/Bush debates.

Meanwhile, Republicans are out registering millions of voters.

If I can use a bad football analogy, it's like the Democrats are sitting around analyzing game footage and statistics, while Republicans are on the field practicing their blocking and tackling... the thing that actually WINS GAMES.

Democrats can have all the facts on their side, and be right about everything. We can have better candidates and better campaign platforms and better plans. But if the other "team" scores more "points", then all that is totally meaningless.

It's all about VOTER REGISTRATION.

[Doctor_J]

7. It's not the media?

That phrase renders the rest of your "thoughts" nonsense. Fair media = GOP goes away. Period.

[PBass]

8. The media is a wash...

Yes they suck, as far as not holding Bush accountable. But if you ask a conservative, he'll tell you the media is "too Liberal"

We can sit around and complain about the media, and that is certainly entertaining on a Saturday afternoon. But i don't know if it helps accomplish a victory in November.

[Doctor_J]

9. The horseshit is really piling up here tonight

The media is completely, unabashedly in favor of every GOP idea, candidate, and lie, and against everything Democratic. every honest survey and study proves this without a shadow of a doubt.

[PBass]

11. You refer to "the Media" as if it was all "one thing". It's not.

You also didn't respond to the fact that conservatives typically think the media is 'too Liberal'.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "the media" covers a broad spectrum of ideas, and averages out somewhere in the middle. I wish it was more fair and more reality based, but it isn't.

Now lets move forward from there.

(edited for typo)

[orpupilofnature57]

12. MSM, put Shrub in office .

[Doctor_J]

13. Yes, indeed, let's move forward

Last week, ABC ran a movie filled with lies, that was made by, bankrolled by, and written by, right-wing loonies, to blame 9/11 on Clinton. NBC's "news" deparment is represented on TV by Brian Willaims (and admitted Bush-lover), Chris Matthews (who twice voted for Bush and foams at the mouth whenver the pic of Smirk in his flight suit appears), TIm Russert (who sports a Bush campaign button when not on camera), and Norah O'Donnell :puke:. CBS just hired Katie WHoric, whose "free speech" segment features one winger after another spouting Rove press releases unopposed. Fox is...Fox.

All the mass media is owned by 7 ultra-ultra-conservative conservative corporations, who cancel movies about Ronald Reagan because 6 losers in Alabama complain, or cancel their highest-rated show (MSRNC) because they don't want to air any anti-war programminging. Yes, cons complain that the media is liberal, because every once in awhile a show about gays comes on.

Ann Coulter has on numerous occasions called for Dems and liberals to be killed. She is still on TV regularly. Please name someone who says conservatives should be killed who is working in the media.

[gulliver]

10. It's really not the media in general.

I'll agree there are a lot of specific examples of media incompetence that hurt Dems. And there is bias and propaganda. Of course. Nothing is perfect.

We misunderstand the media. They are in the eyeball acquisition business, not the information purification and dispersal business.