Billy's blue
With his head hangin' to
His shoes
Right the wrong
Or play a song
To ease Billy's blues
Billy's down
He was born he was bound
To lose
Right the wrong
Or play a song
To ease Billy's blues
-- "Billy's Blues" written by Laura Nyro off her CD The First Songs
Well wouldn't you be blue too?
What the hell do you have to do?
You were the president. You were asked to avoid the spotlight in 2000, you did. In 2004, you were asked to campaign and, excuse me, did you not end in the hospital?
So with all you've given, with all you've done, if you're supporting a candidate for president, shouldn't they listen to you? Didn't everyone call you the big dog? Aren't you the only Democrat elected to more than one presidential term since FDR?
The way the candidate you're supporting is being treated is enough to make a man drown his sorrows in Big Macs!
Here's the realities.
Hillary Clinton is neither wounded as a candidate or out of the race.
She's not even 'trailing.'
Barack Obama is unproven and untested. Some see him as the 'dream' candidate when the reality is that he's the press hyped fancy who, odds are, will be brought down to earth shortly while the uninitiated scratch their heads.
The reality is, and you'd think the mini-gas bags would grasp that (real gas bags do, but they know the play the game), the press created candidates are morning glorys, they're stars who burn out fast. John McCain in 2000, Howard Dean in 2004, Paul Tsongas in 1992 (check the press in real time, ye who scoff).
What goes on? You've got a lazy press that's rewarded for being lazy. It's much easier to write about who is "up" and who is "down" than to explore the realities of what the candidates are standing for. It also pleases the bosses when you announce the horse race because, as demonstrated throughout the health care debate in the early 90s, they really aren't for informing the people. So you run with the horse race and, to make good copy, you can't write, "John Kerry in the lead" over and over. You've got months and months to cover -- or at least distract -- and you need to turn it into a real race.
The worst thing any presidential candidate in the primary can be is the press supported front runner. They crash and burn. They're built up by the press which quickly pulls the rug out from under them. (See the so-called "scream" of Howard Dean.)
The "flavor" these days is Obama. As with Bill Bradley (another "flavor") in 2000, the press will wonder why-oh-why Obama couldn't go the distance?
If Obama's campaign's killed, what will kill it? Count on Cokie Roberts to tell you he didn't have a long enough voting record. That's the same Cokester who declared, in the last cycle, that senators didn't make good presidential candidates because they had voting records. But you don't last in the gas bag circles as long as Cokie without grasping that facts are unnecessary.
More than likely, what will kill Obama's campaign will be articles exploring earlier campaigns which aren't as soft and fuzzy as the press wants you to believe currently. The 2004 campaign resulted in the kind of actions that are usually greeted with universal condemnation. (As a general rule, attacks that involve family are considered 'off sides.') As that gets teamed up with other campaigns that most people know nothing about (A.E.B. the fact that some point to the fact that he defeated a 'huge slate' to win the 2004 race -- he didn't defeat anyone of importance and you truly have to be stupid to not grasp that), as his professional history begins to backdate beyond his national coming out party (the DNC convention 2004), little bits and pieces of unsavory campaigns began to come together and form a picture of a candidate whose campaigns play dirty.
Some of the shine gets taken off and what you're left with is a motivational speaker who wears a suit well but hasn't even held national office for a full term.
While words like "rock star" get deployed by the politically naive, watch for John Edwards or Hillary Clinton to be the long distance runner. The morning glory always fades once the primaries start.
What of Dennis Kucinich (whom many people working on this have endorsed)? Kucinich's campaign has to be built around "outsider" to get any kind of traction. He has to be out there doing radio, any radio, that will invite him on. It doesn't matter if the hosts make jokes. In fact, that probably helps. By staying firm and straight forward, he can tap into the outsider energy. It's very real and why, time and again, the ultimate insiders run campaigns claiming they are "outsiders." Some current press likes to slam Kunicinch (vegetarian, make fun of policies). If he rides that, if he embraces it, if he plays the oddball, but the straight forward oddball, he can tap into the same thing Perot did in 1992 (which didn't result in the presidency though, had Perot not dropped out of the race and then returned, who knows what would have happened). It's the sort of thing Bully Boy worked in 2000. "He makes no sense!" came the cry of many. "No, but he's genuine!" shouted the reply.
The popular narrative on Jimmy Carter is "peanut farmer becomes president." The realitiy is he was no outsider but he, like so many others, ran as such. The "little guy" who stands up can be embraced by the people -- no matter how stupid they come off (Bully Boy), no matter how emeshed they are as an insider (Perot wasn't turning down government contracts, he was actively courting them). Unlike Christopher Dodd, Kucinich isn't stiff and, of all the candidates declared, he could most realistically court the outsider vote. (The only real drama involving Dodd is will he drop out before Joe Biden.)
He also has a little noted sexual quality that plays well. (Watch the Democracy Now! interview and you'll see it flare up from time to time. Rebecca's been polling on that -- for her own interest, she's not part of the campaign.) A party that's failed to put forward principles for some time needs charisma in a candidate but, memories of the nineties still being fresh, a dollop not a 'rock star.' Jimmy Carter was considered an 'oddball' by some and he won the race, by posing as an outsider when he was no such thing.
Obama's the high flying lamb, the press favorite who gets brought down to earth and slaughtered by the same group that built him up. That's the nature of the beast. Unless John Edwards self-elects to drop out (we don't advocate it and Elaine summed up the community's position on Elizabeth Edwards in this post), expect to see him and Hillary Clinton both still standing strong when the primary season begins and Obama begins to falter.
Your old school gas bags know the way system works. They grasp fully that they need to create/designate a front runner and, for their to be continued drama and attention (to them), they need to tear him (or her) down. Remember when Gary Hart was a sure thing? Oh, you shout back, Donna Rice and Monkey Business brought him down! No, twas the modern day press beast that destroyed his candidacy.
The online, latter day Dylan has wasted years with his "The press hated Al Gore!" screeds. He's closer to the truth when he notes the importance of the press having their "fun" (as Margaret Carlson explained it). Online, latter day continually worries and frets over how editors can put up with that crap? They do so because the owners embrace it. Let the minions have their fun, let them take to the cable chat & chews and make little names for themselves, as long as the campaign's reduced to a horse race and real issues aren't addressed, the owners are happy.
For the press, it truly is about "fun" and too many of the public try to read non-existent tea leaves in an attempt to determine why the 'big names' of the press (they are the servants and only big names to those who embrace the gas bag system -- even if they decry it) offer so many 'howlers.' They do so because that is why they exist. They do so because that's what the press system embraces.
It's why Bill Clinton really doesn't have the blues right now.